Karl Berngardovich Radek

“ If Kautsky in his pamphlet on Democracy and Dictatorship believed it was necessary to convert Lenin from the opinion that the seizure of factories by the workers in these factories, is not Socialism—that merely shows the professors stupidity. So long as there is no organ which represents all the workers' interests; so long as the fighting organs of individual proletarian groups are merely in process of formation—just so long is it impossible for the object of the struggle to be common. ”

“ As for the great majority of the proletariat, the belief in their own strength and in their own capacity to rule will grow only through the acts of the revolutionary workers' government, through their own struggles and their own experiences. But even if the Communists advance guard of the proletariat were to gather a majority and if it were mathematically established—even then it would be too much to expect that the bourgeoisie would submit to the majority. The bourgeoisie, as a rule, will not submit: they will have to be overthrown. ”

“ As long as the process of revolution is still unfinished, as long as no Socialist order appears in the place of the capitalist chaos—order which will show to the masses by concrete acts the benefits of the conditions resulting from the new rule—so long will the bourgeoisie find elements amongst the wavering and vacillating portions of the proletariat and the petit-bourgeoisie which will allow themselves to be persuaded that under bourgeois rule they would be spared all the difficulties and hardships inseperable from the struggle. ”

“ He who comes from the camp of the bourgeoisie and does not possess sufficient courage and capacity for sacrifice to write definitely with the proletariat and destroy the bridges behind him—such a one will, despite all his sympathy for the proletariat, be found on the side of the enemies of the people, when a decisive moment comes." These are the words of Karl Kautsky, who thus showed he had a presentiment of what would happen to himself. The quiet comfortable study is the bridge which unites him with the bourgeoisie. ”

“ When Kautsky asserts that the Commune of 1871 has found a warm corner, thanks to its spirit of humanity in the hearts of all who long for the liberation of mankind, the old man mistakes his own womanish heart for the dauntless one of the proletarian. It is not because of its weakness (which he calls humanity) that the Commune has become the symbol of proletarian aspirations, but because it was the first attempt of the proletariat to seize power. ”

“ The bourgeoisie will oppose the White Terror to the coming proletarian dictatorship. They will suppress the workers' Press, dissolve the workers’ organizations and attempt to provoke the proletariat into premature outbreaks in order to overthrow them. It will scarcely be possible to ascertain, by any kind of elections, which side has the majority. And it is doubtful if the class-conscious proletariat, striving for the mastery, will ever, at any time before accession to power, have the majority of the people behind them. ”

“ The breathing space which his foreign policy gained for the revolution allowed it to organize itself, was also a breathing-space for the counter-revolution, which, under the shield of German Imperialism in the Ukraine and under the protection of the Entente in Siberia, organized more energetic attacks on Soviet Russia. Instead of effecting compromises with the matadors of Capitalism for the improvement of industry the proletariat State had to fight the Terror with all available means in order to protect the power of the working class—the fundamental condition for any kind of Socialization. ”

“ The independent working masses know that it is not enough to extort from their leaders a confession in favor of dictatorship, that it is necessary to have at the points—boxes on the proletarian railway system, representatives of the revolutionary proletariat whose eyes calmly perceive facts and whose hands do not tremble. A Soviet dictatorship with leaders who have not definitely broken mentally with the capitalist world, and who are not prepared to do what hard necessity demands—such a dictatorship can only be a dictatorship in appearance, and that means certain defeat. ”

“ Kautsky declares that when the leaders of the counter-revolution resorted to terrorist methods they were true to themselves, "because to them human life was so cheap as to be merely a means of furthering their own aims." "They do not renounce their principles when they sacrifice human life in order to retain their power, but the Bolsheviks can only do this when they become untrue to the principle of the sacredness of human life which they themselves have exalted and vindicated." ”

“ It is evident that this singular Marxist was still, in the summer of 1919, full of illusions about the readiness of capital to forcibly resist the attempts of the proletariat to liberate themselves. He quotes from my Foreword to Bucharin's pamphlet as follows: "The more developed Capitalism in any country is the more reckless and brutal will be its defensive fight, and therefore the bloodier will be the proletarian revolution and the more reckless will be the measures by means of which the victorious working class will bring the defeated capitalist class to its knees." ”

“ Whoever has studied the history of revolutions, not from books like Kautsky's, but from great and original if also reactionary bourgeois sources, will have no hesitation in agreeing with Ranke when he says in his history of the English Revolution that great things must always be shaped by a strong will. The meaning of terrorism in the revolution is that the revolutionary class, even in the hour of greatest danger, shrinks from nothing in order to accomplish its will, and defends itself with all its might. ”

“ The proletariat do not long for bloodshed; they know from historical experience that violence or the Terror never at any time nor place created new conditions of production, that it never produced a new system of society where economic development had not prepared the ground for it. The proletariat know that violence does not produce bread or coal, and does not build railways. ”

“ It can win only if it exerts all its strength, and employs every means of defense. The leaders and the Press must denounce every weakness of the organism in order to call forth fresh efforts. Even where failure is due to objective obstacles and difficulties it is helpful to tell the masses that all these hinderances can be overcome. While the bourgeoisie and Social Democratic Press of Germany endeavors to conceal every form of corruption practiced by the State authorities, the Soviet Press ruthlessly lays bare the weaknesses of its own State machinery. ”

“ These remarks of an unpaid agent of the bourgeoisie only show that he notes nothing which does not suit himself and is not favorable to Capitalism. He says nothing of the hecatombs of those who fell during the Kerensky regime of Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries—the regime so much after his own ideas—simply because Russian Capitalism shrank from no means of arresting the victory of the proletariat. ”

“ From the circumstance that the capitalists are prepared to adopt so many and so diverse means as they are more or less openly employing to avert the coming proletarian revolution, it may be inferred that they believe that the term of their long dominion is approaching. And every man and woman who have the interests of the human family at heart will sincerely hope that their apprehension is well founded! ”

“ Just as this singular Marxist felt in the German revolution like one who has got into a wild riot and is only prevented by lack of courage from declaring it to be a misfortune, so we see in his assertion that the Russian Revolution had not a determining influence on the outbreak of the German revolution, merely a moving demonstration that Herr Kautsky is sometimes animated by Christian feelings and seeks to save even the Bolsheviks from hell. ”

“ But since they, happily, had no presentiment of that gentleman's castrated Marxism they sought no "statistical" reasons for abandoning the struggle, but fought with all the means at their disposal, including that of terrorism, against speculation and counter-revolutionary treachery and defeated the armies of the counter-revolution. How little they pursued illusions is shown by their struggle against the Communist current which strove for far-reaching, but at that time unattainable reforms. ”

“ When Kautsky says that "therefore the proletariat must previously have acquired qualities which will enable them to direct production when they take possession of it," he gives a very simple and school-master like presentation of an extremely complicated process. We cannot, of course, direct a process we do not understand. In capitalist society not only the mass of manual workers in the factories, but even the intellectual proletariat (technicians, engineers, etc.) are destitute of the ability to direct industry. ”

“ The cowardly subterfuge that violence is indefensible, at all times and under all circumstances, is not calculated to disturb the capitalist governments of the world, which have no intention of scrapping their armies and their navies and their air fleets, and which are quite willing to suffer the peculiar propaganda, with its implied censure upon themselves, to continue, for the sake of its possible effect upon the proletariat. ”

“ There is one Marxian method of Socialism—that is, Marxism. Marx did not draw up recipes for concrete economic measures for all phases of the social revolution. Kautsky's admiration for the "socialization methods" of the Commune is veneration for nothing whatever in which "socialization" consists, at which Herr Kautsky, at the behest of Ebert and Scheidemann, together with his learned young man Hilferding, labored so laboriously till he discovered that his efforts were so much waste paper. ”

“ If everything were done according to expert opinion it would be impossible for Socialists to fail in any undertaking or to find themselves in a desperate situation which would force them to resort, contrary to the spirit of the proletariat and of Socialism, to mass terrorism. In fact, since Marxism began to dominate the Socialist movement till the time of the world war, that movement has, in almost everything it has consciously undertaken, been preserved from serious defeat ”

“ Then these Marxians, who had hitherto taught the proletariat that there was no such thing as absolute truth, and no absolute moral law, discovered that the proletariat had the right to conquer when they could do so without endangering human life. If they are so solicitous for human life why do they see only the sacrifice of the Extraordinary Commission, and not the masses who must starve because the Russian bourgeoisie, with the help of Entente capital, destroyed the railway bridges in order to disorganize traffic ”

“ But this very possibility must act as an incentive on every West European Socialist, to whom Socialism is not an empty term, to make the most strenuous efforts to get the working class of the West to engage in the fight against Capitalism, instead of inviting the Russian revolutionaries to lay down their arms before the counter-revolutionaries in the name or human right. ”

“ We say to you! 'The revolution is here, but we are no usurpers. We desire to call upon Paris to appoint its representatives.'" While Herr Kautsky, after shamelessly concealing the character of the Commune as an insurrection against the "democratic" National Assembly represents the general election to the Commune as the burial of its democratic character and of the source of its power, this bowing of the Commune to the democracy of Paris after it had rebelled against the democracy of the country districts, has no meaning from the point of view of principle. ”

“ Then the counter-revolution, while compelling Soviet Russia to produce only for war purposes, could have achieved its own ends. If the Soviet Republic cannot, within a reasonable space of time, establish its production on a peaceful basis so as to be able to give its industrial products to the peasants in exchange for food, it is clear that the weaker sections of the workers, will, even in the midst of victorious campaigns, be destroyed. ”

“ In the first place there was the danger confronting it that the capitalists were attempting to save what they possibly could. They drew their money from the banks, and endeavored to transfer the stocks of goods to speculators. It had to take the banks in its own hands, to declare the factories, with all their stocks, the property of the nation, and to hand their control over to workers' councils. Then it had to prevent the possibility of the workers in individual factories selling their raw materials and finished products to favorites of their own. ”

“ Therefore the fight must be all the keener against all those elements which are led to dissipate their energies by wavering, vacillating and carelessness. The proletariat who strive for equality of all human beings, have no longing for dictatorship with terrorism, and do not themselves choose that tactical course. ”

“ That the working class of any country did not attempt to seize power before the war, and that it was not anywhere brought practically face to face with the question of the use of force, was due to objective conditions which, after 1871 and still more after 1890, originated in the period of the consolidation of the capitalist States and their economic expansion.
Marxism was never really practically brought face to face with the question of force, and the merit which Herr Kautsky claims for it as a great restraining influence exists for the most part only in his imagination. ”

“ What is "complete Socialization"? If the words have any meaning at all they can only mean the immediate transference of all means of production to the possession and control of society and the attempt to end Capitalism with one blow. ”

“ The working class will only acquire this will after long experience, many struggles, defeats and victories. As a subject class, descended from the subject sections of the pre-capitalistic historical period, as a class in whose veins flows the blood of those accustomed for centuries to obey the will of others, the working class today has not that iron will to dominate which has been so highly developed by, for example, the Prussian Junkers and the English bourgeoisie. ”