V. I.

Lenin

Comment on Kautsky’s Letter [1]

K. Kautsky has realised (at last!) that the Tyszka group of “Tyszka”
and Rosa Luxemburg does not represent the Polish Social-Democratic workers
and that the Warsaw and Lodz organisations have to be reckoned with.

It is a good thing that he has at last understood facts which have been
known to Russian Marxist workers for years . But the very fact that
for years Rosa L. and Tyszka could pass off a fiction for
reality shows how deplorably misinformed are the German Social-Democrats,
including Kautsky!

Kautsky reveals still greater ignorance of the subject when he writes
that “as far as he knows” the Polish Socialist Party “Left wing” split
away from the P.S.P. “Right wing” [2] in order to take a fully Social-Democratic stand.

It is well known—one may say here—that this time Kautsky does
not at all know what he is writing about. Our readers should make
themselves familiar with at least the article by Henryk Kamieński
“From Nationalism to Liquidationism” ( Prosveshcheniye
No. 10). The author of this article is a Pole and knows What he is
writing about. From this, article our readers will see that the P.S.P. Left
wing is not Social-Democratic at all. Besides, it would be
ridiculous to think that people who desire to take a fully
Social-Democratic stand, and are capable of doing so, would retain
“their own” programme and the title of a non-Social-Democratic party.

The forthcoming “exchange of opinions” among all
Social-Democratic groups in Russia and Poland through the medium of the
Executive Committee of the International Socialist Bureau will reveal
Kautsky’s error and show that none of the Polish Social-Democrats regard, nor can regard, the P.S.P. Left wing
as a Social-Democratic Party.

We would add that Kautsky says nothing to repudiate (although he wrote
in
Vorwärts [3] ) the report of his statement made in this very
Vorwärts that “the old Party has disappeared” in Russia. The
forthcoming “exchange of opinions” will also expose this monstrous
blunder of Kautsky’s.

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Notes:
[1]
This paragraph is a comment on Kautsky’s letter published in
Vorwärts , the central organ of the German Social-Democrats,
No. 339, December 24, 1913 (new style), dealing with the report of the
meeting of the International Socialist Bureau and reprinted in Russian in
the newspaper Proletarskaya Pravda , issue No. 12, December 20,
1913 (old style). Kautsky’s letter was a reply to Rosa Luxemburg’s letter
to Vorwärts .

[2]
See Note 15.

[3]
Vorwärts —a daily newspaper, central organ of the German
Social-Democratic Party. In accordance with a decision of the Halle
Congress of the Party, it was published in Berlin from 1891 as a
continuation of the newspaper Berliner Volksblatt issued since
1884 under the name of Vorwärts. Berliner Volksblatt . F. Engels
used the columns of this paper to combat all manifestations of
opportunism. In the late nineties, after the death of Engels,
Vorwärts was controlled by the Right wing of the Party and
regularly published articles by opportunists. The paper was tendentious in
reporting the struggle against opportunism and revisionism within the
R.S.D.L.P., and supported the Economists, and subsequently, after the split
in the Party, the Mensheviks. During the years of reaction
Vorwärts published Trotsky’s slanderous articles, but did not
give Lenin and the Bolsheviks any opportunity to refute them and give an
objective appraisal of the true state of affairs within the Party.

During World War I Vorwärts took, a social-chauvinist stand. After the Great October Socialist Revolution it carried on
anti-Soviet propaganda. Ceased publication in 1933.