Karl Kautsky Add a review

Karl Johann Kautsky (; German: [ˈkaʊtski]; 16 October 1854 – 17 October 1938) was a Czech-Austrian Marxist theorist. A leading theorist of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Second International, Kautsky advocated orthodox Marxism, and his views dominated European Marxism for about two decades, from the death of Friedrich Engels in 1895 to the outbreak of World War I in 1914.

Born in Prague, Kautsky studied at the University of Vienna. In 1875, he joined the Social Democratic Party of Austria, and from 1883 founded and edited the influential journal Die Neue Zeit. From 1885 to 1890, he lived in London, where he worked with Engels. He moved back to Germany in 1890 and became active in the SPD, and wrote the theory section of its Erfurt Program of 1891, a major influence on other European socialist parties. On the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Kautsky opposed the SPD's collaboration with the German war effort. In 1917, he joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), and rejoined the SPD in 1922. His influence dwindled during the 1920s, and he died in Amsterdam in 1938.

Kautsky's stagist interpretation of Marxism emphasized that history could not be hurried, and that workers had to wait for suitable material conditions to develop before a socialist revolution. Under his influence, the SPD adopted a gradualist approach to achieving socialism, using bourgeois parliamentary democracy to secure improvements in the lives of workers until capitalism collapsed under its own contradictions. This stance sparked conflict with other leading Marxists, including Eduard Bernstein, who rejected revolution; Rosa Luxemburg, who championed revolutionary spontaneity; and Vladimir Lenin, whom Kautsky accused of launching a premature revolution in Russia in 1917 and leading the Soviet Union toward dictatorship.