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Political Science
'This outstanding political biography traces the development of Kausky as a thinker and a Socialist. The author treats Kautsky with respect and affection without minimizing his weaknesses. In fact, this work could serve as a model for political biographies: it is meticulously researched in archives and libraries; it is written in good, clear, declarative sentences, and it avoids the major pitfall of polemicizing instead of enlightening.' -Bernard K. Johnpoll, Labor History
Once deemed ‘the pope of Marxism’, Karl Kautsky (1854–1938) was the leading theoretician of the German Social Democratic Party and one of the most prominent public intellectuals of his time. However, during the twentieth century a constellation of historical factors ensured that his ideas were gradually consigned to near oblivion. Not only has his political thought been dismissed in non-Marxist historical and political discourse, but his ideas are equally discredited in Marxist circles. This book aims to rekindle interest in Kautsky’s ideas by exploring his democratic-republican understanding of state and society. It demonstrates how Kautsky’s republican thought was positively influenced by Marx and Engels – especially in relation to the lessons they drew from the experience of the Paris Commune. Listen to Ben Lewis discuss the book on [this podcast] by LINKSE HOBBY.
This first modern study provides an original and balanced perspective of a theorist whom Lenin referred to as both 'master of Marxism' and 'renegade'. Examining Kautsky's political thought over a period stretching from the Paris Commune to the Second World War, the author argues for the consistency with which Kautsky developed his positions on socialism, democracy, political parties and the role of the proletariat. While Salvadori's analysis is grounded in the debates within the Communist International and the German labour movement, Kautsky emerges as a distinctly modern thinker who produced a Marxist theory of the state, and originated critique of the USSR as a 'state capitalist' system. At this level, it provides a serious and measured exposition of the terms on which arguments for socialist strategy currently move.
Kautsky's assault on the dictatorship of the proletariat as practiced by the Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution is one of the most remarkable and controversial documents in the history of Marxism. Written in 1918, it brought attacks from Trotsky and Bukharin and provoked Lenin to Write The Proletarian Revolution and Renegade Kautsky.
Written in the white heat of revolutionary Russia's Civil War, Trotsky's Terrorism and Communism is one of the most potent defenses of revolutionary dictatorship. In his provocative commentary to this new edition the philosopher Slavoj Zizek argues that Trotsky's attack on the illusions of liberal democracy has a vital relevance today.
On the Formation of Marxism analyses Karl Kautsky’s decisive impact on the self-understanding of the Social Democratic movement, from his dispute over Revisionism with Eduard Bernstein to his polemics with V.I. Lenin over the Russian Revolution.
This text offers an authoritative historiography of German socialist theorist Karl Kautsky and his impact on debates about the Russian Revolution and the contemporary left. Known as the “Pope of Marxism,” Douglas Greene examines the totality of Kautsky’s political career and dissects the fundamental opportunism and passive radicalism that defined his Marxism. He later examines the most substantive Marxist critics of Kautsky, namely Rosa Luxemburg, V. I. Lenin, and Leon Trotsky, while offering a critical assessment of the work produced by scholars and activists, Lars Lih, Eric Blanc, and Mike Mcnair, seeking to revive Kautsky. The New Reformism and the Revival of Karl Kautsky is an important addition to scholarship on the subject and a valuable resource for those interested in the Russian Revolution, German politics, socialism, Marxism, and contemporary left-wing debates.