the dictatorship of the proletariat (1919)

8/12/2019 The dictatorship of the proletariat (1919)

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THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT


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TheDictatorship

of theProletariat

By

Karl KautskyIntroduction by John H. Kautsky

GREENWOOD PRESS, PUBLISHERSWESTPORT. CONNECTICUT


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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Kautsky, Karl, l51*-193&.The dictatorship of the proletariat.

Translation cf: Die Eiktatur des Proletariats.

Reprint. Originally published: Ann Arbor : Univer-sity of Michigan Press, 1961*. (Ann Arbor paperbacks foithe study of communism j.d Kar:xisir5

1. Communism-Soviet Union. 2. Dictatorship of theproletariat. 5. Democracy. I. Title.HHX313.K36513 19813 320.5*315 61-711*5ISBN 0-313-23009-9 (lib. bdg.) AACB2

Introduction copyright by The University of Michigan

1964. First published by The National Labour Press Ltd.,1919

All rights reserved

Translated by H. J. StenningThis edition published in 1964 by The University of MichiganPress.

Reprinted with the permission of George Allen and Unwin, Ltd.

Reprinted in 1981 by Greenwood PressA division of Congressional Information Service, nc.88 Post Road West, Westport, Connecticut 06881

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1


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INTRODUCTION

By John H. Kautsky

Karl Kautsky's The Dictatorship of the Proletariatis a well-reasoned and strong plea to socialists o befaithful to democracy both before and after theirexpected advent to governmental power. As a re-sult of a very common process whereby terms de-rived from the experience of Western politics come

to refer to phenomena in quite different societies, towhich their original meaning may be more or lessirrelevant, the word "democracy" has in recent dec-ades lost all meaning. There is now no type of so-ciety or government, no party or movement orideology, including the communist ones, to which

it has not been applied. When Kautsky wrote thepresent pamphlet, however, neither the conserva-tive governing groups in his own Central Europenor the Bolsheviks in Russia had yet laid claims tobeing democrats.

To Kautsky, then, democracy was a much

more clearly denned concept and a much more con-


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vi INTRODUCTION

troversial demand than it is to us. It meant to him,what it still vaguely means to most of us in theWest, a system in which great masses of peopleparticipate in the political process, particularlythrough universal suffrage, and are enabled to do

so through civil liberties such as freedom of speech,press, and organization. Those of us who areattached to this kind of system as most likely toassure a maximum of individual freedom can easilysympathize with Kautsky's values and associateourselves with his side in his conflict with the Bol-

sheviks. However, as a plea for democracy andfreedom, Kautsky's book speaks for itself and thereis little need for me to call attention to its message.Any reader will find much in it of relevance to re-cent and present-day ideological conflicts and willshape his own attitude toward it accordingly.

Rather than engage in ideological conflict here,I propose to indicate briefly the place of Kautsky'spamphlet in the politics of the period and the func-tion it served. I shall also critically examine someaspects of his work as a contribution to empiricalsocial science apart from its value orientation. It

seems both interesting and fair to do so, since, likemost Marxist writings, Kautsky's book containsboth normative discussion and empirical analysis.As is typically true of Marxian works, the two areoften difficult to disentangle, but the empirical andanalytical elements oom large in Kautsky's writ-

ings, or he was one of those Marxists who regarded


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INTRODUCTION vii

himself above all as a social scientist rather than as

a politician and had, n fact, ample ustification fordoing so.1

The social scientific emphasis of this Introduc-tion is chosen on the assumption that most of the

readers of this new edition of Kautsky's book willbe quite different from those who read the original.There are few left who still want to refight theideological battles of the period of the RussianRevolution. And those who fight ideological battlestoday are not likely to turn to Karl Kautsky's argu-

ments for ammunition. To the communists, he re-mains a renegade and-in spite of his role as thechief defender of Marxism against Bernstein's Re-visionism-has even become a Revisionist.2 To

most of those who choose to fight communism onideological grounds, Kautsky will not appeal sim-

ply because he was a Marxist. The heirs of Kaut-sky's political tradition, the present-day socialistand social-democratic parties, have lost their attach-ment to Marxism and their interest in the kind of

"theory" it stood for, as the groups they representhave become integrated into existing social and

political systems.The serious Marxist students of Marxism, as

represented y such thinkers as Kautsky and Ru-dolf Hilferding, Max Adler, and Otto Bauer, haveleft the scene. The brilliant polemics of the firsthalf-century after Marx's death, as carried on byBernstein and Kautsky, Luxemburg, Lenin, and


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viii INTRODUCTION

Trotsky, degenerated into Stalin's heavy-handedattacks on his enemies. They now find only a faintecho in the dull disputations of the theoreticians ofPeking and Moscow. At last the field of Marxismhas been left to the social scientists. There has been

a remarkable growth of excellent scholarly litera-ture on Marxism in recent years. It is both as anobject of social science study and as a contributionto social science that I want to look at Kautsky'spamphlet here.

A dozen years after the publication of TheDictatorship of the Proletariat Kautsky describedthe attitude he had held when writing the pamphletas follows:

If [the Bolsheviks] succeeded n making theirexpectations and promises come true, it wouldbe a tremendous accomplishment for them andfor the Russian people and, indeed, for theentire international proletariat. The teachingsof Marxism, however, could then no longer bemaintained. They would be proved false, but,on the other hand, socialism would gain asplendid triumph, the road to the immediateremoval of all misery and ignorance of themasses would be entered in Russia and pointedout to the rest of the world.

How gladly I would have believed that itwas possible! How gladly I would have beenpersuaded! The most powerful, best-foundedtheory must yield when it is contradicted by


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INTRODUCTION ix

the facts. However, they must be facts, notmere projects and promises.

Though still in doubt, I watched he Bol-sheviks' first steps with benevolent expecta-tion. I considered t impossible that they could

immediately attain socialism, as they thought.Still, they were intelligent and knowledgeablepeople and they had acquired great power.Perhaps they would succeed in discoveringnew ways to raise the working masses fromwhich the nations of the West, too, could learn.

However, my expectant benevolence didnot last long. To my chagrin, I saw ever moreclearly that the Bolsheviks totally misunder-stood their situation, that they thoughtlesslytackled problems for the solution of which allconditions were lacking. In their attempts toaccomplish he impossible by brute force, theychose paths by which the working masses werenot raised economically, ntellectually, or mor-ally, but on the contrary, were depressed evendeeper than they had been by tsarism and theWorld War.

Under these circumstances, I consideredit incumbent on me to warn the Bolsheviks ur-

gently against the road they had taken. I didthis while the war was still in progress, n thesummer of 1918, in my pamphlet "The Dicta-torship of the Proletariat" (Vienna). I feltcalled upon to raise my warning voice all the


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INTRODUCTION

more as, next to the German and Austrian So-cial-Democrats, I stood-and still stand-incloser relations with the Russian ones than

with any others.In the most active contact with the Rus-

sian socialist emigres since 1880, I had thegood fortune to gain as my friends the foun-ders of Russian social-democracy, above allAxelrod, but also Plekhanov, Vera Sassulich,and Leo Deutsch. The members of the youngergeneration of the Russian Social-Democrats

have done me the honor and given me thepleasure of counting me, along with Plekhanovand Axelrod, among their teachers.

Most of them also became my personalfriends, on the one side Martov, Dan, Abram-ovich, etc., as much as on the other side Lenin,

Trotsky, Rakovsky, etc., with whom Parvusand Rosa Luxemburg were at times closelyconnected. In the closest and most active con-

tact with my Russian friends and disciples,which has now lasted for half a century, wehave mutually provided each other with in-tellectual stimulation. It is to this circum-stance, above all, that I owe my insight intoRussian conditions.

Now the moment had come to render

thanks to my Russian friends for what I hadlearned from them and to participate in their

intensive discussions of the road to be taken.


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INTRODUCTION xi

I did so to salve my conscience, not becauseexpected any practical success. ow could asingle German pamphlet n the midst of war,published n Vienna, be effective n Petrogradand Moscow! Most Bolsheviks did not even

hear of its existence. But even if they hadread my pamphlet, it was bound to remain in-effective. They could no longer turn backwithout abandoning themselves. The logic offacts has always been stronger than the logicof ideas.3

The Dictatorship oj the Proletariat was the openinggun in what became the greatest debate betweensocial-democratic and communist interpreters ofMarxism. Lenin replied to it in his famous TheProletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky.Kautsky returned to his attack on the Bolsheviks

in Terrorism and Communism. Trotsky counter-attacked in a pamphlet of the same name to whichKautsky responded in his Von der Demokratie zurStaatssklaverei* To explain Kautsky's leading rolein this debate, I can do no better than to quotefrom Max Shachtman's foreword to the new Uni-

versity of Michigan Press edition of Trotsky's con-tribution to the debate:The choice of main target for the Bolshevikbarrage was not accidental. The leaders of theRussian socialist opposition to the Bolsheviks-the Mensheviks and the Social Revolution-

ists-were very little known to the mass of the


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socialist movement outside of Russia; theirwritings were even less well known. The po-sition of Kautsky was altogether different.

Karl Kautsky had known both Karl Marxand Friedrich Engels in his youth. After theirdeath, he became the principal literary exe-cutor of the two founders of modern socialism.

His writings on a wide variety of subjects wereregarded everywhere as classical statementsof the socialist view. He virtually founded andfor thirty-five years edited the theoretical or-gan of the German Social Democracy, DieNeue Zeit, and it is no exaggeration to saythat no other periodical had so profound aninfluence upon the whole generation of Marx-ists before World War I, not in Germany alonebut throughout the world. In his own party andin the Socialist (the Second) International formost of its quarter of a century before thewar brought about its collapse, he was uniquein the prestige and authority in the sphere ofMarxian theory that he enjoyed among social-ists of all schools. His renown was scarcelydiminished, at least up to the outbreak of thewar, by occasional questioning of his Marxianorthodoxy by the small but more radical wingof socialism or by the fact that the actual poli-tical leadership of his party shifted steadilyaway from him. It is worth noting, too, that


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except for the Poles and of course the Rus-sians, no one in the international socialistmovement showed a greater interest, knowl-edge, and understanding f Russian problemsunder tsarism and of the Russian socialist

movement than Kautsky. The Russian Marx-ists of all tendencies held Kautsky in almostawesome esteem. Up to August 1914, the writ-ings of Lenin in particular are studded with themost respectful and even laudatory referencesto Kautsky, with whose views he sought to as-

sociate himself as much as possible and whoseapproval he, Lenin, adduced whenever he couldas a most authoritative contribution to Rus-sian socialist controversies.

. . . When the Bolsheviks took power inRussia . . . and Kautsky, not unexpectedly,

promptly came forward as their opponent onan international scale, so to say, the breachbetween hem became wide and deep and irre-parable.

From the very beginning of the revolu-tion, the Bolsheviks sought he active support

of socialists utside of Russia, not only as sym-pathizers of the revolution they had alreadycarried out but for the world revolution which

was to be led by the Communist the Third)International which they proposed o estab-lish as quickly as possible. The opposition of a

socialist of Kautsky's standing was therefore


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xiv INTRODUCTION

a matter of exceptional concern. Hence thevehemence, the intensity, and extensiveness,of Lenin's and Trotsky's polemics. . . .5However, it was not only the Bolsheviks who

opposed Kautsky. As he himself wrote:Many of my political friends in Germany andAustria also disapproved of my stand againstBolshevism. They considered il possible thatit would push through its program and de-manded that it not be disturbed and dis-couraged in its efforts. Measures which I re-

garded as utterly wrong and as fatal mistakesappeared to them as mere blemishes, either thetransient consequences f the war or the pricethat must be paid for every new experience-as infantile disorders of early youth.6

Under these circumstances, t took courage in so-cialist circles to attack Lenin when Kautsky did so.Having cut himself off from the German MajoritySocialists during World War I because he refusedto support the imperial government's war effort, henow isolated himself from many in his own Inde-pendent Social-Democratic Party. He was then oneof the relatively few socialists, certainly among theIndependents, who was not carried away by thegeneral enthusiasm or the Bolsheviks, which haslong been forgotten as a result of the sharp anti-communism of most social-democrats in the pastforty years. Even the editor of the English transla-tion of the present work as published n 1919 by


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INTRODUCTION xv

the National Labour Press for the IndependentLabour Party Library found it appropriate to writein his preface that the Bolsheviks had "accom-plished wonderful achievements" nd that "Leninhimself is the first to admit that they have mademistakes." He considered it necessary to say thathe made "no apology" for the publication of TheDictatorship oj the Proletariat, but, far from ap-proving of it, merely pleaded the need for "impar-tiality and tolerance" as his reasons for the publi-cation.

Kautsky's pamphlet was written in early Au-gust 1918, less than a year after the Bolshevikseizure of power in St. Petersburg and Moscow,after the conclusion of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk,but before the end of World War I and before the

revolutions in Germany and Austria. Kautsky ex-pected these revolutions and wanted to preventthem from coming under communist influence. Thiswas, ndeed, one of the main purposes of his book(see particularly the final chapter which is directedagainst "The New Theory" of dictatorship on theSoviet pattern as an inevitable part of proletarianrevolutions everywhere).

Immediately after the outbreak of the GermanRevolution in November 1918, a revised edition ofKautsky's pamphlet appeared in Berlin under thetitle Demokratie oder Diktatur, which omits thesections directly concerned with Russia (Chapters1, 6, 7, 9, and 10) and substitutes new irst chap-


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ter. In it, Kautsky states that the Bolsheviks' callfor dictatorship would not be taken seriously in theWestern democracies, but that it had some appealin Germany which, like Russia, had lived under amilitarist and police autocracy.

Therefore it has become necessary o examineonce again the problem of democracy in rela-tion to the proletariat and to socialism, a prob-lem that had appeared to us as well settled fordecades. For this purpose I published a fewweeks before the [German] Revolution a

pamphlet entitled The Dictatorship oj theProletariat (Vienna: Volksbuchhandlung, J.Brand).

Its major part was concerned with Rus-sian conditions. Everything I said on that sub-ject has unfortunately been confirmed by the

facts.Today we have a revolution ourselves.

Today we confront, not for Russia but forGermany, the question: dictatorship or de-mocracy?7

To understand The Dictatorship oj the Proletariat,

one must not confuse the dictatorship Kautsky at-tacks with modern totalitarianism. In 1918 rivalparties had been outlawed, the suffrage had beenrestricted, and open organized opposition had beensuppressed y the Bolsheviks, but there was as yetnot effective terror or propaganda or regimentation

affecting the bulk of the population. At that time,


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INTRODUCTION xvii

modern totalitarianism, communist or Fascist,which has since shaped our concept of "dictator-ship" was still unknown. Kautsky's image of dicta-torship was hence quite different from ours. To himdictatorship was distinguished from democracychiefly because it lacked universal suffrage andpopular participation in politics, while we havecome to know universal suffrage and mass partici-pation as characteristics of modern totalitarianism.Similarly, Kautsky thought that dictatorship withits reliance on military suppression would lead tocivil war unless there was total political apathy. Hedid not-and could not yet-understand that total-itarian methods can avoid both apathy and civilwar.

In opposition to dictatorship, Kautsky (es-pecially in Chapter 4) makes his case for a strongparliament as the only way to control the bureau-cracy and the military, for universal equal suffrage,and for the protection of minorities and groups op-posing the government. To appreciate Kautsky'semphasis n these, one needs o remember not onlythat his book was directed against Bolsheviks andat their followers and potential followers in CentralEurope, but also that it was written in Berlin whenthe Prussian three-class suffrage and the GermanEmpire with its bureaucracy nd military un-checked by any effective parliament were still in-tact.

Kautsky suggested in Chapters and 7) that


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the Bolsheviks should have followed democratic

procedures. Thus, he felt that they should haveaccepted the constituent assembly elected by uni-versal suffrage; that the Soviets, as representativesof only part of the population, should not serve as

governmental organizations; that the suffrageshould be universal rather than limited to ill-defined categories of citizens, as it was in the earlySoviet Republic; that opposition groups, ncludingproletarian ones, should not be excluded from theSoviets. In retrospect, all this may well appear to

us as irrelevant. At the time, however, these state-ments served some unctions. For one thing, theyexpressed Kautsky's bitterness and disappointmentthat a faction which had grown out of the Marxistmovement-which to Kautsky was, above all, ademocratic movement-should have abandoned the

very goals for which he had by then fought for someforty years. Second, his words were to be a warningto other socialists, who were also attached to demo-cratic values, not to follow Lenin. And, third, theyserved as a sharp polemical weapon to which Leninwas particularly vulnerable, because having used

Marxian, i.e., Western democratic, symbols allalong, he could now be accused of having betrayedhis own past.

In our own time, the communists, whomKautsky here accuses f betraying Marxism, have sosuccessfully assumed ts mantle that Marxism and

communism are widely held to be identical and


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most democratic socialists no longer lay claim tothe Marxian heritage. Kautsky's book now servesas a useful reminder that, until less than half acentury ago, it was generally taken for grantedthat Marxism stood for democracy. Only under

these circumstances could the Marxist Kautsky,addressing himself chiefly to other Marxists, makethe Bolsheviks' abandonment of democracy hisprincipal charge against them.

One of the main bases of Lenin's claim that

the Bolshevik regime was Marxian in character lay

in his reference to the until then rarely used Marx-ian term "the dictatorship of the proletariat." Sincethe Bolshevik claim has since been widely accepted,it is not without interest to note that Kautsky (inChapter 5) could advance some good argumentsfor his interpretation of the dictatorship of the

proletariat not as a form of government, but as acondition which must necessarily arise where theproletariat, being preponderant in numbers, hasconquered power and established democratic gov-ernment.8

While any attempt to establish "what Marx

really meant" may seem o us both futile and, ex-cept from the point of view of the historian of ideas,rather unimportant, it must not be forgotten thatKautsky and Lenin were not engaged n a merescholarly dispute (though Kautsky, at any rate,was sufficiently cholarly n temperament o regard

even this aspect of the conflict as mportant). The


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stakes were not merely historical accuracy but poli-tical power. The authority of Marx was then stilltremendous among the European socialist partiesand particularly their intellectual elites. Whoevercould claim that authority to support his positiongained a political advantage. Until then, Kautskyhad been widely regarded as the most authorita-tive interpreter of Marx's thought. He now soughtto use that position to influence the European, andespecially the German, socialist parties in favor ofdemocracy and to minimize the Bolsheviks' appealamong them.

Lenin, on the other hand, insisted on hisMarxian orthodoxy in the hope of winning over theEuropean socialist parties (and again especiallythe German socialists) to support his revolution.In order to do so he had to destroy Kautsky's pres-tige as a Marxist. It was undoubtedly for this pur-pose, as well as to express his personal bitterness,that he employed an extremely abusive tone in hispolemics with Kautsky.9

In Chapter 3 Kautsky lists the prerequisitesof socialism: an interest on the part of the proleta-

riat in socialism, superior proletarian numericalstrength, and large-scale industry. All these arecreated only by advanced capitalism. Here Kautskylays the groundwork or his orthodox Marxist at-tack on the Bolsheviks: that Russia was not "ripe"for socialist revolution. There is no question that

on this central point Kautsky's interpretation of


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Marx's materialist conception of history was rightand Lenin's was wrong. Social classes and certainlythe ideological superstructure cannot arise beforethe mode of production that gives rise to them; thegravediggers f capitalism cannot bury it before

capitalism has created them.But Kautsky did more than to repeat the ele-mentary Marxian point that the socialist revolutionand socialism can only be the product of, and hencemust be preceded by, advanced capitalism. Farmore than Marx and Engels, he stressed as prere-

quisites of socialism not merely those created by thegrowth of capitalism, but the "maturity" of theworking class, which it acquires in the course of itsconflicts with capitalism. By this he meant chieflythe organizational and intellectual advance of theworkers. It results from the growth of mass labor

organizations and a large-scale daily socialist presswhich are possible only under conditions of democ-racy; secret organizations and a few handbills areno substitute for them. Hence democracy emergesin Kautsky's thought as an essential prerequisiteof one of socialism's essential prerequisites, the ma-

turity of the proletariat: ". .. the more democratica state is, the better organized and trained is itsproletariat. Democracy may sometimes inhibit itsrevolutionary thought, but it is the indispensablemeans or the proletariat to attain that maturitywhich t needs o gain political power and carry

through the social revolution.' mo


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Before we criticize this conception in the lightof historical evidence, it should be admitted thatKautsky does here usefully point to the link be-tween the rise of democracy and that of the labormovement, each strengthening the other, for whichthere is much evidence n the history of some of themost industrialized countries.11 Marx and Engelswere by no means unaware of it, but died too soonto see it as clearly as Kautsky could, and Lenin,confronting the situation he did in Russia, had todeny it.

It is worth noting that Kautsky's insistencethat the proletariat could rise to power onlythrough the use of democratic procedures did not,as has often been asserted, make him a revisionist.The question whether socialism was to be attainedby democracy or revolution was not an issue inKautsky's famous controversy with Bernstein.Both stood for the achievement of socialism

through democracy. The issue on which they dif-fered was how to attain democracy, especially inimperial Germany. In The Road to Power,12 ener-ally-and even by Lenin-regarded as his most"revolutionary" anti-Revisionist work, Kautsky de-manded only the democratization of the Germangovernment and implied that it could not be at-tained peacefully n view of the resistance f theGerman ruling classes.

What Kautsky wrote in 1918, then, is quiteconsistent with what he had been saying even be-


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INTRODUCTION xxiii

fore and during his controversy with Revisionism.His anti-Bolshevism was consistent with his anti-

Revisionism, and both flowed from his conceptionof orthodox Marxism. It is significant that in TheDictatorship oj the Proletariat some of his discus-sion of the role of democracy in the proletariat'srise to power takes the form of a long quotationfrom an article of his of 1893-when Kautsky wasgenerally regarded as the leading theoretician oforthodox Marxism-an article which had been pre-viously reprinted in his The Road to Power of 1909.On the other hand, it is also significant that in hispresent anti-Bolshevik work, Kautsky does nothesitate to reprint his earlier view that valuableas democracy is to the proletariat, it cannot removethe class conflicts of capitalist society or prevent theeventual inevitable overthrow of capitalism. Evenin a democracy, the proletariat will not forego thesocial and political revolution-that is, the attain-ment of governmental power and the institution ofsocialist measures-but these are seen as peacefulprocesses. As Kautsky wrote in 1893: "This so-called peaceful method of the class struggle, whichis confined o nonmilitary methods, parliamentar-ism, strikes, demonstrations, he press, and similarmeans of pressure, has the more chance of beingretained in a country the more effective its demo-cratic nstitutions are, he higher he state of poli-tical and economic understanding, and the self-control of the people."13


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Kautsky's work rests on the Marxian convic-tion that the proletariat must conquer politicalpower. He is certain (particularly in Chapter 2)that it will do so through democracy. All this isbased on assumptions which have since proved

wrong, assumptions of growing numbers and ofgrowing alienation and exploitation of the workersand of their consequently growing class conscious-ness. We now know, as Kautsky did not and prob-ably could not know, that the trend is the otherway. For one thing, with mechanization increasing

beyond a certain point, and especially with auto-mation, the number of workers engaged n produc-tion declines. Second, growing industrializationand, in part, the very democracy Kautsky extolledas the road to power lead not to the "maturity" oflabor that prepares it to take power and introduce

socialism, but to less alienation, exploitation, andclass consciousness, and hence workers become in-tegrated into society instead of "conquering" it. Tobe sure, in this process, workers acquire more edu-cation, a higher standard of living, and, in manycases, also stronger organizations-all aspects of

Kautsky's proletarian maturity. However, fewerand fewer of them-rather than more and more as

Kautsky still took for granted-think of them-selves as workers. Hence socialist parties in ad-vanced industrial countries-the formerly MarxianGerman and Austrian ones no less than the British


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INTRODUCTION xxv

Labour Party-have recently felt the need tobroaden their appeal to go beyond the workingclass. t is fruitless to argue whether this develop-ment constitutes the victory of the proletariat orof the bourgeoisie. t is neither, because uch Marx-

ian categories are simply inadequate in an analysisof the history of the past half century in the mostadvanced countries.

Kautsky was by no means wholly unaware ofthe decline of class conflicts and of ideology in ad-vanced democratic countries. In his 1893 article,

which he quotes here, he spoke of "the democratic-proletarian method of struggle" being "duller" and"less dramatic" than the upheavals of the bourgeoisrevolutions, and he noted with irony, but not in-correctly, that some of the literary intelligentsiabut not the workers would regret this. Kautsky also

stated (in Chapter 4) that what he calls an interestin theory, a concern with the broad aspects of so-ciety, is a reaction to despotic regimes, to a situa-tion in which only a small elite can be active inoppositional politics. Under democracy, greatermasses are drawn into politics, more workers are

involved in the administrative details of mass or-ganizations, hey become oncerned with pettymatters and momentary successes nd develop op-portunism and contempt of "theory." Today onemay or may not share Kautsky's value judgmentof the "true believer" as against the labor bureau-

crat, but there s little doubt that he diagnosed he


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trend correctly. However, given his ideologicalposition (which could be squared with reality muchmore easily half a century ago), Kautsky wouldonly admit that it was a short-run trend, though itcould last for years or even decades. Since evendemocracy could not remove the "contradictions"and conflicts of capitalist society, the workers-and now not merely the elite but the masses hem-selves (especially if labor time was reduced andfree time increased)-would sooner or later neces-sarily face situations that would raise their mindsbeyond everyday problems and would kindle whathe calls revolutionary thought and aspirations, .e.,those directed at a large-scale reorganization ofsociety. Here ideology, as is so often true in Marxistthought, has, almost imperceptibly, taken overfrom social science.

According to Kautsky the proletariat needsdemocracy not only before its conquest of powerbut also afterward. He therefore attacks the con-

cept of a dictatorship of the proletariat (especiallyin Chapter 5). There can, he points out, be no dic-tatorship of a class, but only of a party. If thereare several proletarian parties, it will be a dictator-ship of one over he others. f the one came o poweras a result of an alliance with peasants, then thedictatorship is one of proletarians and peasantsover proletarians.

To Kautsky, there is no reason why the pro-letariat should resort to dictatorship at all. It will


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INTRODUCTION xxvii

ordinarily come to power only when it is in thegreat majority, and it would then be suicidal for itto give up democracy, or universal suffrage s itsgreatest source of moral authority. If a proletarianparty did come o power without majority support-which Kautsky considered very unlikely in an

advanced country-it could not maintain itself inpower and realize its goals. It could not maintainitself through intellectual superiority, for as longas the majority of the population is opposed to so-cialism, most intellectuals will be, too. The alterna-tive is the use of centralized organization and mili-tary power. It, however, is likely to produce civilwar as a reaction, and it is impossible to reorganizesociety along socialist lines in the midst of war andespecially under conditions of chronic civil war. Ifthe proletarian revolution does involve civil war,socialists have an interest in keeping that war asbrief as possible and having it serve only to estab-lish democracy. The social revolution should thenbe carried out under democracy, for it must not atany time go farther than the majority will acceptif it is to be permanently successful.

All this, of course, s based on Kautsky's con-ception of socialism:

[It is] the organization f production by so-ciety. t requires conomic elf-government ythe entire people. State organization f pro-duction by a bureaucracy r by dictatorship fa single stratum of the population does not


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constitute socialism. It requires organizationalexperience of broad masses of the people, pre-supposes numerous free organizations, botheconomic and political, and needs the mostcomplete freedom of organization. The social-

ist organization of labor must not be an or-ganization along military lines.14

And, as Kautsky states categorically at the begin-ning of his pamphlet:

For us, therefore, socialism without de-mocracy is unthinkable. We understand by

modern socialism not merely social organiza-tion of production, but democratic organiza-tion of society as well. Accordingly, socialismis for us inseparably linked with democracy.No socialism without democracy.15

Once this conception of socialism is accepted,Kautsky's opposition to dictatorship followsnaturally, and he wins his argument with Leninhands down. As long as the socialist movement waslargely a Western phenomenon and socialist partiesin Eastern Europe were merely groups of intellec-tuals who had adopted the Western socialist doc-

trines, Kautsky's view was, in fact, very generallyheld, and he was perhaps justified in stating cate-gorically what "socialism" was and what it was not.

With the Russian Revolution, the term "so-cialism" (much as has been true of the word"democracy") ceased o have a single meaning.


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INTRODUCTION xxix

The problem Lenin confronted was, in fact, notthe one that Marx had in mind: that of workers

coming to power in an advanced capitalist countryin order to transfer the means of production fromprivate to public hands. t was an utterly differentone we have since become familiar with in manyunderdeveloped ountries, that of intellectuals com-ing to power in a largely agrarian country in orderto industrialize it. But though the substancechanged, the words did not, deceiving an entiregeneration. Once this is recognized, the argumentabout what constitutes socialism loses much of its

interest, for it has become an argument about aword which no longer corresponded to any onething.

Neither Kautsky nor Lenin could be aware ofthis. Hence each argues that what he advocates issocialism and what the other stands for is not

"true" socialism. Today when not only WesternEuropean labor parties, but Mao and Castro,Nkrumah and Toure, Nasser and Nehru all standfor something they choose to call "socialism," itshould be obvious that the term has become devoid

of substantive meaning and might as well be dis-carded or analytical purposes. Not only was thisnot as clear in 1918 as t ought to be today, but thecontestants n the dispute were engaged not onlyin analytical pursuits but in a struggle for power.They used the term socialism not merely as ananalytical concept but as a symbol. Since it was


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xxx INTRODUCTION

then in the European labor movement as it is to-day among nationalist intellectuals in underdevel-oped countries a powerful positive symbol, it be-came important for each side to lay claim to "true"socialism and to expose he opponents' socialism as"false."

Lenin could not afford to admit even to him-

self that Marxism, as a product of Western con-ditions, was largely irrelevant to his problems inRussia, for Marxism was widely popular in hiscircles as holding out the promise of a revolution

whose success was scientifically guaranteed.Kautsky, on the other hand, like Marx himself aWestern-oriented thinker who looked to the historyof England and France as the model of social devel-opment, also saw the Russian Revolution in termsof Marxian, i.e., Western, categories. Marx pro-

vides two categories for revolutions, the bourgeoisrevolution and the proletarian revolution. SinceKautsky saw clearly enough that the BolshevikRevolution was not proletarian in character, heargued that it must be bourgeois (see especiallyChapters 8 and 9). It does not occur to Kautsky

that both categories are inapplicable in an under-developed country like Russia, with a small pro-letariat and hardly any bourgeoisie.

Industrialization comes to underdevelopedcountries by a very different process from thatwhich produced t in the West, on the initiative of

intellectuals operating hrough government owner-


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INTRODUCTION xxxi

ship or control of industry and agriculture,16 ntel-lectuals who are therefore neither private capital-ists nor proletarians who expropriated such capi-talists. Not once does Kautsky suggest that theWestern pattern might not fit Russia; all his com-

parisons, even those regarding the peasantry, arewith Western countries. Here his thought, likeMarxian thought generally, and, indeed, almost allWestern thought of the period, reveals its paro-chialism. It is only very recently that we have be-gun to recognize that the political development of

the West with its peculiar institutions of capitalismand of democracy and its class structure and ideol-ogies, far from being a model which the rest of theworld will follow, is quite exceptional.

That Kautsky was unable to offer an adequateinterpretation of the Russian Revolution and the

communist regime s borne out by the fact that hispredictions regarding its future course failed to befulfilled. Yet, to write off The Dictatorship of theProletariat simply as a failure even as an attemptat social science analysis-quite apart from thepolitical impact the pamphlet may have had-

would be grossly unfair.Today, traditional aristocratic regimes allover the underdeveloped world are yielding tomovements led by Western-educated intellectualscommitted to rapid modernization of their back-ward societies by means of some government con-

trol of industry and agriculture and more or less


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xxxii INTRODUCTION

totalitarian political methods. It is now relativelyeasy to place the Russian Revolution in the samecategory with these upheavals, and, indeed, somewould go so far as to regard Soviet development asa relevant model for other underdeveloped coun-tries.

Half a century ago, any such comparison wasvirtually impossible. What is now a world-wideprocess dominating the daily headlines ad hardlybegun as yet. Only the Chinese and Mexican revo-lutions preceded the Russian one in their outbreak,but their character as modernizing movementsevolved slowly and was by no means clear in 1918.Besides, China and Mexico, like the underdevel-oped world generally, were given very little atten-tion in European political thinking.

Russia, on the other hand, was a Europeancountry, and its revolutionaries, being Western-influenced, had always used Western symbols todescribe their movements. No wonder Kautskywas misled by these symbols to draw irrelevantparallels with the West, just as all too many aresimilarly misled today by the appearance of "so-cialism," "democracy," "nationalism," etc., all overAsia, Africa, and Latin America. Far from beingalone in this respect, Kautsky shared his "Western"view of the Russian Revolution with virtually allof its interpreters of all political tendencies. To thisday, we tend to think of the Russian Revolution as


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INTRODUCTION xxxiii

akin more o the English and especially he Frenchone than to the revolutions in Mexico and Turkey,Guinea and Indonesia.17

Limited as Kautsky was by his own Western-Marxist categories, however, he at least neveraccepted he very common nterpretation of theRussian Revolution, shared by the communists ndmany anticommunists, that it was a proletarianrevolution and hence part of an international anti-capitalist movement. He thus did his best to stopthe spread of the widely believed myth of com-munist world revolution. Had his view been thecommon ather than the exceptional one, the viciouscycle of mutually self-fulfilling prophecies of thosewho acted to advance and those who sought to pre-vent this world revolution might not have beenset in motion so effectively that it affects East-West

relations to the present day.From the very beginning of the Bolshevik

seizure of power in Russia, Karl Kautsky sawclearly and stated courageously hat it was not andcould not be a proletarian or a socialist, i.e., West-ern anticapitalist, revolution. And, as the leadingMarxist of his generation, e could authoritativelyreject its claims to being Marxist as well. It is thismessage, elivered not as an impassioned lea tothe emotions but as a calm and cool appeal to rea-son, that makes The Dictatorship of the Proletariat


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xxxiv INTRODUCTION

an important document in the history of Marxismand of the socialist movement and a milestone at

that point of its path where communism and demo-cratic socialism parted ways.

Washington University, St. Louis

NOTES

For a brief biography of Karl Kautsky and a selectedbibliography of his works, see my article in the forth-coming new edition of the Encyclopedia oj the SocialSciences.

For an amusing example, see Li Fu, Li Ssu-wen, andWang Fu-ju, "On Kautskyism," Hung-ch'i (Red Flag)(Peiping), No. 8-9, April 25, 1962, pp. 28-41, trans-

lated in Joint Publications Research Service (Washing-ton: Department of Commerce), JPRS 13903, May 29,1962, pp. 76-120, which not only makes Kautsky outto be a revisionist, but also, by implication, the ideo-logical ancestor of Khrushchev.Karl Kautsky, "Die Aussichten des Fiinfjahresplanes,"Die Gesdlsc'hajt, VIII, No. 3 (March 1931), 255-64(pp. 261-62). This article appeared n translation as the

preface o the English edition of Karl Kautsky, Bol-shevism at a Deadlock (London: George Allen &Unwin, 1931), pp. 7-23. It is, however, here translatedfrom the German original.V. I. Lenin, The Proletarian Revolution and RenegadeKautsky (New York: International Publishers, 1934).Kautsky, Terrorism and Communism (London: TheNational Laboui Press, 1920; first German edition

June 1919). Leon Trotsky, Terrorism and Communism.


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INTRODUCTION xxxv

A Reply to Karl Kautsky (Ann Arbor: The Universityof Michigan Press, 1961; written in 1920). Kautsky,Von der Demokratie zur Staatssklaverei. Eine Ausein-andersetzung mil Trotzki (Berlin: "Freiheit," 1921).

5. Trotsky, op. cit., pp. v-vii.6. Kautsky, "Die Aussichten des Funfjahresplanes,"

pp. 262-63.7. Karl Kautsky, Demokratie oder Diktatur (Berlin:

Paul Cassirer, 1918), p. 8.8. For other comments by Kautsky on the dictatorship of

the proletariat, see his Von der Demokratie zur Staats-sklaverei, pp. 38-43 and 83-84; The Labour Revolu-tion (New York: Dial Press, 1925), pp. 59-89, whereKautsky takes issue with Lenin's The State and Rev-olution; and Social Democracy versus Communism(New York: Rand School Press, 1946), pp. 29-47.

9. The following are a few samples from Lenin, The Pro-letarian Revolution and Renegade Kautsky: "mon-strous theoretical confusion," "a schoolmaster who hasbecome as dry as dust," "tediously chews the cud,""twaddle," "this windbag," "monstrous distortion,""sophistry," "subterfuge," "a lackey of the bourgeoi-sie," "absolute nonsense and an untruth," "extremestupidity or very clumsy trickery," (all from pp. 15-19), "It is impossible to ennumerate all the absurditiesuttered by Kautsky, since every phrase he utters is abottomless pit of renegacy" (p. 24), "oh, civilized belly-crawling and bootlicking before the bourgeoisie!" (p.28).

10. P. 96. In quoting from The Dictatorship oj the Proleta-

riat I have sought to correct certain inaccuracies in theEnglish translation. Unfortunately, it has not beenpossible to publish a revised and corrected version ofthe present translation which is marked by all toomany mistakes.

11. Why this evidence s compatible with other evidencepointing to "working-class authoritarianism," i.e., thetendency of the lower classes to be extremist and intol-

erant, s explained y Seymour Martin Lipset, Political


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INTRODUCTION xxxvii

rect" than the latter one. One chooses one's categoriesof comparison depending on the subject to be investi-gated. It is merely suggested that the aspects of theRussian Revolution with which Kautsky was concernedcan be more adequately analyzed by comparison withunderdeveloped countries than with the West.


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CONTENTS

I. THE PROBLEM 1

II. DEMOCRACY AND THE CONQUEST OF POLITICALPOWER 4

III. DEMOCRACY AND THE RIPENING OF THE PROLE-TARIAT 12

IV. THE EFFECTS OF DEMOCRACY 25

V. DICTATORSHIP 42

VI. CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY AND SOVIET 59

VII. THE SOVIET REPUBLIC 70

VIII. THE OBJECT LESSON 88

IX. THE LEGACY OF THE DICTATORSHIP :(a) AGRICULTURE 101(b) INDUSTRY 120

X. THE NEW THEORY 135


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The Dictatorship of the Proletariat

CHAPTER I.

THE PROBLEM.

THE present Russian Revolution has, for the first

time in the history of the world, made a SocialistParty the rulers of a great Empire. A far morepowerful event than the seizing of control of thetown of Paris by the proletariat in 1871. Yet, inone important aspect, the Paris Commune wassuperior to the Soviet Republic. The former wasthe work of the entire proletariat. All shades ofthe Socialist movement took part in it, none drewback from it, none was excluded.

On the other hand, the Socialist Party whichgoverns Russia to-day gained power in fightingagainst other Socialist Parties, and exercises itsauthority while excluding other Socialist Partiesfrom the executive.

The antagonism of the two Socialist movementsis not based on small personal ealousies it is theclashing of two fundamentally distinct methods,

that of democracy and that of dictatorship. Both


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2 DICTATORSHIP OF THE PKOLETABIAT

movements have the same end in view : to free the

proletariat, and with it humanity, throughSocialism. But the view taken by the one s heldby the other to be erroneous nd ikely to lead todestruction.

It is impossible o regard so gigantic an eventas he proletarian struggle n Eussia without akingsides. Each of us feels mpelled o violent parti-sanship. And the more so because he problemwhich to-day occupies our Russian comrades willto-morrow assume practical significance forWestern Europe, and does already decisivelyinfluence the character of our propaganda andtactics.

It is, however, our party duty not to decide orone or the other side in the Russian internal

quarrel before we have thoroughly tested the argu-ments of both. In this many comrades wouldhinder us. They declare t to be our duty blindlyto pronounce n favour of the section now at thehelm. Any other attitude would endanger he

Revolution, and Socialism itself. This is nothingless han to ask us to accept as already proved hatwhich is still to be examined, viz., that one of thesections has struck out in the right path, and wemust encourage t by following.

We place ourselves, f course, y asking or thefullest discussion, already on the ground of


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THE PROBLEM 3

democracy. Dictatorship does not ask for therefutation of contrary views, but the forciblesuppression of their utterance. Thus, the twomethods of democracy nd dictatorship are alreadyirreconcilably opposed before the discussion hasstarted. The one demands, the other forbids it.

In the meantime, dictatorship does not yetreign in our Party; discussion amongst us is stillfree. And we consider it not only as our right,but as our duty to express our opinions freely,

because an appropriate and fruitful decision is onlypossible after hearing all the arguments. Oneman's speech s notoriously no man's speech. Bothsides must be listened to.

We will, therefore, examine the significancewhich democracy has or the proletariat-what we

understand y the dictatorship of the proletariat-and what conditions dictatorship, as a form ofgovernment, creates n the struggle or freedom ofthe proletariat.


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CHAPTER II.

DEMOCRACY NDTHE CONQUEST F POLITICALPOWER.

The distinction is sometimes drawn betweendemocracy and Socialism, that is, the socialisation

of the means f production and of production, ysaying hat the latter is our goal, the object of ourmovement, while democracy s merely he means othis end, which occasionally might become unsuit-able, or even a hindrance.

To be exact, however, Socialism as such is not

our goal, which is the abolition of every kind ofexploitation and oppression, be it directed againsta class, a party, a sex, or a race.

We seek o achieve his object by supporting heproletarian class struggle, because he proletariat,being the undermost class, cannot ree itself with-out abolishing all causes of exploitation andoppression, and because he industrial proletariat,of all the oppressed ndexploited lasses, s the onewhich constantly grows in strength, fightingcapacity nd nclination o carry on the struggle,

its ultimate victory being inevitable. Therefore,lo-aay every genuine pponent f exploitation nd


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THE CONQUEST OF POLITICAL POWER 5

oppression must take part in the class struggle,from whatever class he may come.

If in this struggle we place the Socialist way ofproduction as the goal, it is because in thetechnical and economic conditions which prevailto-day Socialistic production appears o be the solemeans of attaining our object. Should it beproved to us that we are wrong in so doing, andthat somehow he emancipation of the proletariatand of mankind could be achieved solely on the

basis of private property, or could be most easilyrealised in the manner indicated by Proudhon,then we would throw Socialism overboard, with-out in the least giving up our object, and even inthe interests of this object. Socialism anddemocracy are therefore not distinguished by theone being the means and the other the end. Bothare means to the same end. The distinction

between hem must be sought elsewhere. Socialismas a means o the emancipation of the proletariat.without democracy, s unthinkable.

Social production, it is true, is also possible na system other than a democratic one. Inprimitive conditions communistic methods becamethe basis of despotism, as Engels noted in 1875,when dealing with the village communism whichhas existed in India and Russia down to our own

day.


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6 DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT

Dutch colonial policy n Java or a long timebased he organisation f agricultural productionunder the so-called ' culture '' system upon landcommunism or the profit of the government who

exploited the people.The most striking example of a non-democraticorganisation of social work was furnished in theeighteenth entury by the Jesuit State of Paraguay.There the Jesuits, as the ruling class, organisedwith dictatorial power the labour of the nativeIndian population, in a truly admirable fashion,without employing force, and even gaining theattachment of their subjects.

For modern men, however, such a patriarchalregime would be intolerable. It is only possibleunder circumstances where the rulers are vastlv tf

superior to the ruled in knowledge, and where thelatter are absolutely unable to raise themselves oan equal standard. A section or class which isengaged n a struggle or freedom cannot egarduch a system of tutelage as its goal, but must

decisively reject it.For us, therefore, Socialism without democracyis unthinkable. We understand by ModernSocialism not merely social organisation of pro-duction, but democratic organisation of society aswell. Accordingly, Socialism s for us nseparablyconnected with democracy. No Socialism without


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THE CONQUEST OF POLITICAL POWEK 7

democracy. But this proposition is not equallytrue if reversed. Democracy is quite possiblewithout Socialism. A pure democracy is evenconceivable apart from Socialism, or example, msmall peasant communities, where completeequality of economic conditions for everybodyexists on the basis of participating in privatelyowned means of production.

In any case, it may be said that democracy ispossible without Socialism, and precedes it. It is

this pre-Socialist emocracy which is apparently nthe minds of those who consider that democracyand Socialism are related to each other as the

means o an end, although they mostly hasten toadd that, strictly speaking, it is really no means toan end. This interpretation must be mostemphatically repudiated, because, should it wingeneral acceptance, it would lead our movementinto most dangerous racks.

Why would democracy be an unsuitable meansfor the achievement of Socialism?

It is a question of the conquest of politicalpower.

It is said that if in a hitherto middle-class

democratic State he possibility exists of the SocialDemocrats becoming the majority at an election,the ruling; classes would make use of all the forces

at their command in order to prevent democracy


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8 DICTATOKSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT

asserting tself. Therefore, t is not by democracy,but only by a political revolution hat the prole-tariat can conquer the political power.

Doubtless, n cases where he proletariat of a

democratic State attains o power, one must reckonwith attempts of the ruling classes o nullify byviolence the realisation of democracy by therising class. This, however, does not prove theworthlessness of democracy for the proletariat.Should a ruling class, under the suppositions ere

discussed, esort to force, it would do so preciselybecause t feared the consequences of democracy.And its violence would be nothing but thesubversion of democracy. Therefore, not the use-lessness of democracy for the proletariat isdemonstrated y anticipated attempts of the rulingclasses to destroy democracy, but rather thenecessity for the proletariat to defend democracywith tooth and nail. Of course, f the proletariat stold that democracy is a useless ornament, theneedful strength for its defence will not be

created. The mass of the people are everywheretoo attached to their political rights willingly toabandon hem. On the contrary, it is rather to beexpected hat they would defend heir rights withsuch vigour that if the other side endeavoured odestroy the people's privileges, a political over-throw would be the result. The higher the prole-


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tariat values democracy, and the closer is itsattachment to its rights, the more may oneanticipate this course of events.

On the other hand, it must not be thought thatthe forebodings above mentioned will everywherebe realised. We need not be so fainthearted. The

more democratic the State is, the more dependentare the forces exerted by the Executive, even themilitary ones, on public opinion. These forcesmay become, even in a democracy, a means of

holding down the proletarian movement, if theproletariat is still weak in numbers, as in anagrarian State, or if it is politically weak,because unorganised, and lacking self-conscious-ness. But if the proletariat in a democratic Stategrows until it is numerous and strong enough to

conquer political power by making use of theliberties which exist, then it would be a task ofgreat difficulty for the capitalist dictatorship tomanipulate he force necessary or the suppressionof democracy.

As a matter of fact, Marx thought it possible,and even probable, that in England and Americathe proletariat might peacefully conquer politicalpower. On the conclusion of the Congress of theInternational at the Hague n 1872. Marx spoke ata meeting, and among other things said :

t ( The worker must one day capture political


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10 DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT.

power in order to found the new organisation oflabour. He must reverse he old policy, whichthe old institutions maintain, if he will not, like theChristians of old who despised nd neglected suchthings, renounce he things of this world,

' But we do not assert hat the way to reach hisgoal is the same everywhere.

1We know that the institutions, the manners andthe customs of the various countries must be con-

sidered, and we do not deny that there are countries

like England and America, and, if I understoodyour arrangements better, I might even addHolland, where the worker may attain his objectby peaceful means. But not in all countries s thisthe case.'1

It remains to be seen whether Marx's expecta-tions will be realised.

There are certainly n the above named countriessections of the ruling classes whose nclinations ouse orce against he proletariat row. But, besidethese there are other sections in whom the rising

power of the proletariat gains espect and evokesdesire to keep it in good humour by concessions.Although he world war, for the period of its dura-tion, has strictly confined he struggle of the massesfor freedom everywhere, it has brought to theEnglish proletariat a considerable xtension of

politicalpower. It cannot o-day e oreseen ow


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democracy in the various States will influence theforms which the conquest of political power oy theproletariat will take, and how far it will avert theuse of violent methods rom both sides and promotethe use of peaceful means. In any case, the institu-tion of democracy would not lose its importance.In a democratic republic, where the people's rightshave been firmly established for decades, perhapscenturies, rights which the people conquered byrevolution, and maintained or extended, thus com-

pelling the respect of the ruling classes or themasses, n such a community the forms of transitionwould certainly be different from those in a Statewhere a military despotism has been accustomed orule by force, and hold the masses f the people incheck.

For us the significance f democracy n the pre-Socialist period is not exhausted with the influenceit may have on the forms of transition o a prole-tarian regime. It is most mportant for us duringthis period, n so ar as t bears on the ripening ofthe proletariat.


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CHAPTER III.

DEMOCRACY AND THE RIPENING OF THEPROLETARIAT.

Socialism postulates special historical conditions,which render it possible and necessary. This ispretty generally recognised. Yet there is by nomeans unanimity amongst us as regards the condi-tions which must be fulfilled in order to make

modern Socialism possible, should a country beripe for it. This divergence on such an importantquestion s not a calamity, and so ar as t causes sto be occupied with the problem at the presenttime is a matter for rejoicing. We are obliged oconsider this matter because, for most of us,Socialism has ceased o be something that must beexpected n hundreds of years, as we were assuredby many at the time of the outbreak of war.

Socialism has become a practical question on theorder of the day.What, then, are the pre-requisites for the

establishment of Socialism?

Every conscious human action presupposes awill. The Will to Socialism is the first condition for

its accomplishment.J2


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THE RIPENING OF THE PROLETARIAT 13

This Will is created by the great ndustry. Wheresmall production is uppermost n a society, themasses f the people re possessors f the means fproduction. He who happens o be without property

conceives is ideal to be the acquirement of a smallpossession. This desire may, in some circum-stances, assume a revolutionary form, but such asocial revolution would not have a Socialist

character-it would only redistribute the existingwealth in such a manner that everyone would

receive a share. Small production always createsthe Will to uphold or to obtain private property inthe means of production which are in vogue, notthe will to social property, to Socialism. ThisWill first appears amongst he masses when largescale ndustry is already much developed, and itssuperiority over small production s unquestioned;when t would be a retrograde tep, f it were pos-sible, to break up large scale ndustry when theworkers engaged in the large industry cannotobtain a share n the means of production unless

they ake on a social orm; when smallproduction,so ar as it exists, steadily deteriorates, so that thesmallproducers an no longer support hemselvesthereby. In this way the Will to Socialism rows.

At the same ime, the material possibilities f itsachievementncrease ith the growth of the arge

industry. The arger he number f producers, nd


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14 DICTATOKSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT

the more independent of each other they are, themore difficult it is to organise hem socially. Thisdifficulty disappears n the measure n which thenumber of producers decreases, and the relations

between them become more close and uniform.Finally, alongside of the will to Socialism, and itsmaterial conditions-the raw material of Socialism

-the strength to realise it must also exist. Thosewho want Socialism must become stronger thanthose who do not want it.

This factor, too, is created by the developmentof the large industry, which causes an increase nthe number of proletarians-those who have aninterest in Socialism-and a decrease in the number

of capitalists, that is a decrease as compared withthe number of proletarians. In comparison withthe non-proletarian classes, he small peasants ndlower middle classes, he number of capitalists mayincrease for some time. But the proletariatincreases more rapidly than any other class n theState.

These factors are the direct outcome of the

economic development. They do not arise ofthemselves, without human co-operation, but theyarise without proletarian co-operation, solelythrough he operations f the capitalists, who havean interest in the growth of their large industry.

This development s in the irst place ndustrial, and


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THE EIPENING OF THE PBOLETAKIAT 15

confined to the towns. The agrarian developmentis only a weak echo of it. Socialism will come romthe towns and from industry, but not from agri-culture. For its realisation yet another-a fourth-factor is needful besides hose already mentioned.The proletariat must not only have an nterest n theestablishment of Socialism, t must not merely havethe material conditions for Socialism ready tohand, and possess he strength to make use of them;it must also have the capacity to retain its hold of

them, and properly to employ them. Only thencan Socialism be realised as a permanent method ofproduction.

To the ripening of the conditions, the necessarylevel of the industrial development, must be addedthe maturity of the proletariat, in order to makeSocialism possible. This factor will not, however,be created by the efforts of the capitalist to obtainrent, interest and profit, without the co-operationof the proletariat. It must, on the contrary, beobtained by the exertions of the proletariat nopposition o the capitalist.

Under the system of small production thosewithout property fall into two sections. For oneof them, viz., apprentices nd peasants' ons, heirlack of property s only a temporary condition.The members of this class expect one day

to become possessors and have an interest


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iss sympathy must save it, and bring Socialiseout.

It is soon apparent hat nothing can be expected>m this sympathy. Sufficient strength to

jomplish Socialism can only be expected rom>se whose interests lie that way, that Js the)letarians. But were not they perishing withoutpe?tfot all, in fact. There were particular sectionsich had shown strength and courage to fight

tinst poverty. This small raction would do whatUtopians were not capable of doing.

3y a sudden stroke it would capture the powersthe State, and bring Socialism to the people.s was the conception of Blanqui and Weitling.3 proletariat, which was too ignorant andnoralised to organise and rule itself, should beanised and ruled by a government comprised ofeducated elite, something like the Jesuits in"aguay who had organised and governed theians.

Veitling foresaw the dictatorship of a singleson, who would carry through Socialism at thed of a victorious revolutionary army. Heed him a Messiah.

' I see a new Messiah coming with the sword, tory into effect he teachings f the first. By hisrage he will be placed at the head of the revolu-


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THE lilPENING OF THE PEOLETABIAT 19

the resistance offered by the proletariat to itsimpoverishment nd disfranchisement. It com-menced ts strikes, and its great fight for thesuffrage and the normal working day.

Marx and Engels early recognised the signifi-cance of this movement. It was not the '' theoryof impoverishment ' which characterised Marx andEngels. They held this in common with otherSocialists, but were superior to them by not onlyrecognising the capitalist tendency towardsimpoverishment, but also the proletarian countertendency, and in this, in the class struggle, theyrecognised he great factor which would uplift theproletariat, and give it the capacity which it needsif it is not merely to grasp political power by theluck of an accident, but is to be in a position tomake tself master of that power, and to use it.

The proletarian class struggle, as a struggle ofthe masses, presupposes democracy. If notabsolute and pure democracy, yet so much ofdemocracy s is necessary o organise masses, nd

give them uniform enlightenment. This cannot beadequately one by secret methods. A few flysheets annot e a substitute or an extensive ailyPress. Masses annot be organised ecretly, and,above all, a secret organisation cannot be ademocratic ne. It always eads.to he dictatorshipof a single man, or of a small knot of leaders. The


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ordinary members an only become nstruments orcarrying out orders. Such a method may berendered necessary or an oppressed lass n theabsence f democracy, ut t would not promote heself-government and independence f the masses.Rather would it further the Messiah-consciousnessof leaders, and their dictatorial habits.

The same Weitling, whogave uch prominence othe function of a Messiah, poke most contemp-tuously of democracy.

' Communists are still pretty undecided aboutthe choice of their form of government. A largepart of those in France incline to a dictatorship,because hey well know that the sovereignty of thepeople, as understood by republicans and politi-cians, s not suited or the period of transition romthe old to a completely new organisation. Owen,the chief of the English Communists, would havethe performance of specified duties allotted to menaccording o age, and he chief leaders f a govern-ment would be the oldest members of it. All

Socialists with the exception of the followers ofFourier, to whom all forms of government are thesame, re agreed hat he orm of government hichis called the sovereignty of the people is a veryunsuitable, and even dangerous, sheet anchor forthe young principle of Communism bout to berealised."


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Weitling goes urther. He will have nothing ofdemocracy, even in a Socialist community.

'' If the idea of the sovereignty of the people s tobe applied, all must rule. This can never be the

case, and it is, therefore, not the sovereignty ofthe people, but the chance sovereignty of some ofthe people.53

Weitling wanted he greatest geniuses o govern.They would be selected in a competition byscientific assemblies.

I have quoted Weitling in detail in order to showthat the contempt for democracy, which is nowrecommended o us as the highest wisdom, s quitean old conception, and corresponds o a primitivestage n the working-class movement. At the same

time that Weitling poured scorn on UniversalSuffrage and freedom of the Press, the workers ofEngland were fighting for these rights, and Marxand Engels ranged themselves by their side.

Since then the working classes f the whole ofEurope, in numerous-often bloody-struggles,have conquered ne nstalment of democracy afterthe other, and by their endeavours o win, maintainand extend democracy, and by constantly makinguse of each instalment for organisation, or pro-paganda, and for wresting social reforms, have

they grown n maturity from year to year, and from


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DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT

the lowest have become he highest laced sectionof the masses f the people.

Has he proletariat already attained he maturitywhich Socialism postulates? And are the otherconditions now in existence? These questions reto-day much disputed, he answers iven being bysome as decisively n the affirmative as by others nthe negative. Both answers seem to me ratherover hasty. Ripeness or Socialism is not a condi-tion which lends itself to statistical calculation

before the proof can be put to the test. In anycase, t is wrong, as so often happens n discussingthis question, to put the material pre-requisites fSocialism oo much in the foreground. No doubt,without a certain development f the arge industryno Socialism is possible, but when it is asserted hat

Socialism would only become practicable whencapitalism s no more in a position o expand, allproof of this is lacking. It is correct to say thatSocialism would be the more easily realisable themore developed he arge ndustry is, and hereforethe more compact he productive orces are whichmust be socially organised.

Yet this s only relevant o the problem, when tis considered rom the standpoint of a particularState. The simplification f the problem n thisform is, however, counteracted y the fact that the

growth of the arge ndustry s accompanied y an


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expansion of its markets, the progress of thedivision of labour and of international communica-

tions, and therewith the constant widening andincreasing complication of the problem of the

social organisation f production. There s, indeed,no reason or believing that the organisation of thelargest part of production for social ends, by theState, Municipalities, and Co-operative Societies, isnot already possible in modern industrial States,with their banking facilities and their machinery for

the conduct of businesses.The decisive factor is no longer the material, but

the personal one. Is the proletariat strong andintelligent enough o take n hand the regulation ofsociety, that is, does it possess he power and thecapacity to transfer democracy from politics toeconomics? This cannot be foretold with cer-tainty. The factor in question is one which is indifferent stages of development n different coun-tries, and it fluctuates considerably at various timesin the same country. Adequate strength andcapacity are relative conceptions. The samemeasure of strength may be insufficient to-day,when the opponents are strong, but to-morrowquite adequate, when they have suffered a moral,economic or military collapse.

The same measure of capacity might be quite

inadequate to-day should power be attained in a


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highly complicated ituation, and yet to-morrow tcould be equal to all demands made on it, if mean-while conditions have simplified and becomestabler.

In every case only practice can show if theproletariat is already sufficiently mature forSocialism. We can only say the following forCertain. The proletariat grows always n numbers,strength and intelligence, it is ever approaching theclimax of its development.

It is not definite enough to say that the latterphase will be reached when he proletariat orms hemajority of the people, and when the majorityannounce their adhesion to Socialism. On the

other hand, t may be confidently said hat a peopleis not yet ripe or Socialism o ong as he majorityof the masses are hostile to Socialism, and will havenothing of it.

So here again democracy ot only matures heproletariat the soonest, but gives the quickestindications of this process.


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CHAPTER IV.

THE EFFECTS OF DEMOCRACY.

THEmodern State s a rigidly centralised organism,an organisation comprising the greatest powerwithin modern society, and influencing n the most

effective way the fate of each individual, as isespecially obvious in time of war.

The State is to-day what the family and com-munity used to be for the individual. If com-munities were in their way democraticallyorganised, the power of the State, on the contrary,including the bureaucracy and the army, looms overthe people, even gaining such strength that at timesit acquires an ascendancy over the classes whichare socially and economically dominant, thus con-stituting itself an absolute government. Yet this

latter condition s nowhere asting. The absoluterule of bureaucracy leads to its ossification and itsabsorption into endless time-wasting formulas, andthat just at the time when industrial capitalism sdeveloping, when the revolutionary methods ofproduction which arise from it subject all economic

and social conditions to constant change, and25


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impart a quicker movement to industrial life, thusrequiring the speediest olitical adjustments.

The absolute rule of bureaucracy, therefore,leads o arbitrariness nd stultification, ut a systemof production ike capitalism, n which each pro-ducer is dependent upon numerous others needsfor its prosperity he security and egality of socialrelations. The absolute State gets nto conflict withthe productive forces, and becomes a fetter onthem. It is, then, urgently necessary or the

executive to be subjected o public criticism, forfree organisations of citizens to counterbalance hepower of the State, for self-government in munici-palities and provinces to be established, for thepower of law-making to be taken from thebureaucracy, and put under he control of a central

assembly, freely chosen by the people, that is aParliament. The control of the Government is themost important duty of Parliament, and in this itcan be replaced by no other institution. It is con-ceivable, though hardly practicable, for the law-making power o be taken rom the bureaucracy,and entrusted to various committees of experts,which would draft the laws and submit them to the

people or their decision. The activities of theexecutive can only be supervised by another cen-tral body, and not by an unorganised nd ormless

mass of people.


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THE EFFECTS OF DEMOCRACY 27

The attempts o overcome he absolute power ofthe State, as here described, are made by all classesin a modern State, with the exception of thosewhich may share in its power, that is all except

bureaucrats, court nobles, the State Church, as wellas the great bankers who do a lucrative businesswith the State.

Before the united pressure of the other classes,which may include the landed gentry, the lowerclergy, the industrial capitalists, the absoluteregime must give way. In a greater or lesserdegree it must concede freedom of the Press, ofpublic meeting, of organisation, and a Parliament.All the States of Europe have successfully passedthrough this development.

Every class will, however, endeavour o shapethe new orm of the State n a manner correspond-ing to its particular interests. This attempt isespecially manifested in the struggle over thecharacter of the Parliament, hat is in the fight forthe franchise. The watchword of the lower classes,

of the people, s Universal Suffrage. Not only thewage-earner, but the small peasant and the lowermiddle classes have an interest in the franchise.

Everywhere and under all circumstances theseclasses orm the great majority of the population.Whether he proletariat s the predominant lassamongst these depends on the extent of the


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economic development, although this factor doesnot determine whether he proletariat comprises hemajority of the population. The exploiters arealways a small minority of the population.

In the long run no modern State can withstandthe pressure f these lasses, nd anything hort ofgeneral suffrage n our society to-day would be anabsurdity. In capitalist society, with its con-stantly changing conditions, the classes annot bestereotyped in fixed grooves. All social conditionsare in a state of flux. A franchise based on status

is consequently excluded. A class which is notorganised as such is a formless luctuating mass,whose exact boundaries it is quite impossible tomark. A class is an economic entity, not a legalone. Class-membership s always changing. Many

handworkers who, under the regime of smallindustry, think they are possessors, eel like prole-tarians under large industry, and are really prole-tarians even when or purposes f statistics hey .'ireincluded with the possessing lasses nd inde-pendent producers. There s also no franchisebased on the census which would secure to the

possessing lasses asting monopoly f Parliament.It would be upset by every depreciation n moneyvalues. Finally, a franchise based n educationwould be even more futile, in view of the progress

of culture amongst the masses. Thus various


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THE EFFECTS OF DEMOCRACY 29

factors combine to render general suffrage the onlysolution in the society of to-day, and bring thequestion more and more to the front. Above all,it is the only rational solution from the standpoint

of the proletariat as he lowest class of the popula-tion. The most effective weapon of the proletariatis its numerical strength. It cannot emancipateitself until it has become the largest class of thepopulation, and until capitalist society is so fardeveloped that the small peasants and the lowermiddle classes no longer overweight the prole-tariat.

The proletariat has also an interest in the factthat the suffrage should not only be universal andequal, but also non-discriminatory, so that men andwomen, or wage earners and capitalists, do not votein separate sections. Such a method would notonly involve he danger hat particular sections, whobelong o the proletariat n reality, but are not wageearners n form, would be separated rom it, butit would also have he still worse esult of narrowing

the outlook of the proletariat. For its greathistorical mission consists in the fact that thecollective interests of society fall into line with itspermanent class nterests, which are not always thesame thing as special sectional interests. It is asymptom of the maturity of the proletariat when its

class consciousness s raised o the highest point by


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its grasp of large social relations and ends. Thisunderstanding s only made completely clear byscientific Socialism, not only by theoretical each-ing, but by the habit of regarding hings as a wholeinstead of looking at special interests which arefurthered and extended by engaging n politicalaction. Confining the outlook to trade interestsnarrows the mind, and this is one of the draw-backs to mere Trade Unionism. Herein lies the

superiority of the organisation of the Social

Democratic Party, and also the superiority of anondiscriminatory, as compared with a franchisewhich divides he electors nto categories.

In the struggle or the political rights referred tomodern democracy arises, and the proletariatmatures. At the same time a new factor appears,

viz., the protection of minorities, the opposition nthe State. Democracy ignifies ule of majority, butnot less the protection of minorities.

The absolute ule of bureaucracy trives o obtainfor itself permanency. The orcible suppression fall opposition s its guiding principle. Almosteverywhere t must do this to prevent ts powerbeing forcibly broken. It is otherwise withdemocracy, which means he rule of majorities.But majorities hange. n a democracy o egimecan be adapted o long duration.

Even the relative strength of classes s not a fixed


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THE EFFECTS OF DEMOCKACY 31

quantity, at least in the capitalist era. But thestrength of parties changes even quicker than thestrength of classes, nd it is parties which aspire opower n a democracy.

It must not here be forgotten, what so oftenhappens, hat the abstract simplification of theory,although necessary o a clear understanding ofrealities is only true in the last resort, and betweenit and actualities there are many interveningfactors. A class can rule, but not govern, for aclass s a formless mass, while only an organisationcan govern. It is the political parties which governin a democracy. A party is, however, notsynonymous with a class, although it may, in thefirst place, represent a class interest. One and thesame class interest can be represented in verydifferent ways, by various tactical methods.According to their variety, the representatives fthe same class interests are divided into different

parties. Above all, the deciding factor is theposition in relation to other classes and parties.

Only seldom does a class dispose of so much powerthat it can govern the State by itself. If a classattains power, and finds that it cannot keep t by itsown strength, it seeks or allies. If such allies areforthcoming, various opinions and standpointsprevail amongst he representatives f the dominantclass interests.


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In this way, during he eighteenth entury Whigsand Tories represented the same landed interest,but one party endeavoured o further it byalliance with the middle classes of the towns at theexpense of the Throne and its resources, while theother party conceived the Monarchy to be itsstrongest support. Similarly to-day n England andalso elsewhere, iberals and Conservatives epre-sent the same capitalist interests. But the onethinks they will be best served by an alliance with

the landed class, and forcible suppression f theworking classes, while the other fears dire conse-quences from this policy, and stri

the dictatorship of the proletariat (1919)

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