The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program) (german: Das Erfurter Programm in seinem grundsätzlichen Theil erläutert von Karl Kautsky) is an 1892 book-length work by

Karl Kautsky Karl Johann Kautsky (; ; 16 October 1854 – 17 October 1938) was a Czech-Austrian philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theorist. Kautsky was one of the most authoritative promulgators of orthodox Marxism after the death of Friedrich Engels ...

. It was first published in

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the Sw ...

and was the official commentary of the

Social Democratic Party of Germany The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been ...

(SPD) on their brief 1891

Erfurt Program The Erfurt Program was adopted by the Social Democratic Party of Germany during the SPD Congress at Erfurt in 1891. Formulated under the political guidance of Eduard Bernstein, August Bebel, and Karl Kautsky, it superseded the earlier Gotha Pr ...

(by Kautsky, party leader

August Bebel Ferdinand August Bebel (22 February 1840 – 13 August 1913) was a German socialist politician, writer, and orator. He is best remembered as one of the founders of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (SDAP) in 1869, which in 1875 mer ...

and

Eduard Bernstein Eduard Bernstein (; 6 January 1850 – 18 December 1932) was a German social democratic Marxist theorist and politician. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Bernstein had held close association to Karl Marx and Friedr ...

). It became and is still considered the seminal (and popular) text for

Orthodox Marxism Orthodox Marxism is the body of Marxist thought that emerged after the death of Karl Marx (1818–1883) and which became the official philosophy of the majority of the socialist movement as represented in the Second International until the Fir ...

and the

Second International The Second International (1889–1916) was an organisation of Labour movement, socialist and labour parties, formed on 14 July 1889 at two simultaneous Paris meetings in which delegations from twenty countries participated. The Second Internatio ...

History

Eduard Bernstein is acknowledged in the first edition preface as having given advice and critical review. Historian Donald Sassoon wrote it “became one of the most widely read texts of socialist activists throughout Europe” and Kautsky's commentary “was translated into sixteen languages before 1914 and became the accepted popular summa of Marxism” around the world. It was first translated into English by

Daniel De Leon Daniel De Leon (; December 14, 1852 – May 11, 1914), alternatively spelt Daniel de León, was a Curaçaoan-American socialist newspaper editor, politician, Marxist theoretician, and trade union organizer. He is regarded as the forefather o ...

in 1894 and an adaption published in The People (Socialist Labor Party newspaper) in New York. In 1894,

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

translated it into Russian. This was during his exile in Geneva.

20th century

In 1904, it was republished in German as german: Der Klassenkampf in der Sozialdemokratie. The eighth German edition from 1907 was translated by William Bohn and published in 1910 by Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company in Chicago. In 1911, Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5 (from the 1899 translations by Daniel De Leon) were published in four SLP pamphlets, ''The Working Class'', ''The Capitalist Class'', ''The Class Struggle'' and ''The Socialist Republic'' (the latter from Chapter 4 ''The Commonwealth of the Future''). Dietz Verlag (Berlin) reprinted it in German in 1965. In 1971 another English version was published by W. W. Norton & Company.

21st century

Author Lars T. Lih coined the term ''Erfurtianism'' to describe the political views put forward in Kautsky's book.

Chapters

1892 German original

# Der Untergang des Kleinbetriebes # Das Proletariat
Die Kapitalistenklasse

Der Zukunftsstaat

Der Klassenkampf

1894 English translation

Published separately as pamphlets of the ''Labor library''.
The Proletariat

The capitalist class

The co-operative commonwealth
* The class struggle

1899 English translation

Published separately as pamphlets of the ''People library''. * The working class * The capitalist class * The socialist republic * The class struggle

1910 English translation

#The Passing of Small Production #The Proletariat #The Capitalist Class #The Commonwealth of the Future #The Class Struggle

References

External links

''The Class Struggle'' by Karl Kautsky
Charles H. Kerr 1910 English translation in

Marxists Internet Archive Marxists Internet Archive (also known as MIA or Marxists.org) is a non-profit online encyclopedia that hosts a multilingual library (created in 1990) of the works of communist, anarchist, and socialist writers, such as Karl Marx, Friedrich En ...

1892 German original
{{Wikimedia 1892 in politics Social Democratic Party of Germany 1892 books Karl Kautsky