of “if’s” and “when’s”’ and “but’s” he became the apologist for the betrayal of the German Social Democracy, and the betrayal of the Second International.
It is true that his “if’s” and “when’s” and “but’s” did not satisfy the Executive Committee of the Social Democratic Party. They hoped for a victory of the imperial army and wanted to secure a full and unmitigated share of the glory of “His Majesty’s” victory. That is why they did not appreciate Kautsky’s excellent service. So they helped the renegade to a cheap martyrdom by removing him from the editorship of Die Neue Zeit. After 1918 it may have dawned upon Scheidemann and Ebert how much better Kautsky served the capitalist cause by couching his betrayal in words that did not lose him outright all the confidence of the proletariat. And Kautsky himself is now exhausting every effort to prove to Noske and Scheidemann how cruelly he was mistreated and how well he deserves to be taken back to their bosom.
Kautsky’s book Terrorism and Communism is dictated by hatred of the Russian revolution. It is influenced by fear of a like revolution in Germany. It is written with tears for the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie and its pseudo-”socialist” henchmen who have been sacrificed on the altar of revolution by the proletarian dictatorship in Russia. Kautsky prefers to sacrifice the revolution and the revolutionists on the altar of “humanitarianism.” The author of Ethics and the Materialist Conception of History knows – must know – that humanitarianism under capitalism is capitalist humanitarianism. This humanitarianism mints gold out of the bones, the blood, the health and the suffering of the whole working class while it sheds tears about an individual case of cruelty to one human being. This humanitarianism punishes murder with death and beats to death the pacifist who protests against war as an act of mass murder. Under the cloak of “humanitarian instincts”’ Kautsky only hides the enemy of the proletarian revolution. The question at issue is not terrorism. It is the dictatorship; it is