Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution - tr. Wood Simons (1902.djvu/9



The following writings owe their existence to the action of a Socialist Heading Circle in Amsterdam, a society largely composed of Academics, who invited me to speak there and in Delft. Among the themes that I suggested was that of Social Revolution. But as the comrades in both cities selected the same theme, and I did not wish to repeat myself, I divided my subject into two essays practically independent from one another, but connected in their general thought, and called it "Reform and Revolution" and "On the Day After the Revolution."

The Society wished to publish these essays and naturally I had no reason to object to this, but in the interest of their circulation I proposed that they be issued by the German Party Publishing House, to which the Holland comrades very gladly agreed.

It is not a stenographic report of the lectures that is here given. I have included many lines of thought, in the writing which would have been too long to have given in the lectures. But in general I have kept within the limits of the lecture and have not sought to make a book of it.

The purpose of the work shows for itself and needs no explanation. It had a special application for Holland in that shortly before