Kautsky and the Revolution of 1905

Abstract

Here it is examined, in the context of the German reception of the Russian Revolution of 1905, the position of Karl Kautsky about mass strikes, a decisive point for the crystallization of irreconcilable lines of thought inside the Second International. In order to make this point clear there is also an attempt to clarify the theoretical presuppositions of Kautsky's conception, one of the distinctive hallmarks of the German social-democracy. His proposition of integrating the legacy of Darwin to Marxism is based in a conception of science that renders possible both a convergence between the natural sciences and the sciences of the spirit and the separation between socialism and the labor movement, which results, often times, paradoxically, in a subordination of the theory to the party practice.