''The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky'' (most frequently published as ''The Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Renegade Kautsky)'' is a work by

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

written in October and November 1918 defending the

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

against criticisms being made against them by

Karl Kautsky Karl Johann Kautsky (; ; 16 October 1854 – 17 October 1938) was a Czech-Austrian philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theorist. Kautsky was one of the most authoritative promulgators of orthodox Marxism after the death of Friedrich Engels ...

who was then the intellectual leader of the Second International. Spurred by Kautsky's 1918 pamphlet '' The Dictatorship of the Proletariat'', Lenin's pamphlet was part of an ongoing polemic between various

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

leaders and the

social democrat Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote soc ...

Kautsky about the role of democracy and force in the transition to

socialism Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes th ...

History

In ''The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky,'' V. I. Lenin writes that Kautsky, in his 1918 pamphlet '' The Dictatorship of the Proletariat'', distorted

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

's and

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
'' democracy Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose g ...

under

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...

, instead of using the term "bourgeois democracy", a term which has clear class content, Kautsky instead uses the term "presocialist democracy." An important issue taken up by Kautsky in his pamphlet was the dispersal of the

Russian Constituent Assembly The All Russian Constituent Assembly (Всероссийское Учредительное собрание, Vserossiyskoye Uchreditelnoye sobraniye) was a constituent assembly convened in Russia after the October Revolution of 1917. It met fo ...

by the Bolsheviks. Lenin writes that it is the "crux" of the pamphlet and that it is an important question because "the relation between bourgeois democracy and proletarian democracy here confronted the revolution in a ''practical'' form." Lenin goes on to assert that Kautsky in his pamphlet resorts to lying and falsification of facts in order to try to argue his point. Lenin continues that important, fundamental issues, especially for someone claiming to be a

Marxist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...

, received no attention from Kautsky and that he "evaded" them. One issue was whether "the bourgeois-democratic parliamentary republic is ''inferior'' to the republic of the Paris Commune or Soviet type". Essentially, whether or not socialism is a higher form of democracy than bourgeois democracy.

References

External links

* Karl Kautsky
''The Dictatorship of the Proletariat''
(1918). H.J. Stenning, trans. London: National Labour Press, n.d. . 1925 *
The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky
' by

at the

Marxists Internet Archive Marxists Internet Archive (also known as MIA or Marxists.org) is a non-profit online encyclopedia that hosts a multilingual library (created in 1990) of the works of communist, anarchist, and socialist writers, such as Karl Marx, Friedrich En ...

A Soviet study guide to the text
{{Authority control Works by Vladimir Lenin 1918 non-fiction books Historical materialism Karl Kautsky

History

See also

References

See also

External links