Page:Karl Kautsky - The Road to Power - tr. A. M. Simons (1909).pdf/15

 Unfortunately the professor's clearness leaves much to be desired. I have never designated as idiotic "the hope of an early catastrophe that would fulfill all wishes (!)" for the simple reason that no one was talking about any such thing. I would certainly be justified in calling the hope of an "all-wishes-fulfilling" catastrophe idiotic. I applied the word "idiocy" to the statement that Engels had ever set a for the outbreak of the revolution in 1898. Any prophecy of this sort would certainly seem to me to be idiotic. But Engels was never guilty of anything of the kind. Just as little was Bebel. Nor did he, at the Erfurter Convention, set any definite date for the coming of the revolution.

There were some who made fun of his "prophesying" at that time. To these he made this reply:

"You may laugh and sneer at prophesying, but thinking men can not avoid it. There was a time, not so many years ago, when even Vollmar did not assume this attitude of cold pessimistic darkness. Engels, whom he has been attacking, correctly foretold the revolution of 1848 in 1844. And furthermore was not everything prophesied by Marx and Engels in the well known address of the International Workingmen's Association at the time of the Commune uprising, concerning the future of events in Europe, fulfilled even the dotting of an i. (That's right.) Liebknecht, who has been making a little fun of me on this point, has done his share of prophesying. (Laughter.) Like me, he prophesied certain things in the Reichstag in 1870 which have since been completely fulfilled. Read his speeches and mine from 1870–1871 and you will find the proof of this. But now comes Vollmar and cries: 'Keep still about your ancient history and stop prophesying.' But he also has done some prophesying. The