Karl Kautsky and the centrism

Karl Kautsky (1854-1938) was a german philosopher, active member of labor movement, journalist, eminent representative of democratic socialism and orthodox marxist, what’s a trend of the centrism in german social democracy.

ACTIVITY IN THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF GERMANY (SPD)

He was graduated from University of Vienna. He studied history, political economy and philosophy. At the same time he became a member of Social Democratic Party. In 1881 he went abroad to London, where he met Karl Marks and Friedrich Engels.

In 1883 he created “Die Neue Zeit”- german socialist theoretical journal of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, which was the most important organ in Marxist Europe of that time.

Agenda of the SPD was elaborated in 1891 by Kautsky and Berstein. Obviously it based on Marxist rules. Kautsky, as one of the most active member of party, was participating in every congress connected with membership in the SPD. In 1925 he developed a new program of the party.

OUTLOOK OF KAUTSKY

In his outlook we can spot a lot of elements of Social Darwinism. He was influenced by Darwinism, and found the materialist theory of history irresistible, believing it to be an extension into the socio-political realm of the same persuasive thought that had motivated the theory of revolution. Kautsky thought that universal and invariable rules run the world and influence on development of humanity. Moreover he was convinced that after the capitalistic system should be socialistic system. In addition socialism is realized as sensible activity of labor class. What about capitalism, the principal contradiction of it, for Kautsky, was that between the ability of capitalism to produce ever increasing wealth, and its inability to distribute it. The grievance of the work force arose, he argued, not from absolute poverty, but from “relative deprivation”, a concept which has since proved useful in making socialist policies believable even in the absence of poverty.

Polemics with the Bolsheviks

Taking over authority by Bolsheviks was groundbreaking point for history of labor movement. That event had gradually gained influence in habitat of western intellectuals. One of them was exactly Karl Kautsky. Moreover he was one of the first Marxist critic of the Soviet system and Bolshevik activity. The most complete Kautsky's criticism of Bolshevism was contained in his personal publication- "Bolszewizm w ślepym zaułku", which was published 13 years after the October Revolution. In his opinion Russia was backward country to implement socialism. In those conditions was no chance for realization that idea. Kautsky was of the view that Bolsheviks behaved like gamblers, because they were aware of risk related to their "undertaking", notwithstanding they decided to actualize it. Further Bolsheviks reacted to every kind of defiance or objection by terror and aggression. From Kautsky's standpoint failed operation was dispossession of owners' industrial factories., beacuse modification of ownership had not influence on mode of management in factories. What is more in his opinion not every nationalization has socialist nature. In process of nationalization Kaustky distinguished two stages:

1) authority of workers in factories- he called this stage Bolshevik anarchism.

According to Kautsky this experiment failed because of underdevelopment of Russia and tsardom's fight with union movement. This period characterized by absence of economic thought.

2) tight discipline in factories- From Kautsky's point of view this period was economically ineffectual. In consequence situation of workers made worse, for example seven-hour shift in place of eight-hour workday, what's generated elongated work time.

Kautsky has taken into consideration inconvenient situation of past representatives of bourgeois class. Then he criticized Bolshevik statement that bourgeoism is hereditary, so he upbraided Bolsheviks for discrimination of children, which have "bourgeois bloodline".

What did Kautsky think about dictatorship of the proletariat?

For Karl Kautsky dictatorship of the proletariat wasn't form of gevernment, but it was "state of affairs", where labor class has dominating possition. Class can reign, but can't govern. In his opinion class could be represented by a lot of parties, not only one, so dictatorship of the labor class wasn't dictatorship of one party.

Russian October Revolution was criticized by Kautsky. In his opionion the main Lenin’s mistake was destruction of the democracy, liquidation parliamentary election, freedom of press etc. Leninism was called “ tatar socialism” by him. In his opinion achievements of the Revolution could remain, when they replaced the dictatorship with the democracy. According to Kautsky socialism and demcracy were needed for proletariat. In other words he thought that was no socialism without democracy. What is more proletariat was class, which made out for democracy.

Furthermore Soviet constitution was dispraised by Kautsky. Especially he criticised suffrage, which was a lot of undemocratic rules, for example openness of voting. Moreover intermediate voting buttress Bolshevik's position in All- Russian Congress.

What is more Kautsky have taken this consideration one step further and compared Bolshevism to Fascism. His default position toward Bolshevism (and indirectly toward Lenin) have come in for a lot of flak, so Kautsky became the archenemy of Bolsheviks. In consequence Lenin accused him of misrepresentation of Mark's and Engel's thought about the state.

The centrism

Centrism is result of attemps to find medial state between Marxist and reformism. It was expanded in 1906-1910 mainly by Karl Kautsky, Otto Bauer and Max Adler. In effect centrism is a corps of moderate german and austrian socialism, which is located between extremely left-wing Marxist and right-wing reformism. In order to protect the singleness of international labor movement, main representatives of centrism oscillated between opportunism and revolutionism.

Karl Kautsky and his connection with the centrism

Undoubtedly the most outstanding personality, which was connected with the centrism, was Kautsky. His own ideas were popularized in journal “Die Neue Zeit”, which was edited by himself.

Firstly he had attacked Berstein’s revisionism as “the Pope of Marxist”, then he was expending own thought called centrism or kautskism.