Kautsky reasons as follows:

(1) "The exploiters have always constituted only a small minority of the population" (p. 14 of Kautsky's pamphlet).

This is an undeniable truth. How should one reason, proceeding from this truth? One can reason in a Marxist way, socialistically; then one must take as the basis the relationship of the exploited to the exploiters. One can reason in a liberal way, in a bourgeois-democratic way; then one must take as the basis the relationship of the majority to the minority.

If one reasons in a Marxist way, one must conclude: the exploiters inevitably transform the state (and we are speaking of democracy, that is, of one of the forms of state) into an instrument of the rule of their own class, the class of exploiters, over the exploited. Therefore, even a democratic state, so long as exploiters exist who rule over the majority of the exploited, will inevitably be a democracy for the exploiters. The state of the exploited must differ fundamentally from such a state; it must be a democracy for the exploited and the suppression of the exploiters, and the suppression of a class means the inequality of that class, its exclusion from "democracy."

If one reasons in a liberal way, one must conclude: the majority decides, the minority obeys. Those who do not obey are punished. That is all. There is no point in discussing the class character of the state at all, or of "pure democracy" in particular; it is irrelevant to the matter, for a majority is a majority and a minority is a minority. A pound of meat is a pound of meat, and that's that.

Kautsky reasons in precisely this way:

(2) "For what reasons would the rule of the proletariat have to adopt and necessarily adopt a form incompatible with democracy?" (p. 21). There follows an explanation that the proletariat has the majority on its side—a very detailed and very verbose explanation, complete with a quotation from Marx and with figures of votes cast in the Paris Commune. The conclusion: "A regime which is so firmly rooted in the masses has not the slightest reason to encroach upon democracy. It will not always be able to do without violence, in those cases where violence is employed in order to suppress democracy. Violence can only be answered with violence. But a regime which knows that the masses are behind it will apply violence only in order to safeguard democracy, and not in order to destroy it. It would be committing sheer suicide if it wanted to eliminate its most reliable foundation, universal suffrage, the profound source of its mighty moral authority" (p. 22).

You see: the relationship of the exploited to the exploiters has disappeared from Kautsky's argumentation. What remains is only the majority in general, the minority in general, democracy in general—the familiar "pure democracy" we have already encountered.

Note that this is said in connection with the Paris Commune! Let us, for the sake of clarity, recall how Marx and Engels spoke of dictatorship in connection with the Commune:

Marx: "…If the workers put their revolutionary dictatorship in place of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie…in order to break the resistance of the bourgeoisie…the workers give the state a revolutionary and transitory form…"{114}

Engels: "…The 'victorious' (in revolution) 'party is of necessity forced to maintain its rule by means of that fear which its weapons inspire in the reactionaries. If the Paris Commune had not relied upon the authority of the armed people against the bourgeoisie, would it have lasted even a single day? Are we not rather entitled to reproach the Commune for making too little use of this authority?.."{115}

He also: "…Since the state is merely a transitory institution which one is obliged to use in the struggle, in the revolution, in order to crush one's opponents by force, it is pure nonsense to speak of a 'free people's state': so long as the proletariat still needs the state, it needs it not in the interest of freedom but in the interest of crushing its opponents; and as soon as it becomes possible to speak of freedom, the state, as such, ceases to exist…"{116}

The distance between Kautsky and Marx and Engels is as great as the distance between heaven and earth, as between a liberal and a proletarian revolutionary. The "pure democracy" and simply "democracy" of which Kautsky speaks is merely a restatement of the same "free people's state"—that is, pure nonsense. Kautsky, with the erudition of the most learned cabinet fool or with the innocence of a ten-year-old girl, asks: why would dictatorship be needed if there is a majority? But Marx and Engels explain:

– – In order to break the resistance of the bourgeoisie, – – in order to inspire fear in the reactionaries, – – in order to maintain the authority of the armed people against the bourgeoisie, – – in order that the proletariat might violently suppress its opponents.

Kautsky does not understand these explanations. Enamored with the "purity" of democracy, blind to its bourgeois character, he "consistently" maintains that the majority, by virtue of being the majority, has no need to "break the resistance" of the minority, no need to "violently suppress" it—it is enough to suppress violations of democracy. Enamored with the "purity" of democracy, Kautsky inadvertently commits that very small error which all bourgeois democrats always commit—namely, he takes formal equality (thoroughly false and hypocritical under capitalism) for actual equality! A trifle!

An exploiter cannot be equal to an exploited person.

This truth, however disagreeable it may be to Kautsky, constitutes the most essential content of socialism.

Another truth: genuine, actual equality cannot exist so long as the possibility of the exploitation of one class by another has not been utterly destroyed.

Exploiters can be defeated at once, in a successful uprising in the center or a mutiny in the army. But, with rare and exceptional cases excluded, exploiters cannot be destroyed all at once. It is impossible to expropriate all the landowners and capitalists of any substantial country at once. Furthermore, expropriation itself, as a juridical or political act, is far from decisive, for one must actually displace the landowners and capitalists, must actually replace them with workers' management of the factories and estates. There cannot be equality between the exploiters, who for long generations have been singled out by education, the conditions of a wealthy life, and skills—and the exploited, the vast majority of whom, even in the most advanced and most democratic bourgeois republics, are beaten down, ignorant, benighted, frightened, and scattered. For a long time after the overturn, the exploiters inevitably retain a series of enormous practical advantages: they still have money (money cannot be destroyed at once), some movable property, often considerable, they retain connections, organizational and administrative skills, knowledge of all the "secrets" (customs, methods, means, possibilities) of administration, they retain a higher level of education, proximity to the technically superior (bourgeois in their way of life and thinking) personnel, they retain immeasurably greater military skills (this is very important), and so on and so forth.

If the exploiters are defeated in only one country—and this is, of course, the typical case, for simultaneous revolution in a number of countries is a rare exception—they nevertheless remain stronger than the exploited, for the international connections of the exploiters are enormous. That a section of the exploited from the least developed middle-peasant, artisan, and similar masses goes and is capable of going with the exploiters—this has been demonstrated by all revolutions thus far, the Commune included (for among the Versaillais forces, which the most learned Kautsky "forgot" about, there were proletarians as well).

In such a state of affairs, to assume that in any revolution of some depth and seriousness the matter is decided simply and solely by the relationship of the majority to the minority is the greatest stupidity, is the most stupid prejudice of a commonplace liberal, is a deception of the masses, a concealment from them of an obvious historical truth. This historical truth consists in the fact that the rule is that in every deep revolution the exploiters put up long, stubborn, desperate resistance, retaining for a number of years major practical advantages over the exploited. Never—except in the sweet fantasy of the sweet fool Kautsky—will the exploiters submit to the decision of the majority of the exploited without testing their advantage in a final, desperate battle, in a series of battles.

The transition from capitalism to communism is an entire historical epoch. So long as it has not been completed, the exploiters inevitably retain hope for restoration, and this hope transforms itself into restoration attempts. And after their first serious defeat, the overthrown exploiters, who did not expect their overthrow, did not believe in it, did not admit the thought of it, with tenfold energy, with frenzied passion, with hatred increased a hundredfold, throw themselves into battle to regain their lost "paradise," for their families, who lived so sweetly and who are now condemned by the "common rabble" to ruin and poverty (or to "ordinary" labor…). And behind the exploiting capitalists is dragged a wide mass of petty bourgeoisie, concerning which decades of historical experience in all countries testify that it wavers and vacillates, today following the proletariat, tomorrow frightened by the difficulties of the overturn, falling into panic at the first defeat or semi-defeat of the workers, becoming nervous, rushing about, whimpering, crossing from camp to camp…as our Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries do.

And in such a state of affairs, in an epoch of desperate, intensified war, when history places on the agenda questions of the being or non-being of age-old and thousand-year-old privileges—to talk of majority and minority, of pure democracy, of the superfluousness of dictatorship, of the equality of exploiter with exploited!! What an abyss of stupidity, what a gulf of philistinism is needed for this!

But the decades of relatively "peaceful" capitalism, 1871–1914, accumulated in the socialist parties adapting themselves to opportunism the Augean stables of philistinism, narrow-mindedness, renegacy…

The reader has probably noticed that Kautsky in the citation cited above from his book speaks of an encroachment upon universal suffrage (calling it—let it be noted in parentheses—a profound source of mighty moral authority, whereas Engels, concerning that same Paris Commune and the same question of dictatorship, speaks of the authority of the armed people against the bourgeoisie; it is characteristic to compare the view of the philistine and the revolutionary on "authority"…).

It should be noted that the question of depriving the exploiters of the suffrage is a purely Russian question, not a question about the dictatorship of the proletariat in general. If Kautsky, without hypocrisy, had entitled his pamphlet: "Against the Bolsheviks," then this title would have corresponded to the content of the pamphlet and then Kautsky would have had the right to speak directly about suffrage. But Kautsky wished first of all to appear as a "theorist." He entitled his pamphlet: "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat" in general. He speaks of Soviets and Russia specifically only in the second part of the pamphlet, beginning with its 6th paragraph. In the first part (from which I have taken the citation), the discussion concerns democracy and dictatorship in general. By speaking of suffrage, Kautsky exposed himself as a polemicist against the Bolsheviks, a theorist not worth a kopeck. For theory, that is, discussion of general (not nationally-specific) class bases of democracy and dictatorship, must speak not of a special question, like the suffrage, but of the general question: can democracy be preserved for both the rich and the exploiters during the historical period of the overthrow of the exploiters and the replacement of their state with a state of the exploited?

This is the way, and the only way, a theorist can pose the question.

We know the example of the Commune, we know all the arguments of the founders of Marxism in connection with it and concerning it. On the basis of this material I examined, for example, the question of democracy and dictatorship in my pamphlet "The State and Revolution," written before the October overturn. I did not say a word about the restriction of suffrage. And now it must be said that the question of the restriction of suffrage is a nationally-specific question, not a general question of dictatorship. The question of the restriction of suffrage must be approached by studying the special conditions of the Russian revolution, the special path of its development. This will be done in the further exposition. But it would be an error to vouch in advance that future proletarian revolutions in Europe will necessarily give, all or most of them, the restriction of suffrage for the bourgeoisie. This may be so. After the war and after the experience of the Russian revolution, it will probably be so, but it is not necessary for the realization of dictatorship, it does not constitute a necessary characteristic of the logical concept of dictatorship, it does not enter as a necessary condition into the historical and class concept of dictatorship.

The necessary characteristic, the obligatory condition of dictatorship, is the violent suppression of the exploiters as a class and, consequently, the violation of "pure democracy," that is, equality and freedom, with respect to this class.

This is the way, and the only way, the question can be posed theoretically. And Kautsky, by the fact that he did not pose the question in this way, proved that he is acting against the Bolsheviks not as a theorist but as a sycophant of opportunists and the bourgeoisie.

In what countries, under what national peculiarities of this or that capitalism, there will be applied (exclusively or predominantly) this or that restriction, this or that violation of democracy for the exploiters—this is a question of the national peculiarities of this or that capitalism, of this or that revolution. The theoretical question stands otherwise; it stands thus: is dictatorship of the proletariat possible without a violation of democracy with respect to the class of exploiters?

Kautsky precisely evaded this, theoretically the only important and essential question. Kautsky cited all sorts of quotations from Marx and Engels, except those that relate to this question and which I have cited above.

Kautsky spoke about everything whatsoever, about everything acceptable to liberals and bourgeois democrats, about everything that does not go beyond their circle of ideas—except the main point, except that the proletariat cannot win without breaking the resistance of the bourgeoisie, without violently suppressing its opponents, and that where there is "violent suppression," where there is no "freedom," there is of course no democracy.

This Kautsky did not understand.

Let us now turn to the experience of the Russian revolution and to that divergence between the Soviets and the Constituent Assembly, which (divergence) led to the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly and to the deprivation of the bourgeoisie of the suffrage.