working class – then Kautsky’s “humanitarianism” killed the last remnant of revolutionary spirit and instinct in him and left only a pitiful wreck of an apologist for capitalism, that was once Kautsky, the Marxist.
July, 1914. The echoes of the shots fired in Sarajewo threaten to set the world in flames. Will it come, the seeming inevitable? No ! – A thousand times no! Had not the forces of a future order, had not the International of Labor – the Second International – solemnly declared in 1907 in Stuttgart, in 1911 in Copenhagen and in 1912 in Basel: “We will fight war by all means at our disposal. Let the exploiters start a war. It will begin as a war of capitalist governments against each other; it will end – it must end – as a war of the working class of the world against world capitalism; it must end in the proletarian revolution.” We, the socialists of the world, comrades from England and Russia, from America and Germany, from France and Austria; we comrades from all over the world, had solemnly promised ourselves: “War against war” We had promised ourselves and our cause to answer the call of capitalism for a world war with a call on the proletariat for a world revolution.
Days passed. July disappeared in the ocean of time. The first days of August brought the booming of the cannon to our ears, messengers of the grim reality of war. And then the news of the collapse of the Second International; reports of betrayal by the socialists; betrayal in London and Vienna; betrayal in Berlin and Brussels; betrayal in Paris; betrayal everywhere. What would Kautsky say to this rank betrayal, Kautsky, the foremost disciple of Marx, Kautsky the foremost theoretician of the Second International? Will he at least speak up? He did not speak up. Commenting on the betrayal he wrote in Die Neue Zeit: “Die Kritik der Waffen hat eingesetzt; jetzt hat die Waffe der Kritik zu schweigen.” [The arbitrament of arms is on; now the weapon of criticism must rest.] With this one sentence Kautsky replaced Marxism as the basis of his science with rank and undisguised hypocrisy. From then on although trying to retain the toga of a Marxist scholar on his shoulders, with thousands