Karl Kautsky

“ The world market is at present as difficult to survey as ever it was.
To enable Georgia to thrive, it is necessary to open up many new branches in trade as well as in industry. In the state in which the country finds itself, private capital cannot be dispensed with in the establishment of such new branches.
In this economic reconstruction a great part may be played by county councils, communes and co-operative societies, the administrations of which are more flexible and capable of a greater initiative than the lumbering economic machinery of the State. ”

“ Our Georgian comrades know that many roads lead to Socialism as well as to Rome. The problem of social production! may be attacked from many sides, and State control forms only one of those starting points. Finally, socialistic production is impossible without the fullest development of the capabilities of the workers, which can be attained only by the complete liberty of political parties, trade unions, co-operative societies, the municipalities, and provinces. ”

“ The Georgian methods of socialisation are, with all their energy, quite free from over-haste and the danger of reaction. Thanks to the fact that they are based on democracy, they have kept clear of that species of State and Barrack Socialism, which imagines that social poduction can be introduced by rigid centralisation of the entire productive forces, and their subjection to the dictatorship of a small committee, excluding all self-government. ”

“ In such places the co-operative societies may take in the peasantry, which has not yet become consciously antagonistic to the proletariat, as in Western Europe, and make its purchasing power of service in building up the co-operative industry which will arise in competition with the capitalist industry, and tends to restrict and moderate the influence of the latter over workers and consumers. In such a country as Russia the co-operative societies may assume unsuspected importance for the proletarian class-struggle, and the establishment of Socialism. This also holds good for Georgia. ”

“ In economics it is not the same as in war, where a vigorous offensive often obtains the best result, but not in every case. The Bolshevist outlook, which envisages the socialistic reorganisation of the processes of production as a problem in military tactics, is generally doomed to failure. In the economic domain over-hasty procedure always leads to disasters, which may sometimes jeopardise the whole movement, and entails the buying of experience very dearly. ”

“ Both Georgia and Russia are now in the same economic stage as was France in the beginning of the Great Revolution. Peasant proprietorship is not, however, completely free in Georgia. In every sale of land, the State has the first right of purchase. In this manner about two million dessjatinen of gardens, and arable land, pastures and woods have been acquired, of which the cultivated land amounts to about half a million dessjatinen. Pasture land is almost one million dessjatinen. ”

“ Only a fool can assert that all these liberties and possibilities are of a merely formal nature, and make no difference to the position, the capacities, and strength of the: proletariat, and the labouring masses. ”

“ None of these undertakings works at a loss, and most of them yield a surplus.
It is all to the good that the co-operative societies have proceeded slowly and cautiously in laying the foundations of their productive activities. The stormy movement, which corresponds to the revolutionary temperament and is in place when hostile positions are to be captured, is not advantageous in the founding of economic organisations. ”