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Karl Kautsky and the Socialist Revolution 1880 - 1938 (Verso Modern Classics)

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A definitive intellectual biography of the theoretician of German social-democracy from the Efurt Congress, (1891) to his death during the rise of the Nazis (1938). Salvadori traces the rise of Kautsky as a leader of the othodox current in the orthodoxy versus revisionist debate in social-democracy, his wide influence on other social-democrats (including Lenin), the debate over the nature of capitalism, the role of the peasantry and the role of social-democrats in government. The war in Europe is of particular interest, since ironically many of Kautsky's followers in orthodox current gave critical support to the war effort (by voting for war credits), while some revisionists (Bernstein) and radicals (Lenin, Liebknecht and Luxemberg) opposed the war from the start. Salvadori reveals the reasoning behind the paradoxical support Kautsky gave to a pro-war position; before the war social-democrats pledged themselves again any war. His polemic against the Bolsheviks is extensively covered in this monograph. Though Salvadori reveals many details of Kautsky's anti-Bolshevism; many of his ideas of the nature of the Soviet Union were incorporated into the social-democratic theory in the Cold War. For those unfamiliar with the source of the theory of "Cold War" social-democracy it is laid very neatly here in this book. Finally, Kautsky views of fascism were unknown to this reader. Salvadori, examines them also here in this monograph. Though nothing about Kautsky's analysis of fascism is unexpected, other social-democrats such as Otto Bauer and the theorists of the Frankfurt School are better known for their analysis of the nature and rise of fascism.