ABSTRACT
Karl Kautsky's conscience was formed during the rise of the German Social Democracy. The retreat of theory before practice can be followed with utmost clarity in Kautsky's writings. The war and its aftermath destroyed the legend of Kautsky's Marxist "orthodoxy". Kautsky aspired to being a good servant of Marxism; in fact, to please Engels and Karl Marx seemed to be his life profession. Kautsky defended an already emasculated Marxism. The radical, revolutionary, anti-capitalist Marxism had been defeated by capitalist development. The life of Kautsky can teach the workers that in the struggle against fascistic capitalism is necessarily incorporated the struggle against bourgeois democracy, the struggle against Kautskyism. The life of Kautsky can, in all truth and without malicious intent, be summed up in the words: From Marx to Hitler. Like Hitler, the social democracy and Kautsky were opposed to both bolshevism and communism.
