Karl Kautsky as Architect of the October Revolution

Lenin remained true to the tactical guidelines of Karl Kautsky after the latter had abandoned them.

Karl Kautsky Was Once a Revolutionary

Lenin’s famous denunciation of Karl Kautsky as a “renegade” has long discouraged Marxists from actually engaging with the German-Austrian socialist’s writings. But if the Bolshevik leader sharply criticized Kautsky’s retreats, this was also because of his great admiration for his earlier work — a revolutionary Marxism that lay decisive stress on the battle for democracy.

Why Kautsky Was Right (and Why You Should Care)

Karl Kautsky’s vision for winning democratic socialism is more radical, and more relevant, than most leftists care to admit.

Karl Kautsky Wrote Some Classic Works of Marxist History

The German Marxist thinker Karl Kautsky uncovered the radical history of Christianity, from the early years of the Church to the Reformation and the German Peasant War. His pioneering work in Marxist historiography deserves to be remembered today.

Reclaiming the Best of Karl Kautsky

Denounced and then lost to history, the radical Karl Kautsky's thought still offers a compelling vision of how to democratize all aspects of our lives.

The “Best” of Karl Kautsky Isn’t Good Enough

Charlie Post cautions against recent defenses of Second-International Marxist Karl Kautsky.

A Very Kautsky Christmas

The oppressed of the Middle Ages drew on Christian teachings to develop a moral critique of their era's inequality and unfairness.

When Bulgarian Peasants Read Karl Kautsky

The Second International’s history is usually seen through the prism of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, a mass party in an industrial power. But militants in the Balkans had to adapt its lessons to their own local realities — and in the decades before World War I, they were the first socialists to confront the looming dangers of the national question.

Kautsky’s Ghost

For Rudolf Hilferding, Socialism Was About Freedom

Austrian socialist Rudolf Hilferding, author of the magisterial Finance Capitalism, used the tools of Marxism to develop a rigorous understanding of the changing capitalist economy while making the case for a socialism that put freedom and democracy at the center of the project.

Revolutions Look Different According to Authoritarian or Democratic Conditions

The Russian Revolution led to revolutionary upheaval in countries far beyond Russia. Looking at Russia’s imperial borderlands like Finland suggests that socialist struggle can look wildly different in autocratic versus parliamentary conditions.

Lenin’s The State and Revolution

The definitive essay on Lenin's classic pamphlet.

Booze and Socialism

German socialists knew the craze for schnapps was a plague on working-class life. They fought it by building their organizations around beer.

Bolshevism, Real and Imagined

Lenin's critics like to paint him as an authoritarian through and through. But that picture doesn't match reality.

Reformism Yesterday and Social Democracy Today

We shouldn't try to resurrect the social-democratic politics of the past. What we need is a socialist movement that pairs radical demands with mass, militant action.

Revolutionary Socialists in the Democratic-Socialist Moment

Right now, democratic socialism is on the rise in American society. Revolutionary socialists who have kept the torch of socialism burning during the lean years will now have to merge with democratic-socialist demands of the current moment.

Classical Marxism: An Intellectual History

The Invention of Marxism is a rich group biography of the founding generation of socialists, who introduced millions to Karl Marx’s ideas. Even where it falls short, its details still charm and provoke interest.

A Lost History

Socialists have long championed the struggles of all oppressed peoples, not just the white male factory worker.

Socialists Should Take the Right Lessons From the Russian Revolution

Socialists have rightly taken inspiration from the Russian Revolution for generations, but many of the lessons drawn from it are wrong for our own time. To make change today, we need to take democratic socialism seriously as a theory and practice.

“All Humans Are Born Equal”

The early German socialists fought for the persecuted at home and abroad — convinced that the liberation of workers in Germany was linked to the liberation of oppressed peoples around the globe.