ABSTRACT
The initiative in the social revolution proved, by the force of events, to be imposed, not upon the old proletariat of Western Europe, with its mighty economic and political organisation, with its ponderous traditions of parliamentarism and trade unionism, but upon the young working-class of a backward country. Instead of examining the Russian Revolution in the light of the revolutionary epoch that has arrived throughout the world, Marxist intellectual Karl Kautsky discusses the theme of whether or no the Russian proletariat has taken power into its hands too soon. With the final triumph of the social revolution, the Soviet system will expand and include the whole population, in order thereby to lose the characteristics of a form of state, and melt away into a mighty system of producing and consuming co-operation. If the party and the trade unions were organisations of preparation for the revolution, the Soviets are the weapon of the revolution itself.
