JND

Kautsky was the living symbol of “Second International Marxism.” He held no specific political office, but he directed the SPD’s theoretical review Die Neue Zeit, which enjoyed a high standing across Europe and was itself able to confer legitimacy on theorists in other countries. The fervent defender of a certain kind of — sometimes rather dogmatic — Marxist orthodoxy, Kautsky was a point of reference especially for part of the left wing of the International (for instance Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin) which would long see him as the guarantor of fidelity to Marx.

Later on, a whole Marxist tradition did much to delegitimize Kautsky: heterodox Marxists from Karl Korsch to Michael Löwy saw Kautskyism as the very wellspring of social-democratic reformism and indirectly even the Stalinist Marxism of the Third International, each of which led to impasse. I’ll pass over the contradictions between the pre–1914 SPD and 1930s Stalinism, except to say that the historical conditions were so different that to draw such simplistic parallels shows a lack of understanding of the real ideological-political conditions of each era.

Most importantly, it’s a mistake to reduce the history of the Second International to theoretical debates. The International brought together mass parties and millions of workers who found in these organizations — for the first time in history — an opportunity to act together in view of their common ideal. That may sound obvious, but some people seem to completely forget this part of historical reality.

But you are right — I think the decisive thing is that this Marxism was developed to be a tool used by wide layers of the popular classes and especially workers. It articulated a utopian perspective (the future horizon of socialism/communism) with immediate demands (wage rises, shortened working hours, etc.). Tools of analysis that largely stemmed from Marx’s own concepts (the class struggle, exploitation, and so on) became meaningful in everyday life.

From this point of view, the term “vulgarization” should not only be seen in a negative sense: if it hadn’t existed, the workers’ movement surely wouldn’t have developed in the same way, especially in France and Germany. Of course, in certain situations this vulgarization caused problems, but to see this only as a matter of “flattening” thought is a purely intellectual stance, unable to recognize the contested power relations that existed in this era.

Despite the catastrophe of 1933, with the Nazi seizure of power and the destruction of the German left, I think it is very much worth plunging back into the universe of the Second International. For this was the era in which all the great questions that traverse the Left today — state, nation, migration, and so on — were posed for the first time.

Several recent works (especially English-language works by the likes of Lars Lih, Andrew Bonnell, and Ben Lewis) show that his work is much less simplistic and one-dimensional than certain commentators would tell us . . . especially as most have only read a few famous quotes nor really engaged with Kautsky. We should recognize that most of Kautsky’s texts have become difficult to read, for they are marked by their time, and some are only historical in interest. But looking at his whole body of work, we also find texts burning with present day relevance, for instance his 1893 text on parliamentarism and socialism, which deals with the combination of parliamentary and direct democracy, or indeed his series of texts of republicanism and democracy — never cited by the critics of “Kautskyism.”