Karl Kautsky, Die Revolution in Rußland, Arbeiter-Zeitung, Wien, Jg. XVII, Nr. 29, 29. Jänner 1905, S. 1–2.
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Translation/Transcription: Daniel Gaido.
HTML Mark-up: Einde O’Callaghan for MIA.
On 5 February 1904, war broke out between Japan and the Tsar’s government. Barely a year later, on 22 January 1905, the Tsar declared war on his own people; from now on, he is waging war not merely against a few conspiracies by students and workers, but against the entirety of his subjects, and it is a far bloodier, crueller war than that which broke out in Manchuria between the hostile armies. The soldiers of Japan spare non-combatants and those who surrender. The Tsar’s henchmen slaughter the unarmed, the supplicants, women and children; the ruler of the realm rampages through his empire just as the hordes of Mongols once did, the most bloodthirsty and bestial of barbarians.
The civil war has begun in Russia, beginning with a victory for the armed forces, their first victory after a year of constant fighting; but this victory is likely to cost Russian autocracy dearly, more so than all its defeats in Manchuria, for this victory constitutes the most powerful call from the entire people for blood vengee. Only through further slaughter can autocracy still hold its ground, but from the bones of every victim a new avenger must arise; the struggle must become ever more savage, ever more desperate; on both sides, respect for human life – one’s own as well as that of others – must dwindle ever further; and this appalling fury cannot come to an end until autocracy lies prostrate, bleeding from a thousand wounds just like its people.
Perhaps it is possible that the Tsarist government may yet succeed this time in crushing the mass demonstrations and strikes in the provinces just as it seems to have succeeded in doing in Petersburg. But it cannot do without the proletariat, on whose labour it, like the whole of society, depends, and yet it cannot satisfy them, since it draws its wealth from their misery. It must constantly increase this misery as long as it continues the frivolously provoked war; it must thus constantly provoke the proletariat anew. The unrest in Russia has been going on for months, repeatedly suppressed, repeatedly renewing itself, ever more powerful, ever more desperate. But the longer these disturbes last, the greater the likelihood that they will also rouse the apathetic mass of the peasantry; that the storm against the bastilles of the cities will be followed by a storm on the castles of the landed gentry. General chaos threatens Russia – and why? Merely because of a court clique which the people despise as haughtily as they instinctively hate it, and which sees in every trace of popular freedom its mortal enemy, because it knows that it can only continue its regime of privileges, abuses and theft with impunity if it makes any control over its reckless, indeed criminal, conduct impossible.
Even the propertied classes – capitalists, the petty bourgeoisie, the landed gentry – have no interest in the preservation of this regime. Now, however, they are even threatened in their very own interests by it, since it is upon them that the agitated people can first vent their anger, and since even the greatest military power in the world will not suffice to protect them effectively. The fiercer the war between the court and the masses rages, the more defenceless and threatened the propertied classes feel; the more urgent is their need for political concessions designed to put an end to the revolution; the greater their bitterness towards the government, which, through its blind obstinacy, exposes them to the gravest dangers in the most unscrupulous manner.
To all this, however, must be added the growing bitterness of the army itself. That the war against Japan will end in victory is now out of the question. How could further mobilisations of reserves – which have hitherto met with the greatest resiste everywhere – be possible amidst the general fury of the people? And how could the Tsarist government possibly send further troops to the East, when it must already muster all its armed might against its own people? The war against Japan may drag on for some time yet, but it will be nothing more than a futile slaughter, a senseless sacrifice of hecatombs by a government that has neither the strength nor the intelligence to win, but possesses too much stubborn obstinacy and reckless callousness to bring itself to accept a peace that has become inevitable.
But it will come, and it will be a shameful peace. Yet the longer it is postponed, the longer the period lasts in which Russia’s rulers lead their troops to the slaughter in Manchuria, the more violently the fury within the army must rage when it realises that all the sacrifices have been in vain and that it must return home in humiliation.
The greatest danger to the Tsarist regime lies in the return of this field army from Manchuria. To all the unrest across the vast empire, to the revolt of industrial workers, perhaps also of the peasants, the discontent of the propertied classes and the intellectuals, the assassinations – which from now on will unleash despair and vengee in abunde against all defenders of autocracy – to all this will then be added the revolt of the finest and most combative section of the army, both officers and men, and the colossus of the Tsarist regime would have to rest not on feet of clay, but on the mightiest bronze foundation, if it were not to succumb to all this. Its only bodyguard will then be the thieves whom it permits to plunder the state, and who have every reason to fear the wrath of the people.
The downfall of autocracy in Russia was assured from the day it failed to cope with its enemy in war, little Japan. Despotism stands in such stark contradiction to all the conditions of life in modern society that it was bound to give rise to the most intolerable conditions in Russia as soon as the modern mode of production had gained a firm foothold there. The whole nation was increasingly faced with a choice: to watch impassively as it rotted away while still alive, or to rid itself of the octopus of autocracy that clung to it and sucked the life-blood from it. However, the opposition groups – the proletariat of certain cities and the student body – were too weak to seriously shake the Tsarist regime. Agitation through word and writing, however assiduously pursued, was not enough to rouse the sluggish mass of the population, the vast majority of whom had scarcely outgrown a peasant existence. It required more powerful impressions than leaflets and speeches could produce; it required a vivid lesson in reality to instruct the resourceful giant regarding its tasks and capabilities.
The Russian people are now receiving this lesson in reality to the fullest extent. The war against Japan has revealed to them the abysmal incompetence, recklessness and depravity of the existing regime. The battle – or rather the battles – near St Petersburg on 22 January show them, with the most gruesome clarity, what folly it is to expect even the slightest concession to the people’s needs from the leniency and wisdom of the ‘Peace Tsar’s’ government. The lesson was terribly forceful – there is no question that it will have an effect.
The continuation of the Tsarist autocracy has become impossible. Yet until recently, many still hoped that at the last minute it would at least come to its senses enough to voluntarily grant what it cannot, in the long run, withhold, and in this way forestall a violent revolution. It was thought that, as the last of the European governments to transition to a constitutional regime – if one no longer counts Turkey as part of Europe – it would have learnt from its predecessors; the example of so many European monarchies would show it how little power it would lose by adopting a constitution modelled on the Austrian or Prussian systems.
This dream of a ‘peaceful revolution’ has come to an end. Prince Sviatopolk-Mirsky’s liberalism proved to be a Potemkin village, likely feigned solely for the purpose of making it easier to place the new loan. It collapsed as soon as the loan was underwritten.
From 22 January onwards, it has been decided that Russia will not follow the path of peaceful reform, that its revolution, which has now begun bloodily, will also be a bloody and violent one as it progresses, and that the twentieth century in Eastern Europe will begin as the eighteenth ended in the West.
On the 21st of this month, the Tsar resolved to have his beloved subjects executed, who were guilty of the capital offence of having, in full confidence, presented him with a petition. Did Nicholas II consider the date on which he made this decision? On 21 January 1793, Louis XVI was guillotined for conspiring to crush his people in a bloody uprising. Or was it this date that made him nervous? The bloodbath of the 22nd may just as well be the result of headless panic as of bloodthirsty resolve.
It is not with joy that we welcome this turn of events. It will be a horrific, costly struggle that will tear the Tsar’s unfortunate peoples to pieces over the coming weeks, months, perhaps years. But the sacrifices will not be in vain. The freedom that the people fight for themselves has a very different effect from that which is bestowed upon them from above. The one merely skims the surface; the other tears it apart to its very core; the one leaves the people essentially as it found them; the other propels them forward by decades in a matter of years. More harmless, more naive, more ignorant than any stratum of the fighting proletariat of Europe, the Russian proletariat is entering the catastrophe that has now broken upon it. Whatever its outcome may be, it will emerge from this catastrophe as an equal comrade-in-arms, perhaps as a forerunner in the great struggle against all domination and exploitation waged by the international proletariat. And its victory will lend new strength to the proletariat of all nations in its struggle for emipation, and will confuse and paralyse its opponents everywhere.
A new epoch in history, not only of Russia but of the world, was ushered in on 22 January this year. Great things lie ahead of us. May this great moment also find a great generation!
Last updated on 14 September 2026