If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend Massimo Salvadori's "Karl Kautsky and the Socialist Revolution". It's a pretty balanced analysis of Kautsky's political writings over the course of his life, and I was really engrossed by it when I read it in 2021 in the wake of the complete failure of the protests of the previous summer, where it seemed like the ML-adjacent strategy for building power of "grow the movement until there's an insurrectionary moment that we can lead" finally had it's moment, and then couldn't grasp it. I was desperate to discover a different way forward, which it seemed like Kautsky's Centrist Marxist position offered.
I think I was also drawn to Kautsky for his ideas around "ultra-imperialism", where in Kautsky and Lenin's time war between the great European powers seemed inevitable, but now in the 21st century it seems unthinkable. Despite the current insanity from the Trump administration brewing conflict with China (and the rest of the world) with tariffs and whatnot, it seems like it's only happening because of roughly 229,000 votes spread across Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and not some death drive inherent to capitalism (as shown by every major corporation ripping their hair out over the tariffs).
Kautsky's work deserves more attention, and if I had any training as a historian or had even written a paper at all since college I would do it, but it deserves revisiting for the modern era. If only the events of the past four months made it feel not useless.
Thank you for this very enlightening piece. Having been raised in a generally leftish New-Deal environment, but with no knowledge or interest regarding the vastly detailed history and folklore of marxism, I knew nothing of Kautsky beyond perhaps having heard the name. An interesting figure, through whom history shows, perhaps, the internal contradictions of Marxist thinking.
Seriously, the Kautskian analysis gives a novel (to me) view of the world post WWII in which we all have lived our lives, including geezers even older than I, who were born before the War.
Kautsky vs Lenin reminds me of Labour Zionists vs Revisionists, one of whose major disagreements was over whether Jews and Arabs in the Holy Land _could_ live in peace—Labour Zionists suggested that mutually-beneficial technological and social improvements in agriculture and in the introduction of rationalised and humanely-managed industrial production would be so good for the Arab population that they would accept the newcomers. The Revisionists asked when 'it makes sense' had ever ruled human affairs…and were temperamentally disposed to prefer conflict beside, even as Labour were disposed toward coöperation. (The Revisionist alliance with Mussolini and feelers toward Hitler came later—the latter were never revealed to the rank-and-file, if my Varsovian Betar source can be trusted, the latter were well-known, hence my source's ruining a pound of tea trying to dye his shirt black.)
Uhh… as we’ve seen taking the long view, our capitalist masters first learned how to entrench their control and then did the work and were at the mission:accomplished stage. This was done by paying off and corrupting nation after nation. On the democratic side, it greatly limits the benefits of free elections — gets to the eternal leftist kvetch that all major parties are corporate parties.
Here in our exceptional nation, our masters have ensured there will never be again another New Deal in which our masters are policed or protests will interfere with national security disasters like Vietnam.
If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend Massimo Salvadori's "Karl Kautsky and the Socialist Revolution". It's a pretty balanced analysis of Kautsky's political writings over the course of his life, and I was really engrossed by it when I read it in 2021 in the wake of the complete failure of the protests of the previous summer, where it seemed like the ML-adjacent strategy for building power of "grow the movement until there's an insurrectionary moment that we can lead" finally had it's moment, and then couldn't grasp it. I was desperate to discover a different way forward, which it seemed like Kautsky's Centrist Marxist position offered.
I think I was also drawn to Kautsky for his ideas around "ultra-imperialism", where in Kautsky and Lenin's time war between the great European powers seemed inevitable, but now in the 21st century it seems unthinkable. Despite the current insanity from the Trump administration brewing conflict with China (and the rest of the world) with tariffs and whatnot, it seems like it's only happening because of roughly 229,000 votes spread across Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and not some death drive inherent to capitalism (as shown by every major corporation ripping their hair out over the tariffs).
Kautsky's work deserves more attention, and if I had any training as a historian or had even written a paper at all since college I would do it, but it deserves revisiting for the modern era. If only the events of the past four months made it feel not useless.
To explore the structural determinants of US-China interimperialist competition have a look at Ho Fung Hungs "Clash of Empires" and "the China Boom."
Thank you for this very enlightening piece. Having been raised in a generally leftish New-Deal environment, but with no knowledge or interest regarding the vastly detailed history and folklore of marxism, I knew nothing of Kautsky beyond perhaps having heard the name. An interesting figure, through whom history shows, perhaps, the internal contradictions of Marxist thinking.
Seriously, the Kautskian analysis gives a novel (to me) view of the world post WWII in which we all have lived our lives, including geezers even older than I, who were born before the War.
Kautsky vs Lenin reminds me of Labour Zionists vs Revisionists, one of whose major disagreements was over whether Jews and Arabs in the Holy Land _could_ live in peace—Labour Zionists suggested that mutually-beneficial technological and social improvements in agriculture and in the introduction of rationalised and humanely-managed industrial production would be so good for the Arab population that they would accept the newcomers. The Revisionists asked when 'it makes sense' had ever ruled human affairs…and were temperamentally disposed to prefer conflict beside, even as Labour were disposed toward coöperation. (The Revisionist alliance with Mussolini and feelers toward Hitler came later—the latter were never revealed to the rank-and-file, if my Varsovian Betar source can be trusted, the latter were well-known, hence my source's ruining a pound of tea trying to dye his shirt black.)
Uhh… as we’ve seen taking the long view, our capitalist masters first learned how to entrench their control and then did the work and were at the mission:accomplished stage. This was done by paying off and corrupting nation after nation. On the democratic side, it greatly limits the benefits of free elections — gets to the eternal leftist kvetch that all major parties are corporate parties.
Here in our exceptional nation, our masters have ensured there will never be again another New Deal in which our masters are policed or protests will interfere with national security disasters like Vietnam.