Page:Karl Radek - Proletarian Dictatorship and Terrorism - tr. Patrick Lavin (1921).djvu/44



We shall begin with facts that cannot be contraverted. During the period from March to November, 1917, the rule of the Russian bourgeoisie underwent a continuous process of dissolution. The bourgeoisie desired to carry on the war; the mass of peasants and workers wanted to end it, at whatever cost. When Herr Kautsky, after the experiences of November, 1918, in Germany, raises the complaint against the Bolsheviks that "they demanded the demobilization of the army without caring whether it would assist the German military autocracy or not," he is merely accusing the Bolsheviks of doing what the German militarists accuse his party of doing. "If they (the German military autocracy) did not win and it came to a German revolution, the Bolsheviks were certainly not responsible for it"—which merely means that Herr Kautsky considers Marshal Foch to have been the father of the German revolution. Just as this singular Marxist felt in the German revolution like one who has got into a wild riot and is only prevented by lack of courage from declaring it to be a misfortune, so we see in his assertion that the Russian Revolution had not a determining influence on the outbreak of the German revolution, merely a moving demonstration that Herr Kautsky is sometimes animated by Christian feelings and seeks to save even the Bolsheviks from hell. Therefore greetings to Foch and Wilson, the fathers of the nation-liberating German revolution, and to Kautsky, their prophet. But joking apart. After Herr Kautsky has established his contention, on one page, that the Bolsheviks were innocent of exercising any influence on the German revolution, he says on another page: "The fact that a proletarian government has not only assumed power but has been able to maintain it for nearly two years under the most trying circumstances has immensely strengthened the sense of power of the proletarians of all countries. The Bolsheviks have thereby done a great deal for the real world revolution, much more than their emissaries, who have done as much injury to the proltarianproletarian [sic] cause as the revolutionaries have done good." So! We forgive Herr Kautsky for his sally at the Bolshevik "emissaries", as his opinions of their actions must have been formed from police reports, and draw attention to his admission that Bolshevik rule in Russia has done a great deal for the actual world revolution. Does he not then consider the German revolution as a part of the "real world revolution"? This contradiction is to be explained by the fact that a short memory is due as much to senility as to extreme malevolence.