''The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program)'' () is an 1892 book-length work by Karl Kautsky. It was first published in

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; ; Swabian German, Swabian: ; Alemannic German, Alemannic: ; Italian language, Italian: ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, largest city of the States of Germany, German state of ...

and was the official commentary of the

Social Democratic Party of Germany The Social Democratic Party of Germany ( , SPD ) is a social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the party's leader since the 2019 leadership election together w ...

(SPD) on their brief 1891 Erfurt Program (by Kautsky, party leader August Bebel and

Eduard Bernstein Eduard Bernstein (; 6 January 1850 – 18 December 1932) was a German Marxist theorist and politician. A prominent member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), he has been both condemned and praised as a "Revisionism (Marxism), revisi ...

). It became and is still considered the seminal (and popular) text for

Orthodox Marxism Orthodox Marxism is the body of Marxist thought which emerged after the deaths of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the late 19th century, expressed in its primary form by Karl Kautsky. Kautsky's views of Marxism dominated the European Marxis ...

and the

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.Lenin Rediscovered: What Is to Be Done? in Context, Lars T. Lih, Historical Materialism 9 p.74

History

Eduard Bernstein is acknowledged in the first edition preface as having given advice and critical review. Historian Donald Sassoon wrote it “became one of the most widely read texts of socialist activists throughout Europe” and Kautsky's commentary “was translated into sixteen languages before 1914 and became the accepted popular summa of Marxism” around the world. It was first translated into English by Daniel De Leon in 1894 and an adaption published in The People (Socialist Labor Party newspaper) in New York. In 1894,

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

translated it into Russian. This was during his exile in Geneva.

20th century

In 1904, it was republished in German as . The eighth German edition from 1907 was translated by William Bohn and published in 1910 by Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company in Chicago. In 1911, Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5 (from the 1899 translations by Daniel De Leon) were published in four SLP pamphlets, ''The Working Class'', ''The Capitalist Class'', ''The Class Struggle'' and ''The Socialist Republic'' (the latter from Chapter 4 ''The Commonwealth of the Future''). Dietz Verlag (Berlin) reprinted it in German in 1965. In 1971 another English version was published by W. W. Norton & Company.

21st century

Author Lars T. Lih coined the term ''Erfurtianism'' to describe the political views put forward in Kautsky's book.

Chapters

1892 German original

# Der Untergang des Kleinbetriebes # Das Proletariat
Die Kapitalistenklasse

Der Zukunftsstaat

Der Klassenkampf

1894 English translation

Published separately as pamphlets of the ''Labor library''.
The Proletariat

The capitalist class

The co-operative commonwealth
* The class struggle

1899 English translation

Published separately as pamphlets of the ''People library''. * The working class * The capitalist class * The socialist republic * The class struggle

1910 English translation

#The Passing of Small Production #The Proletariat #The Capitalist Class #The Commonwealth of the Future #The Class Struggle

References

External links

''The Class Struggle'' by Karl Kautsky
Charles H. Kerr 1910 English translation in Marxists Internet Archive
1892 German original
{{Sister project links 1892 in politics Social Democratic Party of Germany 1892 books Karl Kautsky