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Eduard Bernstein was a German social democratic Marxist theorist and politician. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Bernstein had held close association to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, but he began to identify what he believed to be errors in Marxist thinking and began to criticize views held by Marxism when he investigated and challenged the Marxist materialist theory of history. He rejected significant parts of Marxist theory that were based upon Hegelian metaphysics and rejected the Hegelian perspective of an immanent economic necessity to socialism.
Social Reform or Revolution? is an 1899 pamphlet by Polish-German Marxist theorist Rosa Luxemburg. Luxemburg argues that trade unions, reformist political parties and the expansion of social democracy—while important to the proletariat's development of class consciousness—cannot create a socialist society as Eduard Bernstein, among others, argued. Instead, she argues from a historical materialist perspective that capitalism is economically unsustainable and will eventually collapse and that a revolution is necessary to transform capitalism into socialism. The pamphlet was heavily influential in revolutionary socialist circles and along with Luxemburg's other work an important precursor to left communist theory.
The Erfurt Program was adopted by the Social Democratic Party of Germany during the SPD Congress at Erfurt in 1891. Formulated under the political guidance of Eduard Bernstein, August Bebel, and Karl Kautsky, it superseded the earlier Gotha Program.
Economic determinism is a socioeconomic theory that economic relationships are the foundation upon which all other societal and political arrangements in society are based. The theory stresses that societies are divided into competing economic classes whose relative political power is determined by the nature of the economic system.
Karl Marx's idea that the state can be divided into three subject areas: pre-capitalist states, states in the capitalist era and the state in post-capitalist society. Overlaying this is the fact that his own ideas about the state changed as he grew older, differing in his early pre-communist phase, the young Marx phase which predates the unsuccessful 1848 uprisings in Europe and in his later work.
Internationalist and defencist were the broad opposing camps in the international socialist movement during and shortly after the First World War. Prior to 1914, anti-militarism had been a key principle among most European socialist parties. Leaders of the Second International had even suggested that socialist workers might foil a declaration of war by means of a general strike.
The Berne International was a Socialist International formed in Bern, Switzerland 3–9 February 1919. Its goal was to re-establish the Second International. However it did not support world revolution and rejected involvement with the Communist International.
The first significant attempt to implement communism on a large scale occurred in Russia following the February Revolution of 1917, which resulted in the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II. The Bolshevik Party, led by Vladimir Lenin, capitalized on the discontent with the Provisional government and successfully seized power in the October Revolution of the same year. Lenin's government began to transform Russian society through policies such as land redistribution, nationalization of industry, and withdrawal from World War I. After Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin's rise to power brought about rapid industrialization, forced collectivization, and widespread political repression, which solidified the Soviet Union's status as a major world power but at a tremendous human cost.
"Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder is a work by Vladimir Lenin attacking assorted critics of the Bolsheviks who claimed positions to their left. Most of these critics were proponents of ideologies later described as left communism. The book was written in 1920 and published in Russian, German, English and French later in the year. A copy was then distributed to each delegate at the 2nd World Congress of the Comintern, several of whom were mentioned by Lenin in the work. The book is divided into ten chapters and an appendix.
Revolutionary terror, also referred to as revolutionary terrorism or reign of terror, refers to the institutionalized application of force to counter-revolutionaries, particularly during the French Revolution from the years 1793 to 1795. The term "Communist terrorism" has also been used to describe the revolutionary terror, from the Red Terror in Russia and Cultural Revolution in China to the reign of the Khmer Rouge and others. In contrast, "reactionary terror", often called White Terrors, has been used to subdue revolutions.
Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revolution is a necessary precondition for transitioning from a capitalist to a socialist mode of production. Revolution is not necessarily defined as a violent insurrection; it is defined as a seizure of political power by mass movements of the working class so that the state is directly controlled or abolished by the working class as opposed to the capitalist class and its interests.
In Marxist philosophy, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a condition in which the proletariat, or working class, holds control over state power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the transitional phase from a capitalist to a communist economy, whereby the post-revolutionary state seizes the means of production, mandates the implementation of direct elections on behalf of and within the confines of the ruling proletarian state party, and institutes elected delegates into representative workers' councils that nationalise ownership of the means of production from private to collective ownership. During this phase, the organizational structure of the party is to be largely determined by the need for it to govern firmly and wield state power to prevent counterrevolution, and to facilitate the transition to a lasting communist society.
Orthodox Marxism is the body of Marxist thought which emerged after the deaths of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the late 19th century, expressed in its primary form by Karl Kautsky. Kautsky's views of Marxism dominated the European Marxist movement for two decades, and orthodox Marxism was the official philosophy of the majority of the socialist movement as represented in the Second International until the First World War in 1914, whose outbreak caused Kautsky's influence to wane and brought to prominence the orthodoxy of Vladimir Lenin. Orthodox Marxism aimed to simplify, codify and systematize Marxist method and theory by clarifying perceived ambiguities and contradictions in classical Marxism. It overlaps significantly with Instrumental Marxism.
Reformism is a trend advocating the reform of an existing system or institution – often a political or religious establishment – as opposed to its abolition and replacement via revolution.
Karl Johann Kautsky was a Czech-Austrian philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theorist. A leading theorist of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Second International, Kautsky advocated orthodox Marxism, which emphasized the scientific, materialist, and determinist character of Karl Marx's work. This interpretation dominated European Marxism for two decades, from the death of Friedrich Engels in 1895 to the outbreak of World War I in 1914.
A proletarian revolution or proletariat revolution is a social revolution in which the working class attempts to overthrow the bourgeoisie and change the previous political system. Proletarian revolutions are generally advocated by socialists, communists and anarchists.
Terrorism and Communism: A Reply to Karl Kautsky German: Terrorismus und Kommunismus: Anti-Kautsky; Russian: Терроризм и Коммунизм, Terrorizm i Kommunizm) is a book by Soviet Communist Party leader Leon Trotsky. First published in German in August 1920, the short book was written against a criticism of the Russian Revolution by prominent Marxist Karl Kautsky, who expressed his views on the errors of the Bolsheviks in two successive articles, Dictatorship of the Proletariat, published in 1918 in Vienna, Austria, followed by Terrorism and Communism, published in 1919.
Crisis of Marxism, also referred to as the crisis in Marxism, was a term first employed in the 1890s after the unexpected revival of global capitalist expansion became evident after the Long Depression that occurred in Europe from 1873 to 1896, which eventually precipitated a crisis in Marxist theory. The crisis resulted in a series of theoretical debates over the significance of economic recovery for the strategy of the socialist movement, leading to ideological fragmentation and increasingly sectarian debates. By the 1890s, orthodox Marxists came to believe that the capitalist mode of production was on the "verge of breakdown", while the socialist movement was on the "verge of revolutionary triumph". Due to a renewed burst of capitalist and industrial activity, such interpretations could no longer be maintained in Western Europe.
The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program) (German: Das Erfurter Programm in seinem grundsätzlichen Theil erläutert von Karl Kautsky) is an 1892 book-length work by Karl Kautsky. It was first published in Stuttgart and was the official commentary of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) on their brief 1891 Erfurt Program (by Kautsky, party leader August Bebel and Eduard Bernstein). It became and is still considered the seminal (and popular) text for Orthodox Marxism and the Second International.
References
- 1 2 3 "Karl Kautsky: The Road to Power (Chap.1)". www.marxists.org. Retrieved 2020-09-02.
- ↑ "Eduard Bernstein: Evolutionary Socialism (Preface)". www.marxists.org. Retrieved 2020-09-02.
- 1 2 "Karl Kautsky: The Road to Power (Chap.2)". www.marxists.org. Retrieved 2020-09-02.
- ↑ "Karl Kautsky: The Road to Power (Chap.5)". www.marxists.org. Retrieved 2020-09-02.
- ↑ "Karl Kautsky: The Road to Power (1909)". www.marxists.org. Retrieved 2020-09-02.
- ↑ Lih, Lars (2018). "The Tasks of Our Times: Kautsky's Road to Power in Germany and Russia". Studies in East European Thought. 70 (2–3): 121–140. doi:10.1007/s11212-018-9308-2.