The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program)


The Class Struggle is an 1892 book-length work by Karl Kautsky. It was first published in Stuttgart and was the official commentary of the Social Democratic Party of Germany on their brief 1891 Erfurt Program. It became and is still considered the seminal text for Orthodox Marxism and the Second International.

History

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 in 1899 and an adaption published in The People in New York.
In 1894, Lenin translated it into Russian.

20th Century

In 1904, it was republished in German as 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 were published in four SLP pamphlets, The Working Class, The Capitalist Class, The Class Struggle and The Socialist Republic.
Dietz Verlag reprinted it in German in 1965.
In 1971 another English version was published by W. W. Norton & Company.

21st Century

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

Chapters

  1. The Passing of Small Production
  2. The Proletariat
  3. The Capitalist Class
  4. The Commonwealth of the Future
  5. The Class Struggle