The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky

The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky by Vladimir Lenin is a scathing critique of Karl Kautsky, a prominent Marxist theorist who opposed the Bolshevik Revolution. Lenin accuses Kautsky of betraying Marxism by siding with bourgeois democracy over the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

Lenin defends the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917 as a necessary step toward establishing socialism. He critiques Kautsky for misrepresenting Marx's views on the state, particularly the idea that the working class must dismantle the bourgeois state apparatus and replace it with a dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin argues that Kautsky's preference for parliamentary democracy ignores the class realities of capitalist society, where true democracy for workers is impossible under the domination of the bourgeoisie.

The work emphasizes the importance of revolutionary action, the role of the soviets (workers' councils) as organs of proletarian democracy, and the necessity of suppressing counter-revolutionary forces. Lenin portrays Kautsky as a defender of reformism and compromise, contrasting this with the Bolshevik commitment to the revolutionary transformation of society. The text is both a defense of the October Revolution and a broader critique of opportunism within the socialist movement.