The New Reformism and the Revival of Karl Kautsky

Many practical socialists think they are exempt from the intellectual influence of the past. But Doug Greene shows that the ghost of Karl Kautsky's reformism still haunts us, and continues to hinder today's struggles from developing revolutionary consciousness. Kautsky might be dead, but his political corpse stinks to high heaven.

Harrison Fluss, Author of Prometheus and Gaia

Kautsky was the original centrist: revolutionary in words and reformist in deeds. Long forgotten to all but the nerdiest historians, Kautsky experienced a brief revival by U.S. socialists eager to capitulate to the Democratic Party. With this incisive study, Doug Greene returns Kautsky to the obscurity where he spent most of the last century. Using critiques by Luxemburg, Lenin, and Trotsky, this book refutes Kautskyism and in the process elucidates revolutionary Marxism.

Nathaniel Flakin, Author of Revolutionary Berlin: A Walking Guide and Martin Monath, A Jewish Revolutionary Among Nazi Soldiers

Capitalist crises, developing in the wake of one another with distressing regularity, currently threaten humanity. A revolutionary left capable of challenging this contemporary drift to barbarism and planetary destruction struggles to revive and regroup. But traditions of dead generations do indeed weigh like a nightmare on the brain of the living left. Karl Kautsky, once an architect of the revolutionary Marxism of the Second International, but subsequently repudiated for his opportunism and vacillation in the face of imperialist war and the Russian Revolution, has recently been revived. The New Reformism and the Revival of Karl Kautsky: The Renegade's Revenge is a timely and indispensable refutation of the dangerous dead-ends of this neo-Kautskyism. Greene provides a cogent outline of Kautsky's rise and fall as a Marxist figure, dissecting the differentiated neo-Kautskyisms now on offer. A must-read for all who seek the birth of a better world.

Bryan D. Palmer, Author of James P. Cannon and the Emergence of Trotskyism in the United States, 1928-1938 (2022)

In his latest book, The New Reformism and the Revival of Karl Kautsky: The Renegade’s Revenge Doug Greene offers a comprehensive history of Karl Kautsky’s thought, and he tracks the indelible influence Katusky made on socialist movements, from the Bolsheviks to thinkers affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America today. This book offers an invaluable contribution to the history of Marxist thought and to the burgeoning field of neo-Katusky studies. Greene’s study reveals the blind spots and the shortcomings in the contemporary “neo-Kautskyist” turn on the left. This work will prove to be an invaluable resource for navigating contemporary socialist theory and politics.”

Daniel Tutt, Lecturer in Philosophy, George Washington University

Doug Greene doesn’t claim to draw a definitive balance sheet on the “renegade” Karl Kautsky—which would require a more thorough treatment of what Marx and Engels bequeathed—but his volume will be required reading for such a future project. Its most original contribution is his distillation and critique of the “Neo-Kautskyists,” particularly, Lars Lih, Eric Blanc and Mike Mcnair. For those who are aware of their claims but unfamiliar with the specifics, there is no better introduction than what Greene provides. Because the age-old debate about reformism versus revolution is sure to intensify as the crisis of capitalism deepens, Greene’s intervention will be of enormous value for those looking for a revolutionary way forward.

August H. Nimtz, Professor of Political Science and African American and African Studies, University of Minnesota