Karl Kautsky

Karl Johann Kautsky (German: [ˈkaʊtski]; 16 October 1854 – 17 October 1938) was an Austrian-born Marxist theorist. One of the most authoritative promulgators of orthodox Marxism, he was for decades the leading theorist of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Second International. His influence was so pervasive that he was often called the "Pope of Marxism", with his views remaining dominant until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. His influence extended beyond Germany, shaping the development of Marxism in the Russian Empire, where he was seen by figures like Vladimir Lenin as the leading authority on Marxist theory.

Born in Prague and educated in Vienna, Kautsky became a Marxist in the early 1880s while in exile in Zurich. He founded the journal Die Neue Zeit in 1883 and was its editor for 35 years. From 1885 to 1890, he lived in London, where he became a close friend of Friedrich Engels. Following the repeal of Germany's Anti-Socialist Laws, he authored the theoretical section of the SPD's 1891 Erfurt Program. His commentary on the program, The Class Struggle, became a popular and widely circulated summary of Marxism. Kautsky's theoretical framework reinterpreted Karl Marx's critique of political economy into a doctrine of historical-empirical laws predicting the inevitable concentration of capital, polarisation of society, and immiseration of the working class.

Kautsky's orthodox Marxism advocated a gradualist, evolutionary approach to socialism. He argued that a socialist revolution was inevitable but could not be forced prematurely. The role of a socialist party was to organise the working class, win political reforms, and improve workers' lives through the institutions of bourgeois parliamentary democracy, until material conditions were ripe for the transition to socialism. This "centrist" stance, positioned between reformism and revolutionary radicalism, drew him into major conflicts. He defended Marxist orthodoxy against the revisionism of Eduard Bernstein, and opposed the revolutionary spontaneity advocated by Rosa Luxemburg.