The fundamental question raised by Kautsky in his pamphlet concerns the essential content of the proletarian revolution, namely, the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is a question of paramount importance for all countries, especially for the advanced ones, especially for those at war, especially at the present time. One can say without exaggeration that this is the most important question of all proletarian class struggle. Therefore, it is necessary to examine it carefully.

Kautsky poses the question in such a way that "the opposition between both socialist directions" (that is, the Bolsheviks and the non-Bolsheviks) is "the opposition between two fundamentally different methods: the democratic and the dictatorial" (p. 3).

Let us note in passing that, by calling the non-Bolsheviks in Russia – that is, the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries – socialists, Kautsky is guided by their name, that is, by a word, and not by the actual position they occupy in the struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. A splendid understanding and application of Marxism! But more on this below.

For now, we must seize upon the main point: Kautsky's great discovery of the "fundamental opposition" between "democratic and dictatorial methods." Here lies the crux of the question. This is the entire substance of Kautsky's pamphlet. And this is such a monstrous theoretical confusion, such a complete renunciation of Marxism, that Kautsky, it must be acknowledged, has far outstripped Bernstein.

The question of the dictatorship of the proletariat is a question concerning the relationship of the proletarian state to the bourgeois state, of proletarian democracy to bourgeois democracy. This would seem as clear as day! But Kautsky, like some dried-up gymnasium teacher, ossified in his repetition of history textbooks, stubbornly turns his back to the twentieth century and his face to the eighteenth, and, for the hundredth time, incredibly tediously, through an entire series of paragraphs, chews and rechews the old stuff about the relationship of bourgeois democracy to absolutism and the Middle Ages!

Truly, as if chewing on a dishrag in a dream!

For this signifies a complete failure to understand what is what. For only laughter can be provoked by Kautsky's attempts to represent matters as if there are people preaching "contempt for democracy" (p. 11) and so forth. With such trifles, Kautsky must muddy and confuse the question, since he poses the question in a liberal manner – about democracy in general, not about bourgeois democracy. He even avoids this precise, class concept, and tries to speak of "pre-socialist" democracy. Almost a third of the pamphlet – twenty pages out of sixty-three – is taken up by our splasher's drivel, which is most pleasant for the bourgeoisie, since it amounts to a whitewashing of bourgeois democracy and obscures the question of the proletarian revolution.

But the very title of Kautsky's pamphlet is, after all, "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat." That this is the essence of Marx's teaching is universally known. And Kautsky was forced, after all his off-topic chatter, to cite Marx's words on the dictatorship of the proletariat.

How this "Marxist" Kautsky accomplished this – now that is sheer comedy! Listen:

"On one word of Karl Marx rests that view" (which Kautsky declares to be contempt for democracy) – this is stated literally on p. 20. And on p. 60, this is even repeated in such a form that (the Bolsheviks) "remembered in time the little word" (literally so!! des Wörtchens) "about the dictatorship of the proletariat, used by Marx once in 1875 in a letter."

Here is this "little word" of Marx:

"Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of revolutionary transformation of the former into the latter. To this period corresponds also a political transition period, and the state of this period cannot be anything other than the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat"{100}.

First, to call this famous reasoning of Marx, which sums up his entire revolutionary doctrine, "one word" or even a "little word" – means to mock Marxism, means to renounce it completely. One cannot forget that Kautsky knows Marx almost by heart, and that, judging by all of Kautsky's writings, he has a whole row of wooden boxes in his desk or in his head, in which everything written by Marx is distributed in the most orderly and most convenient manner for citation. Kautsky cannot help but know that both Marx and Engels spoke of the dictatorship of the proletariat many times, both in letters and in published works, before and especially after the Commune. Kautsky cannot help but know that the formula "dictatorship of the proletariat" is merely a more historically concrete and scientifically precise statement of the task of the proletariat to "smash" the bourgeois state machine, about which both Marx and Engels, taking into account the experience of the revolutions of 1848 and especially 1871, spoke from 1852 to 1891, over the course of forty years.

How can one explain this monstrous distortion of Marxism by the scriptural pedant in Marxism, Kautsky? If one speaks of the philosophical foundations of this phenomenon, the matter will reduce itself to the substitution of dialectics by eclecticism and sophistry. Kautsky is a great master of such substitution. If one speaks practically and politically, the matter will reduce itself to lackey service before opportunists, that is, ultimately, before the bourgeoisie. Since the beginning of the war, progressing ever more rapidly, Kautsky has reached virtuosity in this art of being a Marxist in words and a lackey of the bourgeoisie in deed.

One is even more convinced of this when one examines how remarkably Kautsky "interpreted" Marx's "little word" about the dictatorship of the proletariat. Listen:

"Marx, unfortunately, failed to indicate in greater detail how he imagined this dictatorship..." (A downright mendacious phrase from the renegade, since Marx and Engels gave precisely a series of most detailed indications, which the scriptural pedant in Marxism, Kautsky, deliberately bypasses.) "...Literally, the word dictatorship means the destruction of democracy. But, of course, taken literally, this word also means the sole rule of one individual person, not bound by any laws. Sole rule, which differs from despotism in that it is thought of not as a permanent state institution, but as a transitory measure of extreme necessity.

The expression 'dictatorship of the proletariat,' consequently, not the dictatorship of one person, but of one class, already excludes that Marx had in mind dictatorship in the literal sense of the word.

He was speaking here not of the form of government, but of a state, which by necessity must come about everywhere that the proletariat has conquered political power. That Marx did not have in mind a form of government is proved already by the fact that he held the view that in England and America the transition could occur peacefully, consequently, by the democratic path" (p. 20).

We deliberately cited this entire reasoning in full so that the reader could clearly see what methods this "theoretician" Kautsky employs.

Kautsky wished to approach the question in such a way as to begin with a definition of the "word" dictatorship.

Excellent. To approach a question in any way one chooses is the sacred right of anyone. One need only distinguish between a serious and honest approach to a question and a dishonest one. Whoever wanted to approach the matter seriously in this manner would have to give his own definition of the "word." Then the question would be posed clearly and straightforwardly. Kautsky does not do this. "Literally," he writes, "the word dictatorship means the destruction of democracy."

First, this is not a definition. If Kautsky wishes to evade giving a definition to the concept of dictatorship, why choose this approach to the question at all?

Second, this is patently false. It is natural for a liberal to speak of "democracy" in general. A Marxist will never forget to pose the question: "for which class?" Everyone knows, for instance – and "historian" Kautsky knows this as well – that slave uprisings or even strong ferment among slaves in antiquity immediately revealed the essence of the ancient state as the dictatorship of the slaveholders. Did this dictatorship destroy democracy among the slaveholders, for them? Everyone knows it did not.

"Marxist" Kautsky has uttered a monstrous absurdity and falsehood, because he "forgot" about class struggle...

To transform Kautsky's liberal and false assertion into a Marxist and true one, one must say: dictatorship does not necessarily mean the destruction of democracy for the class that exercises this dictatorship over other classes, but it necessarily means the destruction (or essential limitation, which is also one form of destruction) of democracy for the class over which or against which the dictatorship is exercised.

But, true as this assertion may be, it does not provide a definition of dictatorship.

Let us examine the next phrase of Kautsky:

"...But, of course, taken literally, this word also means the sole rule of one individual person, not bound by any laws..."

Like a blind puppy that happens to poke its nose now in one direction, now in another, Kautsky accidentally stumbled here upon one correct thought (namely, that dictatorship is power not bound by any laws), but he still gave no definition of dictatorship and moreover uttered a clear historical falsehood, as if dictatorship means the rule of one person. This is even grammatically incorrect, since dictatorship can be exercised by a handful of people, by an oligarchy, by one class, and so forth.

Kautsky further indicates the distinction between dictatorship and despotism, but although his indication is patently false, we shall not dwell on it, for it is entirely irrelevant to the question that interests us. The tendency of Kautsky to turn from the twentieth century toward the eighteenth, and from the eighteenth toward ancient times, is well known, and we trust that, having achieved the dictatorship, the German proletariat will take this tendency into account by seating, say, Kautsky as a gymnasium teacher of ancient history. To evade a definition of the dictatorship of the proletariat through musings about despotism is either the height of stupidity or a most unskillful swindle.

As a result, we find that, having undertaken to speak of dictatorship, Kautsky said much deliberate falsehood, but gave no definition at all! He could, without relying on his mental capacities, resort to his memory and pull out of his "boxes" all the instances in which Marx speaks of dictatorship. He would have obtained, without doubt, either the following definition or one essentially coinciding with it:

Dictatorship is power based directly on violence, not bound by any laws.

Revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is power conquered and maintained by the violence of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie, power not bound by any laws.

And this very simple truth, a truth as clear as daylight for every conscious worker (a representative of the masses, not of the upper layer of petty-bourgeois scum bribed by capitalists, such as are the social-imperialists of all countries), this truth obvious to any representative of the exploited, struggling for their liberation, this indisputable truth for any Marxist – we are forced to "fight for it tooth and nail" against the most learned Mr. Kautsky! How is this to be explained? By that spirit of lackey service with which the leaders of the Second International have become saturated, having become contemptible sycophants in the service of the bourgeoisie.

First, Kautsky committed a sleight of hand, declaring an obvious absurdity to the effect that the literal meaning of the word dictatorship means a sole dictator, and then – on the basis of this sleight of hand! – he declares that in Marx's words about the dictatorship of a class, consequently, have not a literal meaning (but such a meaning in which dictatorship does not mean revolutionary violence, but "peaceful" conquest of the majority under bourgeois – note this – "democracy").

One must distinguish, you see, "state" from "form of government." A remarkably profound distinction, rather as if we were to distinguish the "state" of stupidity in a person reasoning foolishly from the "form" of his foolishness.

Kautsky needs to interpret dictatorship as a "state of dominion" (this expression is used literally by him on the very next, twenty-first, page), because then revolutionary violence disappears, violent revolution disappears. "State of dominion" is a state in which any majority exists under..."democracy"! By such a swindling trick the revolution conveniently vanishes!

But the swindle is too crude, and it will not save Kautsky. That dictatorship presupposes and means a "state" of unpleasant revolutionary violence of one class over another – "you can't hide an awl in a sack." The absurdity of distinguishing "state" and "form of government" comes to the surface. To speak of a form of government here is triply stupid, for every boy knows that monarchy and republic are different forms of government. Mr. Kautsky needs to be shown that both these forms of government, like all transitional "forms of government" under capitalism, are merely varieties of the bourgeois state, that is, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

To speak of forms of government, finally, is not only stupid but also a clumsy falsification of Marx, who speaks with perfect clarity here of the form or type of state, not of a form of government.

The proletarian revolution is impossible without violent destruction of the bourgeois state machine and its replacement with a new one which, according to Engels, "is no longer a state in the proper sense of the word"{101}.

Kautsky needs to gloss over and lie about all this – his renegade position requires it.

Look at what pitiful evasions he resorts to.

First evasion. "...That Marx did not have in mind a form of government is proved by the fact that he considered a peaceful transformation possible in England and America, that is, by the democratic path..."

A form of government is entirely beside the point here, for there are monarchies not typical of the bourgeois state – for example, distinguished by the absence of a military-bureaucratic apparatus – and there are republics fully typical of it – for example, with a military-bureaucratic apparatus and bureaucracy. This is a universally known historical and political fact, and Kautsky will not succeed in falsifying it.

If Kautsky wanted to reason seriously and honestly, he would ask himself: are there historical laws concerning revolution that know no exceptions? The answer would be: no, there are no such laws. Such laws have in view only the typical, that which Marx once called "ideal" in the sense of average, normal, typical capitalism.

Further. Was there something in the 1870s that made England and America exceptions in the matter under consideration? To anyone even somewhat acquainted with the demands of science in the sphere of historical questions, it is obvious that this question must be posed. Not to pose it means to falsify science, to engage in sophistry. But having posed this question, one cannot doubt the answer: revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is violence against the bourgeoisie; the necessity of this violence is caused, as Marx and Engels explained in the most thorough manner and many times (especially in "The Civil War in France" and in its preface), precisely by the existence of the military-bureaucratic apparatus and bureaucracy. It was precisely these institutions, precisely in England and America, precisely in the 1870s of the nineteenth century, when Marx made his remark, that did not exist! (Now they exist in England and America as well.)

Kautsky is forced literally to swindle at every step to cover up his renegacy!

And note how he accidentally showed his donkey ears: he wrote: "peacefully, that is, by the democratic path"!!

In defining dictatorship, Kautsky tried with all his might to hide from the reader the principal feature of this concept, namely: revolutionary violence. But now the truth has peeped out: the question concerns the opposition between peaceful and violent transformation.

Here the dog is buried. All the evasions, sophisms, swindling falsifications are necessary to Kautsky precisely in order to get out of discussing violent revolution, to cover up his renunciation of it, his transition to the side of liberal labor policy, that is, to the side of the bourgeoisie. Here the dog is buried.

This "historian" Kautsky falsifies history so shamelessly that he "forgets" the fundamental fact: pre-monopolistic capitalism – and its apogee was precisely the 1870s of the nineteenth century – distinguished itself, by virtue of its economic fundamental properties, which manifested themselves especially typically in England and America, by the greatest comparative peacefulness and love of freedom. Whereas imperialism, that is, monopolistic capitalism, fully matured only in the twentieth century, is distinguished by its economic fundamental properties by the least peacefulness and love of freedom, by the greatest and universal development of military-bureaucratic apparatus. To "fail to notice" this when discussing how typical or probable a peaceful or violent transformation is means to descend to the level of the most ordinary lackey of the bourgeoisie.

Second evasion. The Paris Commune was a dictatorship of the proletariat, and it was elected by universal suffrage, that is, without depriving the bourgeoisie of their voting rights, that is, "democratically." And Kautsky triumphs: "...The dictatorship of the proletariat was, for Marx" (or: according to Marx), "a state that necessarily flows from pure democracy, if the proletariat constitutes the majority" (bei überwiegendem Proletariat, p. 21).

This argument of Kautsky is so amusing that, truly, one experiences an actual embarras de richesses (embarrassment of riches... in counterarguments). First, it is known that the flower, the headquarters, the upper ranks of the bourgeoisie fled from Paris to Versailles. In Versailles was the "socialist" Louis Blanc, which, incidentally, shows the falsity of Kautsky's assertion that all directions of socialism participated in the Commune. Is it not ridiculous to depict as "pure democracy" with "universal suffrage" the division of Parisians into two warring camps, one of which concentrated all the fighting, politically active bourgeoisie?

Second, the Commune struggled against Versailles as a workers' government of France against the bourgeois government. What have "pure democracy" and "universal suffrage" to do with it, when Paris decided the fate of France? When Marx found that the Commune made a mistake in not seizing the bank, which belonged to all of France{102}, was Marx not proceeding from the principles and practice of "pure democracy"??

Really, it is evident that Kautsky writes in a country where the police forbid people from laughing "in a bunch," otherwise Kautsky would be killed by laughter.

Third. Allow me to respectfully remind Mr. Kautsky, who knows Marx and Engels by heart, of the following evaluation of the Commune by Engels from the perspective of..."pure democracy":

"Have these gentlemen" (the anti-authoritarians) "ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritative thing there is. Revolution is an act in which one section of the population imposes its will on another section by means of rifles, bayonets, and cannon – means, that is to say, of a very authoritarian character. And if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionaries. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day without this authority of the armed people against the bourgeoisie? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?"{103}

There you have "pure democracy"! How Engels would have mocked that commonplace philistine, "social-democrat" (in the French sense of the 1840s and in the pan-European sense of 1914–1918), who would dare to speak generally of "pure democracy" in a society divided into classes!

But enough. To enumerate all the individual absurdities to which Kautsky descends is an impossible task, for there is a bottomless abyss of renegacy in his every sentence.

Marx and Engels analyzed the Paris Commune in the most thorough manner, showing that its merit consisted in the attempt to smash, to break, the "ready-made state machine"{104}. Marx and Engels considered this conclusion so important that they introduced only this correction to the "partly outdated" program of the "Communist Manifesto" in 1872{105}. Marx and Engels showed that the Commune destroyed the army and officialdom, destroyed parliamentarism, smashed the "parasitic growth – the state," and so on, while the wise Kautsky, donning a nightcap, repeats what liberal professors had said a thousand times – fairy tales about "pure democracy."

It was for good reason that Rosa Luxemburg said on August 4, 1914, that German social-democracy is now a stinking corpse.

Third evasion. "If we speak of dictatorship as a form of government, then we cannot speak of the dictatorship of a class. For a class, as we have already noted, can only rule but not govern...Governing is done by 'organizations' or 'parties.'"

You confuse, confuse shamelessly, dear "advisor of confusion"! Dictatorship is not a "form of government" – that is ridiculous nonsense. And Marx speaks not of a "form of government" but of a form or type of state. That is something entirely different, entirely different. It is also completely false that a class cannot govern: only a "parliamentary cretin," who sees nothing but the bourgeois parliament, who notices nothing but "ruling parties," could utter such nonsense. Any European country will show Kautsky examples of governance by its ruling class – for example, the landowners in the Middle Ages, despite their insufficient organization.

Conclusion: Kautsky has distorted in the most unprecedented manner the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat, transforming Marx into an ordinary liberal, that is, he himself descended to the level of a liberal, who utters banal phrases about "pure democracy," beautifying and obscuring the class content of bourgeois democracy, shunning above all revolutionary violence by the oppressed class against the oppressors. When Kautsky "interpreted" the concept of "revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat" in such a way that revolutionary violence by the oppressed class against the oppressors disappeared, then in the matter of liberal distortion of Marx a world record was set. The renegade Bernstein proved to be a puppy compared to the renegade Kautsky.