Lenin Internet Archive

A few numbers of the Berlin Red Banner and the Vienna Call (Weckruf) , organ of the Communist Party of German Austria,
that have reached Moscow, showed that the traitors to socialism
— those who supported the war of the predatory imperialists
— the Scheidemanns and Kautskys, Austerlitzes and Renners
[All who were far right German Social-Democrats] — are getting the rebuff they
deserve from these genuine representatives of the revolutionary
workers of Germany and Austria. We extend warm greetings to
both papers, which epitomise the vitality and growth of the
Third International.

Apparently the chief question of the revolution both in Germany
and Austria now is: Constituent Assembly or Soviet government?
The spokesmen of the bankrupt Second International, all the way
from Scheidemann to Kautsky, stand for the first and describe
their stand as defense of "democracy" (Kautsky has even gone so
far as to call it "pure democracy") as distinct from dictatorship. In the pamphlet The Proletarian Revolution and Renegade Kautsky , which has just come off the press in
Moscow and Petrograd, I examine Kautsky's views in detail. I
shall try briefly to give the substance of the point at issue,
which has become the question of the day for all the advanced
capitalist countries.

The Scheidemanns and Kautsky's speak about "pure democracy" and
"democracy" in general for the purpose of deceiving the people
and concealing from them the bourgeois character of present-day democracy. Let the bourgeoisie continue
to keep the entire apparatus of state power in their hands, let
a handful of exploiters continue to use the former, bourgeois,
state machine! Elections held in such circumstances are lauded
by the bourgeoisie, for very good reasons, as being "free",
"equal", "democratic" and "universal". These words are designed
to conceal the truth, to conceal the fact that the means of
production and political power remain in the hands of the
exploiters, and that therefore real freedom and real equality
for the exploited, that is, for the vast majority of the
population, are out of the question. It is profitable and
indispensable for the bourgeoisie to conceal from the people the
bourgeois character of modern democracy, to picture it as democracy in general or "pure democracy", and the
Scheidemanns and Kautskys, repeating this, in practice abandon the standpoint of the proletariat and side with
the bourgeoisie.

Marx and Engels in their last joint preface to the Communist
Manifesto ( in 1872 ) [A] considered it necessary to specifically
warn the workers that the proletariat cannot simply lay hold of
the ready-made (that is, the bourgeois) state machine and wield
it for their own purpose, but that they must smash it, break it
up. The renegade Kautsky, who has written a special pamphlet
entitled dictatorship of the proletariat, concealed from the workers this most important Marxist truth, utterly
distorted Marxism, and, quite obviously, the praise which
Scheidemann and Co. showered on the pamphlet was fully merited
as praise by agents of the bourgeoisie for one switching to the
side of the bourgeoisie.

It is sheer mockery of the working and exploited people to speak
of pure democracy, of democracy in general, of equality, freedom
and universal rights when the workers and all working people are
ill-fed, ill-clad, ruined and worn out, not only as a result of
capitalist wage slavery, but as a consequence of four years of
predatory war, while the capitalists and profiteers remain in
possession of the "property" usurped by them and the "ready-made" apparatus of state power. This is tantamount to
trampling on the basic truths of Marxism which has taught the
workers: you must take advantage of bourgeois democracy which,
compared with feudalism, represents a great historical advance,
but not for one minute must you forget the bourgeois character
of this "democracy", it's historical conditional and limited
character. Never share the "superstitious belief" in the
"state" and never forget that the state even in the most
democratic republic, and not only in a monarchy, is simply a
machine for the suppression of one class by another.

The bourgeoisie are compelled to be hypocritical and to describe
as "popular government", democracy in general, or pure democracy, the ( bourgeois ) democratic republic which
is, in practice, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the
dictatorship of the exploiters over the working people. The
Scheidemanns and Kautskys, the Austerlitzes and Renners (and
now, to our regret, with the help of Friedrich Adler) fall in
line with this falsehood and hypocrisy. But Marxists, Communists, expose this hypocrisy, and tell the workers and the
working people in general this frank and straightforward truth:
the democratic republic, the Constituent Assembly, general
elections, etc., are, in practice, the dictatorship of the
bourgeoisie, and for the emancipation of labor from the yoke of
capital there is no other way but to replace this dictatorship
with the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The dictatorship of the proletariat alone can emancipate
humanity from the oppression of capital, from the lies,
falsehood and hypocrisy of bourgeois democracy — democracy
for the rich — and establish democracy for the poor, that is, make the blessings of democracy really accessible to the workers and poor peasants,
whereas now (even in the most democratic — bourgeois — republic) the blessings of democracy are, in fact, inaccessible to the vast majority of working people.

Take, for example, freedom of assembly and freedom of the press.
The Scheidemanns and Kautskys, the Austerlitzes and Renners
assure the workers that the present elections to the Constituent
Assembly in Germany and Austria are "democratic". That is a
lie. In practice the capitalists, the exploiters, the landowners and the profiteers own 9/10 of the best meeting
halls, and 9/10 of the stocks of newsprint, printing presses,
etc.. The urban workers and the farm hands and day laborers
are, in practice, debarred from democracy by the "sacred right of property" (guarded by the Kautskys and Renners,
and now, to our regret, by Friedrich Adler as well) and by the
bourgeois state apparatus, that is, bourgeois officials,
bourgeois judges, and so on. The present "freedom of assembly
and the press" in the "democratic" (bourgeois democratic) German
republic is false and hypocritical, because in fact it is freedom for the rich to buy and bribe the
press, freedom for the rich to befuddle the people with venomous lies of the bourgeois press, freedom for the rich to keep as their "property" the landowners' mansions,
the best buildings, etc.. The dictatorship of the proletariat
will take from the capitalists and hand over to the working people the landowners' mansions, the best buildings,
printing presses and the stocks of newsprint.

But this means replacing "universal", "pure" democracy by the
"dictatorship of one class", scream the Scheidemanns and
Kautskys, the Austerlitzes and Renners (together with their
followers in other countries — the Gomperses, Hendersons,
Renaudels, Vandervelde and Co.).

Wrong, we reply. This means replacing what in fact is the
dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (a dictatorship hypocritically
cloaked in the forms of the democratic bourgeois republic) by
the dictatorship of the proletariat. This means replacing
democracy for the rich by democracy for the poor. This means
replacing freedom of assembly and the press for the minority,
for the exploiters, by freedom of assembly and the press for the
majority of the population, for the working people.
This means a gigantic, world historic extension of democracy, its transformation from falsehood into truth, the
liberation of humanity from the shackles of capital, which distorts and truncates any, even the most "democratic" and
republican, bourgeois democracy. This means replacing the bourgeois state with the proletarian
state, a replacement that is the sole way the state can
eventually wither away altogether.

But why not reach this goal without the dictatorship of one
class? Why not switch directly to "pure" democracy? So ask the
hypocritical friends of the bourgeoisie for the naive petty-bourgeois and philistines gulled by them.

And we reply: Because in any capitalist society the powerful
tell lies to either the bourgeoisie or the proletariat, while
the small proprietors, inevitably, remain wavering, helpless,
stupid dreamers of "pure", i.e., nonclass or above class,
democracy. Because from a society in which one class opposes
another there is no way out other than through the dictatorship
of the oppressed class. Because the proletariat alone is
capable of defeating the bourgeoisie, of overthrowing them,
being the sole class which capitalism has united and "schooled",
and which is capable of drawing to its side the wavering mass of
the working population with a petty-bourgeois way of life, of
drawing them to its side or at least "neutralizing" them.
Because only mealy-mouthed petty-bourgeois and philistines can
dream — deceiving thereby both themselves and the workers
— of overthrowing capitalist oppression without a long and
difficult process of suppressing the resistance of the exploiters. In Germany and Austria this resistance is not
yet very pronounced because expropriation of the expropriators
has not yet begun. But once expropriation begins the resistance
will be fierce and desperate. In concealing this from themselves and from the workers, the Scheidemanns and Kautskys,
the Austerlitzes and Renners betray the interests of the
proletariat, switching at the most decisive moment from the
class struggle and overthrow of the yoke of the bourgeoisie to
getting the proletariat to come to terms with the bourgeoisie,
achieving "social peace" or reconciliation of exploited and
exploiters.

Revolutions are the locomotives of history, said Marx . Revolutions teach quickly. The urban workers and
farm hands in Germany and Austria will quickly discern the
betrayal of the cause of socialism by the the Scheidemanns and
Kautskys, the Austerlitzes and Renners. The proletariat will
cast aside these "social traitors" — Socialists in word and
betrayers of socialism in practice — as it did in Russia
with the same kind of petty-bourgeois and philistines — the
Mensheviks and " Socialist Revolutionaries ". The more complete the
domination of the above minded "leaders", the quicker the
proletariat will see that only the replacement of the bourgeois
state, be it the most democratic bourgeois republic, by a state
of the type of the Paris Commune (about which so much was said by Marx, who has been
distorted and betrayed by the Scheidemanns and Kautskys) or by a
state of the Soviet type, can open the way to socialism. The dictatorship of the
proletariat will deliver humanity from capitalist oppression and
war.

Moscow, December 23, 1918

[A]
The last joint preface to the Communist Manifesto written by
Marx and Engels was the Russian Edition of 1882 .