V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:LS/v21;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

LETTER TO V. V. VOROVSKY AND YA. A. BERZIN
September 20, 1918.
Dear Comrades,
Today’s *Pravda* carries extracts from Kautsky’s article against Bolshevism (*Soz[ialistische] Auslandspol[itik]*).
Kautsky’s disgraceful nonsense, childish prattle and most vulgar opportunism raise the question: why are we doing nothing to combat Kautsky’s theoretical vulgarisation of Marxism?
Is it tolerable that even such people as Mehring and Zetkin dissociate themselves from Kautsky more in an amoral way (if I may put it so) than theoretically? And Kautsky has found nothing better to do than to write against the Bolsheviks now.
Is that an argument? Can one so weaken one’s own position? That only means putting weapons into Kautsky’s hands. And this instead of writing:
Kautsky has utterly failed to understand and has distorted in a purely opportunist manner Marx’s teaching on the state, on the dictatorship of the proletariat, on bourgeois democracy, on parliamentarism, on the role and significance of the Commune, etc.
The following measures should be taken:
1) Have a thorough talk with the Lefts (Spartacists, etc.), urging them to come out in the press with a principled, theoretical statement that on the question of the dictatorship Kautsky is serving up vulgar Bernsteinism, not Marxism;
2) Publish my *The State and Revolution* in German as soon as possible;
3) Provide it at least with a publisher’s preface to the effect that: “The publisher considers the appearance of this work at the present moment particularly urgent in view of the complete distortion of Marxism, precisely on these questions, in Kautsky’s latest writings, where he replaces the standpoint of the dictatorship of the proletariat with vulgar social-liberalism in the spirit of Bernsteinism and other opportunists.”
If the pamphlet cannot be published quickly, then insert a notice in the Left newspapers similar to the “publisher’s preface”.
I would very much ask you to send me (for my personal use) Kautsky’s pamphlet (on the Bolsheviks, the dictatorship, etc.) as soon as it appears.
Also, collect for me all Kautsky’s articles on the Bolsheviks (“Democracy and Dictatorship”, end of 1917 or beginning of 1918; then the articles from *Soz[ialistische] Auslandspol[itik]* of August 1918, and any other articles if there were any.
Best greetings,
Lenin.