Date: 1918
Source: ru:PSS/v37

Source: CW vol 37

As has already been said, Kautsky's book should have been entitled – if the title were to correctly reflect the content – not "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat," but "A Rehash of Bourgeois Attacks on the Bolsheviks."

The old "theories" of the Mensheviks about the bourgeois character of the Russian revolution, i.e., the old distortion of Marxism by the Mensheviks (which Kautsky rejected in 1905!), are now being warmed up again by our theorist. We shall have to dwell on this question, however tedious it may be for Russian Marxists.

The Russian revolution is a bourgeois one – all the Marxists of Russia used to say before 1905. The Mensheviks, substituting liberalism for Marxism, deduced from this that the proletariat must not go further than what is acceptable to the bourgeoisie, that it must pursue a policy of agreement with the latter. The Bolsheviks said that this was a liberal-bourgeois theory. The bourgeoisie strives to carry out a transformation of the state in a bourgeois, reformist, and not revolutionary way, preserving, as far as possible, both the monarchy and the landownership of the nobility, etc. The proletariat must carry the bourgeois-democratic revolution to its conclusion, without allowing itself to be "tied down" by the reformism of the bourgeoisie. The class alignment of forces in the bourgeois revolution the Bolsheviks formulated as follows: the proletariat, by allying itself with the peasantry, neutralizes the liberal bourgeoisie and completely destroys the monarchy, medievalism, and the landownership of the nobility.

In the alliance of the proletariat with the peasantry, generally speaking, the bourgeois character of the revolution manifests itself, for the peasantry, generally speaking, consists of small producers standing on the ground of commodity production. Furthermore, the Bolsheviks added at the time, the proletariat, by allying itself with the entire semi-proletariat (all the exploited and toiling masses), neutralizes the middle peasantry and overthrows the bourgeoisie: this constitutes the socialist revolution, as distinct from the bourgeois-democratic one. (See my pamphlet of 1905: "Two Tactics"[21], reprinted in the collection: "Twelve Years," St. Petersburg, 1907.)

Kautsky took an indirect part in this controversy in 1905{138}, siding, in response to a request from the then Menshevik Plekhanov, in substance against Plekhanov, which at the time provoked special ridicule in the Bolshevik press. Now Kautsky does not so much as mention the controversies of those days (he is afraid of being exposed by his own statements!) and thereby deprives the German reader of any possibility of understanding the essence of the matter. Mr. Kautsky could not tell the German workers in 1918 how in 1905 he stood for an alliance of the workers with the peasants, and not with the liberal bourgeoisie, and under what conditions he defended this alliance, what program he projected for it.

Having retreated, Kautsky, under the guise of "economic analysis," with pompous phrases about "historical materialism," now defends the subordination of the workers to the bourgeoisie, chewing over, with the help of quotations from the Menshevik Maslov, the old liberal views of the Mensheviks; in this, quotations are used to prove the new idea of Russia's backwardness, and from this new idea, the old conclusion is drawn, to the effect that in a bourgeois revolution one must not go further than the bourgeoisie! And this – in spite of everything that Marx and Engels said, comparing the bourgeois revolution of 1789–1793 in France with the bourgeois revolution in Germany in 1848!{139}

Before proceeding to the main "argument" and the main content of Kautsky's "economic analysis," let us note that the very first sentences reveal a curious muddle or lack of thought on the part of the author:

"The economic basis of Russia," preaches our "theorist," "is still agriculture, and, moreover, small peasant production. It supports about 4/5, perhaps even 5/6, of the population" (p. 45). First, dear theorist, have you thought how many exploiters there can be among this mass of small producers? Certainly no more than 1/10 of their total number, and in the towns even fewer, for large-scale production is more developed there. Take even an incredibly high figure, and assume that 1/5 of the small producers are exploiters who lose the right to vote. Even then you will find that the 66% of the Bolsheviks at the Fifth Congress of Soviets represented the majority of the population. And to this must be added that among the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries there was always a considerable section in favor of Soviet power, i.e., in principle, all the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries were for Soviet power, and when a section of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries went into a putsch-adventure in July 1918, two new parties, the "People's Communists" and the "Revolutionary Communists"{140} (among the prominent Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, whom the old party had promoted to the most important state posts; for example, Zaks belongs to the former, and Koledaev to the latter) split off from their former party. Consequently, Kautsky himself inadvertently disproved the ridiculous fable that the Bolsheviks represent a minority of the population.

Second, dear theorist, have you thought about the fact that the small peasant producer inevitably wavers between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie? This Marxist truth, confirmed by the whole recent history of Europe, Kautsky "forgot" very conveniently, for it shatters to smithereens the whole Menshevik "theory" he repeats! If Kautsky had not "forgotten" this, he could not have denied the necessity of the proletarian dictatorship in a country where small peasant producers predominate. – – — Let us examine the main content of our theorist's "economic analysis."

That the Soviet power is a dictatorship, is beyond dispute, says Kautsky. "But is it the dictatorship of the proletariat?" (p. 34).

"According to the Soviet constitution, the peasants constitute the majority of the population entitled to participate in legislation and administration. What is presented to us as the dictatorship of the proletariat would, if carried through consistently, and if a single class, generally speaking, could directly exercise a dictatorship, which is only possible for a party, turn out to be the dictatorship of the peasantry" (p. 35).

And, extremely pleased with such a profound and witty argument, good Kautsky tries to be witty: "It seems as if the least painful realization of socialism would be assured if it were entrusted to the hands of the peasants" (p. 35).

In great detail, with a series of extremely learned quotations from the semi-liberal Maslov, our theorist proves the new idea of the peasants' interest in high grain prices, low wages for urban workers, etc. These new ideas, incidentally, are all the more boringly set forth because so little attention is paid to the really new phenomena of the post-war period, for example, that the peasants demand goods, not money, for grain, that the peasants lack implements which cannot be obtained in sufficient quantities for any amount of money. More on this later.

Thus, Kautsky accuses the Bolsheviks, the party of the proletariat, of having handed over the dictatorship, the task of carrying through socialism, to the petty-bourgeois peasantry. Excellent, Mr. Kautsky! What, in your enlightened opinion, should the relations of the proletarian party to the petty-bourgeois peasantry be like?

On this, our theorist preferred to keep silent, – probably remembering the saying: "speech is silver, silence is gold." But Kautsky gave himself away with the following argument:

"At the beginning of the Soviet Republic, the peasant Soviets were organizations of the peasantry in general. Now this republic proclaims that the Soviets are organizations of the proletariat and the poor peasants. The well-to-do lose their right to vote in the Soviets. The poor peasant is recognized here as a permanent and mass product of the socialist agrarian reform under the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'" (p. 48).

What a deadly irony! You can hear it in Russia from any bourgeois: they all gloat and laugh at the fact that the Soviet Republic openly admits the existence of the poorest peasants. They laugh at socialism. That is their right. But a "socialist" who laughs at the fact that after a devastating four-year war we still have – and will have for a long time – the poorest peasants, such a "socialist" could only be born in an atmosphere of mass renegacy.

Listen further:

After the most devastating four-year war, we are left with—and will be left for a long time—the poorest peasants; such a "socialist" could only be born in an atmosphere of mass renegadism.

Listen further:

"...The Soviet republic interferes in the relations between rich and poor peasants, but not through a new distribution of land. To eliminate the need for bread among the townspeople, armed workers' detachments are sent to the villages, which take surplus grain from the rich peasants. Part of this grain is given to the urban population, and another part to the poorest peasants" (p. 48).

Of course, the socialist and Marxist Kautsky is deeply outraged by the thought that such a measure could extend beyond the outskirts of large cities (and it extends throughout our country). The socialist and Marxist Kautsky instructively remarks, with incomparable, superb, delightful philistine calm (or stupidity): "...They (expropriations of well-to-do peasants) introduce a new element of unrest and civil war into the production process..." (a civil war introduced into the "production process" is something supernatural!) "...which urgently needs peace and security" (p. 49).

Yes, yes, regarding peace and security for the exploiters and grain speculators, who hide their surpluses, sabotage the law on grain monopoly, and bring the urban population to starvation—regarding this, the Marxist and socialist Kautsky, of course, should sigh and shed a tear. We are all socialists and Marxists and internationalists—shout in unison Messrs. Kautskys, Heinrichs Webers (Vienna), Longues (Paris), MacDonalds (London), etc.—we are all for the revolution of the working class, only... only so as not to disturb the peace and security of the grain speculators! And we cover this dirty servility to the capitalists with a "Marxist" reference to the "production process"... If this is Marxism, then what is called servility to the bourgeoisie?

Look at what our theoretician has come up with. He accuses the Bolsheviks of passing off the dictatorship of the peasantry as the dictatorship of the proletariat. And at the same time, he accuses us of bringing civil war to the countryside (which we consider our merit), of sending armed workers' detachments to the villages, who openly proclaim that they are implementing the "dictatorship of the proletariat and the poorest peasantry," helping the latter, expropriating surpluses of grain from speculators, rich peasants, which they hide in violation of the law on grain monopoly.

On one hand, our Marxist-theoretician stands for pure democracy, for the subordination of the revolutionary class, the leader of the workers and the exploited, to the majority of the population (including, therefore, the exploiters). On the other hand, he explains to us the inevitability of the bourgeois character of the revolution, bourgeois because the peasantry as a whole stands on the ground of bourgeois social relations, and at the same time claims to defend the proletarian, class, Marxist point of view!

Instead of "economic analysis," this is first-rate confusion and muddle. Instead of Marxism, these are fragments of liberal teachings and the preaching of servility to the bourgeoisie and the kulaks.

The question confused by Kautsky was fully clarified by the Bolsheviks back in 1905. Yes, our revolution is bourgeois as long as we go together with the peasantry as a whole. This we have been clearly aware of, said hundreds and thousands of times since 1905, and never tried to leap over or abolish by decree this necessary stage of the historical process. Kautsky's efforts to "expose" us on this point only expose the confusion of his views and his fear to recall what he wrote in 1905 when he was not yet a renegade.

But in 1917, from April, long before the October Revolution, before we took power, we openly said and explained to the people: the revolution cannot stop here now, for the country has moved forward, capitalism has advanced, and the unprecedented ruin, which demands (whether anyone wants it or not), demands steps forward, towards socialism. For otherwise, there is no way to move forward, to save the country torn by war, to alleviate the sufferings of the workers and the exploited.

It turned out exactly as we said. The course of the revolution confirmed the correctness of our reasoning. First, together with the "entire" peasantry against the monarchy, against the landlords, against the Middle Ages (and in this respect, the revolution remains bourgeois, bourgeois-democratic). Then, together with the poorest peasantry, together with the semi-proletariat, together with all the exploited, against capitalism, including against the rural rich, the kulaks, the speculators, and in this respect, the revolution becomes socialist. To try to put an artificial, Chinese wall between the two, to separate them by anything other than the degree of preparation of the proletariat and the degree of its unity with the rural poor, is the greatest perversion of Marxism, its vulgarization, its replacement with liberalism. It would mean, through pseudo-scientific references to the progressiveness of the bourgeoisie in relation to the Middle Ages, to smuggle in a reactionary defense of the bourgeoisie in relation to the socialist proletariat.

Incidentally, the Soviets represent a form and type of democracy immeasurably higher precisely because, uniting and involving masses of workers and peasants in politics, they provide the closest to the "people" (in the sense in which Marx spoke in 1871 about a truly popular revolution){141}, the most sensitive barometer of the development and growth of political, class maturity of the masses. The Soviet Constitution was not written according to some "plan," was not composed in offices, was not imposed on the workers by lawyers from the bourgeoisie. No, this Constitution grew out of the course of the development of the class struggle, as class contradictions matured. Precisely the facts that Kautsky is forced to acknowledge prove this.

At first, the Soviets united the peasantry as a whole. The underdevelopment, backwardness, and ignorance of the poorest peasants handed leadership to the kulaks, the petty capitalists, the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia. This was the period of the dominance of the petty bourgeoisie, Mensheviks, and Socialist-Revolutionaries (only fools or renegades like Kautsky can call both of these groups socialists). The petty bourgeoisie inevitably, inescapably wavered between the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (Kerensky, Kornilov, Savinkov) and the dictatorship of the proletariat, for the petty bourgeoisie is incapable of anything independent, by the fundamental nature of its economic position. Incidentally, Kautsky completely renounces Marxism, limiting himself in the analysis of the Russian revolution to a legal, formal, serving the bourgeoisie for the cover of its domination and for the deception of the masses, concept of "democracy," forgetting that "democracy" in practice sometimes expresses the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, sometimes the powerless reformism of the petty bourgeoisie, submitting to this dictatorship, etc. According to Kautsky, in a capitalist country, there were bourgeois parties, there was a proletarian party leading the majority of the proletariat, its masses (the Bolsheviks), but there were no petty-bourgeois parties! There were no class roots, no petty-bourgeois roots, for the Mensheviks and SRs!

The vacillations of the petty bourgeoisie, Mensheviks, and SRs, enlightened the masses and repelled the vast majority of them, all the "lower strata," all the proletarians and semi-proletarians, from such "leaders." In the Soviets, the Bolsheviks gained predominance (in Petrograd and Moscow by October 1917), and the split among the SRs and Mensheviks intensified.

The victorious Bolshevik revolution meant the end of vacillation, the complete destruction of the monarchy and the landlord system (before the October Revolution, it had not been destroyed). The bourgeois revolution was carried to completion by us. The peasantry followed us as a whole. Its antagonism to the socialist proletariat could not manifest itself immediately. The Soviets united the peasantry in general. The class division within the peasantry had not yet matured, had not yet come to the surface.

The antagonism of the peasant bourgeoisie to the socialist proletariat could not have manifested itself all at once. The Soviets united the peasantry in general. The class division within the peasantry had not yet matured, had not yet come to the surface.

This process developed in the summer and autumn of 1918. The counter-revolutionary uprising of the Czechoslovaks awakened the kulaks. A wave of kulak uprisings swept across Russia. The poorest peasantry learned from life, not from books or newspapers, that their interests were irreconcilable with those of the kulaks, the rich, the rural bourgeoisie. "Left SRs," like any petty-bourgeois party, reflected the vacillations of the masses, and it was precisely in the summer of 1918 that they split: part went with the Czechoslovaks (the uprising in Moscow, when Proshyan, seizing the telegraph for an hour, announced the overthrow of the Bolsheviks, then the treachery of the commander-in-chief of the army against the Czechoslovaks, Muravyov, etc.); another part, mentioned above, remained with the Bolsheviks.

The exacerbation of food shortages in the cities increasingly posed the question of the grain monopoly (which the theorist Kautsky "forgot" in his economic analysis, repeating the platitudes he read ten years ago from Maslov!).

The old, landowner and bourgeois, even democratic-republican, state sent armed detachments to the countryside, which were actually at the disposal of the bourgeoisie. Mr. Kautsky does not know this! He does not see in this a "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie," God forbid! This is "pure democracy," especially if it is approved by the bourgeois parliament! About how Avksentyev and S. Maslov, in the company of Kerenskys, Chernovs, and other SR and Menshevik riffraff, arrested members of the land committees in the summer and autumn of 1917, Kautsky "has not heard," about this he is silent!

The whole point is that the bourgeois state, which implements the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie through a democratic republic, cannot admit to the people that it serves the bourgeoisie, cannot tell the truth, is forced to be hypocritical.

But a state of the type of the Commune, a Soviet state, openly and directly tells the people the truth, declaring that it is the dictatorship of the proletariat and the poorest peasantry, and by this very truth, it attracts tens and tens of millions of new citizens, who are oppressed under any democratic republic, involving them in politics, in democracy, in the management of the state, in the Soviets. The Soviet republic sends armed workers' detachments to the villages, first and foremost the more advanced ones, from the capitals. These workers bring socialism to the countryside, win the support of the poor, organize and enlighten them, help them suppress the resistance of the bourgeoisie.

All those who know the matter and have been in the countryside say that our countryside only in the summer and autumn of 1918 is experiencing its own "October" (i.e., proletarian) revolution. A turning point is coming. The wave of kulak uprisings is giving way to a rise of the poor, the growth of "poor committees." In the army, the number of worker commissars, worker officers, and commanders of divisions and armies from the working class is growing. While the fool Kautsky, frightened by the July (1918) crisis and the cries of the bourgeoisie, runs after her like a "rooster" and writes a whole pamphlet, permeated with the conviction that the Bolsheviks are on the verge of being overthrown by the peasantry, while this fool sees in the split of the left SRs a "narrowing" (p. 37) of the circle of those who support the Bolsheviks, at this time the actual circle of supporters of Bolshevism is growing immensely, because tens and tens of millions of rural poor are awakening to independent political life, freeing themselves from the tutelage and influence of the kulaks and the rural bourgeoisie.

We lost hundreds of left SRs, characterless intellectuals, and kulaks from the peasantry, but we gained millions of representatives of the poor[22].

A year after the proletarian revolution in the capitals, under its influence and with its help, the proletarian revolution came to the rural backwaters, which finally consolidated the Soviet power and Bolshevism, finally proved that there are no forces in the country against it.

Having completed the bourgeois-democratic revolution together with the peasantry in general, the Russian proletariat finally moved to the socialist revolution when it managed to split the countryside, join its proletarians and semi-proletarians, unite them against the kulaks and the bourgeoisie, including the peasant bourgeoisie.

If the Bolshevik proletariat of the capitals and large industrial centers had not succeeded in uniting the rural poor around them against the wealthy peasantry, this would have proven the "immaturity" of Russia for the socialist revolution, the peasantry would have remained "whole," i.e., it would have remained under the economic, political, and spiritual leadership of the kulaks, the rich, the bourgeoisie, and the revolution would not have gone beyond the limits of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. (But, parenthetically, this would not have proven that the proletariat should not have taken power, for only the proletariat truly completed the bourgeois-democratic revolution, only the proletariat did something serious to bring closer the world proletarian revolution, only the proletariat created the Soviet state, the second step, after the Commune, towards the socialist state.)

On the other hand, if the Bolshevik proletariat had tried immediately, in October-November 1917, without waiting for the class differentiation of the countryside, without preparing and carrying it out, to "decreet" a civil war or "introduce socialism" in the countryside, to do without a temporary bloc (alliance) with the peasantry in general, without a series of concessions to the middle peasant, etc.,—this would have been a Blanquist distortion of Marxism, an attempt by a minority to impose its will on the majority, a theoretical absurdity, a misunderstanding that the general peasant revolution is still a bourgeois revolution and that without a series of transitions, transitional stages, it cannot be made socialist in a backward country.

Kautsky has confused everything in the most important theoretical and political question and in practice turned out to be simply a lackey of the bourgeoisie, howling against the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Kautsky has introduced the same, if not greater, confusion into another extremely interesting and important question, namely: was the legislative activity of the Soviet Republic in the agrarian transformation, this most difficult and at the same time most important socialist transformation, correctly set and then carried out appropriately? We would be unspeakably grateful to any West European Marxist if, having familiarized himself with at least the most important documents, he gave a critique of our policy, for this would greatly help us and the maturing revolution throughout the world. But Kautsky gives, instead of criticism, an incredible theoretical confusion, turning Marxism into liberalism, and in practice, empty, spiteful, petty-bourgeois attacks against the Bolsheviks. Let the reader judge:

"Large land ownership could not be retained. This was done by the revolution. This became clear immediately. It could not be transferred to the peasant population..." (Incorrect, Mr. Kautsky: you substitute what is "clear" to you for the relationship of different classes to the question; the history of the revolution has shown that the coalition government of the bourgeoisie with the petty bourgeoisie, Mensheviks, and SRs, pursued a policy of preserving large land ownership. This was especially proven by the law of S. Maslov and the arrests of members of the land committees. Without the dictatorship of the proletariat, the "peasant population" would not have defeated the landlord, allied with the capitalist.)

Possessions. This was especially proven by the law of S. Maslov and the arrests of members of the land committees{145}. Without the dictatorship of the proletariat, the "peasant population" would not have defeated the landlord, who had united with the capitalist.)

“...However, there was no unity on the forms in which this should take place. Various solutions were conceivable...” (Kautsky is most concerned with the “unity” of “socialists,” regardless of who calls themselves by that name. He forgets that the basic classes of capitalist society must come to different solutions.) “...From a socialist point of view, the most rational solution would be to transfer large enterprises into state ownership and to provide the peasants, who until now have been employed in them as wage workers, with the cultivation of large estates in the form of cooperatives. But this solution presupposes such rural workers, which Russia does not have. Another solution could be the transfer of large landholdings into state ownership, with their division into small plots, leased to land-poor peasants. Then something of socialism would still be realized...”

Kautsky, as always, gets away with the famous: on one hand, it cannot be denied, on the other hand, it must be admitted. He places various solutions side by side without considering the only real, the only Marxist thought—what the transitions from capitalism to communism should be like under such specific conditions. In Russia, there are hired rural workers, but there are few of them, and Kautsky does not touch upon the question posed by the Soviet power about how to move to communal and cooperative land cultivation. The most curious thing, however, is that Kautsky wants to see “something of socialism” in the distribution of small plots of land for lease. In reality, this is a petty-bourgeois slogan, and there is nothing “of socialism” here. If the “state” leasing the land is not a state of the type of the Commune, but a parliamentary bourgeois republic (which is Kautsky's constant assumption), then the leasing of land in small plots will be a typical liberal reform.

Kautsky is silent about the fact that the Soviet power abolished all private property in land. Worse still. He makes an incredible distortion and cites the decrees of the Soviet power in such a way that the most essential part is omitted.

Having stated that “small-scale production tends towards complete private ownership of the means of production,” and that the Constituent Assembly would be the “only authority” capable of preventing the division (a statement that would cause laughter in Russia, since everyone knows that workers and peasants consider only the Soviets authoritative, and the Constituent Assembly became the slogan of the Czechoslovaks and landlords), Kautsky continues:

“One of the first decrees of the Soviet government stipulated: 1. Landlord property in land is immediately abolished without any redemption. 2. Landlord estates, as well as all appanage, monastic, church lands, with all their live and dead inventory, manor buildings, and all accessories, pass into the disposal of the volost land committees and the district councils of peasant deputies, until the Constituent Assembly resolves the land question.”

Citing only these two points, Kautsky concludes:

“The reference to the Constituent Assembly remained a dead letter. In fact, the peasants of individual volosts could do whatever they wanted with the land” (47).

Here you have samples of Kautsky’s “criticism!” Here you have a “scholarly” work that most resembles a forgery. The German reader is led to believe that the Bolsheviks capitulated to the peasantry on the question of private property in land! That the Bolsheviks left it to the peasants individually (“individual volosts”) to do as they pleased!

In reality, the decree cited by Kautsky—the first decree issued on October 26, 1917 (O.S.)[23]—consists not of 2, but of 5 articles plus eight articles of “instructions,” with the instructions being described as intended “for guidance.”

The third article of the decree states that the estates pass “to the people,” that it is mandatory to compile an “exact inventory of all confiscated property,” and to establish “strict revolutionary protection.” The instructions state that “the right of private property in land is abolished forever,” that “land plots with highly cultured farms” “are not subject to division,” that “all the economic inventory of the confiscated lands, both live and dead, passes into the exclusive use of the state or the commune, depending on their size and significance, without redemption,” and that “all land enters the general national land fund.”

Furthermore, simultaneously with the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly (January 5, 1918), the Third Congress of Soviets adopted the “Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People”[24], which has now become part of the Fundamental Law of the Soviet Republic. In this declaration, Article II, 1 states that “private property in land is abolished” and that “model estates and agricultural enterprises are declared national property.”

Therefore, the reference to the Constituent Assembly did not remain a dead letter, for another representative institution of the people, immeasurably more authoritative in the eyes of the peasants, took upon itself the resolution of the agrarian question.

Furthermore, on February 6 (19), 1918, the law on the socialization of land was published, which once again confirms the abolition of all property in land, transfers the management of the land and all privately owned inventory to the Soviet authorities under the control of the federal Soviet power; among the tasks of managing the land, it includes “the development of collective farming, which is more advantageous in terms of labor and product savings at the expense of individual farms, with a view to transitioning to a socialist economy” (Article 11, point d).

Introducing equal land use, this law answers the fundamental question, “who has the right to use the land,” as follows:

(Article 20). “Individual plots of land surface for public and personal needs within the Russian Soviet Federative Republic may be used by: A) For cultural and educational purposes: 1) the state, through the organs of Soviet power (federal, regional, provincial, district, volost, and village). 2) Public organizations (under the control and with the permission of the local Soviet power). B) For engaging in agriculture: 3) Agricultural communes. 4) Agricultural associations. 5) Rural societies. 6) Individual families and persons...”

The reader can see that Kautsky completely distorted the matter and presented the agrarian policy and agrarian legislation of the proletarian state in Russia to the German reader in an absolutely false light.

Kautsky did not even manage to raise the theoretically important, fundamental questions!

These questions are as follows:

(1) the equality of land use and (2) the nationalization of land, the relationship of both measures to socialism in general and to the transition from capitalism to communism in particular.

(3) Collective land cultivation as a transition from small, fragmented farming to large-scale collective farming; does the formulation of this question in Soviet legislation meet the requirements of socialism?

On the first question, it is necessary to establish the following two basic facts: (a) the Bolsheviks, taking into account the experience of 1905 (I refer, for example, to my work on the agrarian question in the first Russian revolution[25]), pointed out the democratically progressive, democratically revolutionary significance of the slogan of equality, and in 1917, before the October Revolution, clearly spoke about this, (b) In implementing the law on the socialization of land, a law whose “soul” is the slogan of equal land use, the Bolsheviks with complete accuracy and clarity stated: this idea is not ours, we do not agree with such a slogan, but we consider it our duty to implement it, for this is the demand of the overwhelming majority of the peasantry. And the ideas and demands of the majority of the working people must be overcome by them themselves: neither can such demands be “abolished,” nor can they be “jumped over.” We, the Bolsheviks, will help the peasantry overcome petty-bourgeois slogans, to move from them as quickly and as easily as possible to socialist ones.

such demands, nor "leap over" them. We, the Bolsheviks, will help the peasantry to outgrow petty-bourgeois slogans and to move as quickly and as easily as possible to socialist ones.

A Marxist theoretician who wanted to assist the workers' revolution with his scientific analysis should first answer whether it is true that the idea of equal land tenure has a democratic-revolutionary significance, the significance of completing the bourgeois-democratic revolution? Second, was it correct for the Bolsheviks to pass (and loyally observe) a petty-bourgeois law on equality?

Kautsky did not even manage to notice what, theoretically, is the crux of the question!

Kautsky would never have been able to refute the fact that the idea of equality has a progressive and revolutionary meaning in the bourgeois-democratic upheaval. The upheaval cannot go further. By reaching its end, it more clearly, more quickly, and more easily reveals to the masses the insufficiency of bourgeois-democratic solutions, the necessity to go beyond their limits, to move towards socialism.

The peasantry, having thrown off the tsar and the landlords, dreams of equality, and no force could prevent the peasants, freed from both the landlords and the bourgeois-parliamentary, republican state. The proletarians say to the peasants: we will help you reach "ideal" capitalism, for equal land tenure is the idealization of capitalism from the viewpoint of the small producer. And at the same time, we will show you the insufficiency of this, the necessity to move to socialized land cultivation.

It would be interesting to see how Kautsky would try to refute the correctness of such guidance of the peasant struggle by the proletariat!

Kautsky preferred to evade the question...

Furthermore, Kautsky directly deceived the German readers by concealing from them that in the land law, the Soviet power gave direct preference to communes and associations, placing them first.

With the peasantry to the end of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, with the poorest, proletarian and semi-proletarian part of the peasantry forward to the socialist revolution! This was the policy of the Bolsheviks, and it was the only Marxist policy.

But Kautsky gets muddled, unable to pose a single question! On the one hand, he does not dare to say that the proletarians should have parted ways with the peasantry on the issue of equality, for he feels the absurdity of such a split (besides, in 1905, when Kautsky was not yet a renegade, he clearly and straightforwardly defended the alliance of workers and peasants as a condition for the victory of the revolution). On the other hand, Kautsky sympathetically cites the liberal platitudes of the Menshevik Maslov, who "proves" the utopian and reactionary nature of petty-bourgeois equality from the standpoint of socialism and remains silent about the progressiveness and revolutionary nature of the petty-burgeois struggle for equality, for equal land tenure, from the standpoint of the bourgeois-democratic revolution.

Kautsky ends up with endless confusion: note that Kautsky (of 1918) insists on the bourgeois character of the Russian revolution. Kautsky (of 1918) demands: do not go beyond these limits! And the same Kautsky sees "something of socialism" (for the bourgeois revolution) in the petty-bourgeois reform of leasing small plots of land to poor peasants (i.e., moving closer to equality)!!

Understand, if you can!

Moreover, Kautsky shows a philistine inability to take into account the actual policy of a specific party. He quotes phrases by the Menshevik Maslov, unwilling to see the actual policy of the Menshevik party in 1917, when, in "coalition" with the landlords and Cadets, it defended a de facto liberal agrarian reform and an agreement with the landlords (evidence: arrests of members of land committees and S. Maslov's bill).

Kautsky did not notice that P. Maslov's phrases about the reactionary and utopian nature of petty-bourgeois equality actually cover the Menshevik policy of an agreement between the peasants and the landlords (i.e., the landlords deceiving the peasants) instead of the revolutionary overthrow of the landlords by the peasants.

What a "Marxist" Kautsky is!

It was precisely the Bolsheviks who strictly observed the difference between the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the socialist one: by completing the former, they opened the door to the transition to the latter. This is the only revolutionary and the only Marxist policy.

And in vain does Kautsky repeat toothless liberal witticisms: "Nowhere and never have small peasants, under the influence of theoretical convictions, moved to collective production" (50).

Very witty!

Nowhere and never have small peasants of a large country been under the influence of a proletarian state.

Nowhere and never have small peasants come to open class struggle between the poorest peasants and the rich, up to a civil war between them, under the condition of propagandistic, political, economic, and military support of the poorest by the proletarian state power.

Nowhere and never has there been such enrichment of speculators and profiteers from the war, amid such ruin of the mass of peasants.

Kautsky repeats old stuff, chews on old cud, afraid to think about the new tasks of the proletarian dictatorship.

But, dear Kautsky, if the peasants lack tools for small-scale production, and the proletarian state helps them obtain machines for collective land cultivation, is this a "theoretical conviction"?

Let us turn to the question of the nationalization of the land. Our Narodniks, including all the Left SRs, deny that the measure carried out by us is the nationalization of the land. They are theoretically wrong. As long as we remain within the framework of commodity production and capitalism, the abolition of private property in land is the nationalization of the land. The word "socialization" expresses only a tendency, a wish, preparation for the transition to socialism.

What, then, should be the attitude of Marxists toward the nationalization of the land?

Here, too, Kautsky is unable to even pose the theoretical question or—what is even worse—deliberately avoids the question, although from Russian literature it is known that Kautsky is aware of the long-standing disputes among Russian Marxists on the question of the nationalization of the land, municipalization of the land (transfer of large estates to local self-government), and division.

Kautsky's assertion that the transfer of large estates to the state and their leasing in small plots to land-poor peasants would realize "something of socialism" is a direct mockery of Marxism. We have already pointed out that there is no socialism here. But that is not enough: there is also no completion of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. A great misfortune befell Kautsky, for he trusted the Mensheviks. From this came a curious situation: defending the bourgeois character of our revolution and accusing the Bolsheviks of wanting to move to socialism, Kautsky himself gives a liberal reform under the guise of socialism, without carrying this reform to the complete cleansing of all medievalism in land relations! In Kautsky, as in his Menshevik advisors, there emerged a defense of the liberal bourgeoisie, which fears the revolution, instead of a defense of a consistent bourgeois-democratic revolution.

Indeed, why should only large estates be turned into state property, and not all lands? The liberal bourgeoisie achieves the greatest preservation of the old (i.e., the least consistency in the revolution) and the greatest ease of return to the old. The radical, i.e., the one that completes the bourgeois revolution, puts forward the slogan of the nationalization of the land.

Kautsky, who in the long-ago past, almost 20 years ago, wrote an excellent Marxist work on the agrarian question, cannot but know Marx's indications that the nationalization of the land is precisely the consistent slogan of the bourgeoisie. Kautsky cannot but know the polemic of Marx with Rodbertus and the remarkable explanations of Marx in "Theories of Surplus Value," where the revolutionary, in the bourgeois-democratic sense, significance of the nationalization of the land is shown especially vividly.

and with Rodbertus and the remarkable explanations of Marx in "Theories of Surplus Value," where the revolutionary, in a bourgeois-democratic sense, significance of the nationalization of land is shown especially vividly.

The Menshevik P. Maslov, whom Kautsky so unsuccessfully chose as his advisor, denied that the Russian peasants could go for the nationalization of all (including peasant) land. To some extent, this view of Maslov could be connected with his "original" theory (repeating the bourgeois critics of Marx), namely: the denial of absolute rent and the recognition of the "law" (or "fact," as Maslov expressed it) of "diminishing fertility of the soil."

In reality, already in the revolution of 1905, it was revealed that the vast majority of Russia's peasants, both communal and individual, stood for the nationalization of all land. The revolution of 1917 confirmed this and, after the transfer of power to the proletariat, implemented it. The Bolsheviks remained true to Marxism, not attempting (contrary to Kautsky, who accuses us of this – without a shadow of proof) to "leap over" the bourgeois-democratic revolution. The Bolsheviks first helped the most radical, the most revolutionary, the closest to the proletariat among the bourgeois-democratic ideologues of the peasantry, namely the left Social Revolutionaries, to carry out what in fact amounted to the nationalization of land. Private property on land in Russia from October 26, 1917, i.e., from the first day of the proletarian, socialist, revolution, was abolished.

This created a foundation, the most perfect from the standpoint of the development of capitalism (without breaking with Marx, Kautsky will not be able to deny this), and at the same time, a land system was created, the most flexible in terms of transition to socialism. From the point of view of bourgeois-democratic, the revolutionary peasantry in Russia has nowhere further to go: nothing "more ideal," from this point of view, than the nationalization of land and equality in land use, nothing "more radical" (from the same point of view) can be. It was precisely the Bolsheviks, only the Bolsheviks, and only by virtue of the victory of the proletarian revolution, who helped the peasantry to carry the bourgeois-democratic revolution to its logical conclusion. And only by this did they do the maximum to facilitate and accelerate the transition to the socialist revolution.

One can judge from this what an incredible muddle Kautsky presents to the reader, who accuses the Bolsheviks of not understanding the bourgeois character of the revolution and who himself demonstrates such a departure from Marxism that he is silent about the nationalization of land and puts forward the least revolutionary (from the bourgeois point of view), liberal agrarian reform, as "something of socialism"!— We have now come to the third of the questions posed above, the question of how far the proletarian dictatorship in Russia has taken into account the necessity of transitioning to socialized cultivation of the land. Here, Kautsky again commits something very much like a fraud: he quotes only the "theses" of one Bolshevik speaking about the task of transitioning to collective cultivation of the land! Having quoted one of these theses, our "theorist" triumphantly exclaims:

"By declaring a certain thing a task, the task, unfortunately, is not solved. Collective agriculture in Russia is condemned for the time being to remain on paper. Nowhere and never have small peasants moved to collective production on the basis of theoretical convictions" (50).

Nowhere and never has there been such literary fraud as Kautsky has descended to. He quotes "theses," concealing the law of the Soviet power. He speaks of "theoretical conviction," concealing the proletarian state power, which has factories and goods in its hands! All that the Marxist Kautsky wrote in "The Agrarian Question" in 1899 on the means available to the proletarian state for gradually moving small peasants to socialism, is forgotten by the renegade Kautsky in 1918.

Of course, several hundred state-supported agricultural communes and Soviet farms (i.e., large estates cultivated by workers' associations at the expense of the state) – this is very little. But can one call it "criticism" when Kautsky ignores this fact?

The nationalization of land, carried out in Russia by the proletarian dictatorship, most fully ensured the completion of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, even in the event that the victory of the counter-revolution would turn back from nationalization to division (this case was specifically examined by me in the book on the agrarian program of the Marxists in the 1905 revolution). Moreover, the nationalization of land provided the greatest possibilities for the proletarian state to move towards socialism in agriculture.

Conclusion: Kautsky has given us, theoretically, an incredible mess, with a complete renunciation of Marxism, and in practice, servility before the bourgeoisie and its reformism. There is nothing to say, what a fine criticism!

"The economic analysis" of industry begins with Kautsky with the following magnificent reasoning:

There is large-scale capitalist industry in Russia. Can socialist production be built on this basis? "One might think so if socialism consisted in the workers of individual factories and mines taking them into their own possession" (literally: appropriating them to themselves), "to run each factory separately" (52). "Just today, August 5, when I am writing these lines, it is reported from Moscow about a speech by Lenin on August 2, in which, as reported, he said: 'The workers firmly hold the factories in their hands, and the peasants will not give the land back to the landlords'"[26]. The slogan: factories to the workers, land to the peasants, was until now not a social-democratic, but an anarcho-syndicalist one" (52–53).

We have quoted this reasoning in full so that the Russian workers, who formerly respected Kautsky and respected him justly, could see for themselves the methods of the renegade to the bourgeoisie.

Just think: on August 5, when there was already a mass of decrees on the nationalization of factories in Russia, and not a single factory had been "appropriated" by the workers, but all were transferred to the ownership of the republic, on August 5, Kautsky, based on a clearly fraudulent interpretation of one phrase from my speech, instills in German readers the idea that in Russia, factories are being transferred to individual workers! And Kautsky, after this, goes on for dozens and dozens of lines chewing over the idea that factories cannot be transferred individually to workers!

This is not criticism, but the method of a lackey of the bourgeoisie, hired by the capitalists to slander the workers' revolution.

Factories must be transferred to the state, or to the community, or to consumer societies – Kautsky writes again and again, and finally adds:

"This is the path that they are now trying to embark upon in Russia…." Now!! What does this mean? In August? Why couldn't Kautsky order his Stein, Axelrod, or other friends of the Russian bourgeoisie to translate at least one decree on factories?

"...How far this has gone, is not yet clear. This aspect of the Soviet Republic is certainly of the greatest interest to us, but it remains entirely in the dark. There is no shortage of decrees…" (Therefore, Kautsky ignores or conceals their content from his readers!), "but there is a lack of reliable information about the implementation of these decrees. Socialist production is impossible without comprehensive, detailed, reliable, and rapidly updated statistics. The Soviet Republic has not yet been able to create this. What we learn about its economic activities is extremely contradictory and cannot be verified. This is also one of the results of the dictatorship and the suppression of democracy. There is no freedom of the press and speech…" (53).

What we learn about its economic actions is extremely contradictory and cannot be verified in any way. This is also one of the results of dictatorship and suppression of democracy. There is no freedom of the press and speech... (53).

This is how history is written! From the "free" press of the capitalists and Dutovists, Kautsky would have received information about factories being transferred to the workers... Truly, this overclass "serious scholar" is magnificent! Not a single one of the countless facts that show that factories are transferred only to the republic, that they are managed by an organ of Soviet power, the Supreme Council of National Economy, composed with the predominant participation of elected representatives from trade unions, does Kautsky wish to touch upon. He stubbornly, with the obstinacy of a man in a case, repeats one thing: give me peaceful democracy, without civil war, without dictatorship, with good statistics (the Soviet Republic has created a statistical institution and has attracted all the best statistical forces of Russia, but, of course, ideal statistics cannot be obtained soon). In a word, revolution without revolution, without fierce struggle, without violence—this is what Kautsky demands. It is as if one were to demand strikes without the passionate fervor of workers and owners. Distinguish such a "socialist" from an ordinary liberal official!

And, relying on such "factual material," i.e., deliberately ignoring with complete contempt numerous facts, Kautsky "concludes":

"It is doubtful whether the Russian proletariat, in terms of actual practical gains, not decrees, in the Soviet Republic, gained more than it would have from the Constituent Assembly, in which, just like in the Soviets, socialists predominated, though of a different hue" (58).

A gem, isn't it? We advise the admirers of Kautsky to disseminate this statement widely among the Russian workers, for Kautsky could not have provided better material for assessing his own political downfall. Kerensky was also a "socialist," worker comrades, only "of a different hue"! The historian Kautsky is content with the label, the title that the right SRs and Mensheviks gave themselves. He does not want to hear about the facts showing that under Kerensky, the Mensheviks and right SRs supported imperialist policy and the plundering of the bourgeoisie; he modestly keeps silent about the fact that the Constituent Assembly gave a majority precisely to these heroes of the imperialist war and bourgeois dictatorship. And this is called "economic analysis"...

In conclusion, another example of "economic analysis":

"...After nine months of its existence, the Soviet Republic, instead of spreading general prosperity, found itself compelled to explain the cause of general need" (41).

The Cadets have accustomed us to such reasoning. The lackeys of the bourgeoisie reason this way in Russia: let's say, after a four-year devastating war, with comprehensive assistance from foreign capital to sabotage and uprisings of the bourgeoisie in Russia, give us general prosperity in nine months. There is absolutely no difference, not a shadow of a difference, between Kautsky and the counter-revolutionary bourgeois in practice. Sweet speeches, doctored "for socialism," repeat what the Kornilovites, Dutovists, and Krasnovites in Russia say bluntly, without pretense, without embellishment.

The preceding lines were written on November 9, 1918. News from Germany was received in the night of November 9-10 about the victorious revolution that began first in Kiel and other northern and coastal cities, where power passed to the hands of the councils of workers' and soldiers' deputies, and then in Berlin, where power also passed to the council{147}.

The conclusion I had left to write for the pamphlet on Kautsky and the proletarian revolution has become superfluous. November 10, 1918.