Theory & Practice

Postscript : An Attrition or Collision
In conclusion, a little historical reminiscence – yet one which is not without agreeable parallels to the present. Comrade Kautsky rejects, for Prussia, the examples of other lands where the mass strike has recently been used. Russia counts for nothing as an example, neither does Belgium or even Austria. For it is “out of the question to appeal to the examples of other lands in the present situation in Prussia.” [Kautsky, What Now?, p.36.] But in search of the fitting model for our tactic, Comrade Kautsky himself goes back to the old Romans and Hannibal. Here he finds an example for the edification of the German proletariat in Fabius the Procrastinator, with his allegedly victorious “strategy of attrition.” To me, going back to the antique Romans seems rather far fetched: but since Comrade Kautsky has already done so, I would like to demonstrate that, here too, the facts are not quite correct. The fable of the necessary and victorio... (From : Marxists.org.)

Part 6 : Prussia: the mass strike arises from the masses
Let us return to Prussia. At the beginning of March, in view of the voting rights campaign which had begun and the mounting demonstration movement, I declared that if the party wished to lead the movement farther forward it must make the slogan of the mass strike the order of the day, and that a demonstration mass strike would be the first step toward this in the present situation. I considered that the party faced a dilemmas it would either raise the voting rights movement to sharper forms or, as in 1908, the movement would go back to sleep after a short time. Indeed, this was what summoned Comrade Kautsky to the field of battle against me. And what do we see? Comrade Kautsky points out that, me to the contrary, we have certainly not experienced a hint of a mass strike; he triumphs that the situation has struck my initiative “dead as a doornail.” Now it seems that in his polemic zeal, Comrade Kautsky has completely overlooked something else that ha... (From : Marxists.org.)

Part 5 : Kautsky’s theory: mass strike is a one-time event
What actually remains of Comrade Kautsky’s mass strike theory, after he has pointed out all the “impossibilities”? The one, “final,” pure political mass strike, disengaged from economic strikes: which once only, but with absolute conclusiveness, smashes down like thunder out of the clear blue sky. Says Comrade Kautsky: Here, in this conception, lies the deepest ground of the differences between my friends and me over the mass strike. They anticipate a period of mass strikes. Under the existing conditions in Germany, I can imagine a political mass strike only as a one-time event into which the entire proletariat of the Reich enters with its entire strength; as a struggle to the death; as a struggle which either overthrows our enemies, or smashes – or at least cripples – the totality of our organizations and our entire strength for years on end. As for this image of the “final mass strike” wh... (From : Marxists.org.)

Part 4 : Russian development created the mass strike
In light of the conclusions which follow from Comrade Kautsky’s newest theory, it now becomes clear -how very false, from the ground up, this theory is. To derive the mass strike action of the Russian proletariat, unparalleled in the history of modern class struggle, from Russia’s social backwardness – in other words, to explain the outstanding importance and leading role of the urban industrial proletariat in the Russian Revolution as Russian “backwardness” – is to stand things right on their heads. It was not economic retardation, but precisely the high development of capitalism, modern industry, and commerce in Russia which made that grandiose mass strike action possible, and which caused it. It was just because the urban industrial proletariat was already so numerous, concentrated in the great centers, and so strongly moved by class consciousness, just because the genuine modern capitalist contradiction had progressed so far, that... (From : Marxists.org.)

Part 3 : Kautsky: the mass strike is incompatible with Germany
Part 3 We have briefly examined the factual basis of Comrade Kautsky’s newest theory on Russia and Western Europe. But the most important thing about this latest creation is its general tendency, which runs on to construct an absolute contradiction between revolutionary Russia and parliamentary “Western Europe,” and sets down the prominent role played by the political mass strike in the Russian Revolution as a product of Russia’s economic and political backwardness. But here Comrade Kautsky finds himself in the disagreeable position of having proved much too much. In this case, somewhat less would have been decidedly more. Above all, Comrade Kautsky has not noticed that his current theory destroys his earlier theory of the “strategy of attrition.” At the center of the “strategy of attrition” stands an allusion to the coming Reichstag elections. My inexcusable error lay in this:... (From : Marxists.org.)

Kautsky’s poor handling of Mass Strike article
Published: Gesammelte Werke, Vol. 2 (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1972, 1974), pp. 344–77, 378–420; they have also been checked against the manner in which they were printed in Die Neue Zeit. Source: News & Letters, April 1980. Translated: (from the German) David Wolff. Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins. Copyright: © 1980 News & Letters. Printed with Permission from News & Letters. The first question which the interest of party circles demands in our present dispute is this: whether discussion of the mass strike was obstructed in the party press, namely in Vorwärts and the Neue Zeit. Comrade Kautsky denies this, asserting that it would “naturally never have occurred to him to wish to ‘fo... (From : Marxists.org.)

Kautsky disdains Russian revolutionary potential
And now to the mass strike. To explain his unexpected stand against the slogan of the mass strike in the latest Prussian voting rights campaign, Comrade Kautsky created a whole theory of two strategies: the “strategy of overthrow” and the “strategy of attrition.” Now Comrade Kautsky goes a step farther, and constructs ad hoc yet another whole new theory of the conditions for political mass strikes in Russia and in Germany. He begins with general reflections on the deceptiveness of historical examples, and how plausibly one can, with insufficient caution, find appropriate justification in history for all strategies, methods, aims, institutions, and earthly things in general. These observations, of a harmless nature in... (From : Marxists.org.)