EXILED MARXIST

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23172, 19 October 1938, Page 16

EXILED MARXIST

DEATH OF KARL KAUTSKY GERMANY AND THE GREAT WAR j s (Received October 18, 5.5 p.m.) AMSTERDAM. Oct. 17 The doath has occurred ef Herr Karl Kautsky, exiled Marxist and famous socialist theoretician. He was widely known for his history of the Great -.War, in which he blaimed the ex-Kaiser as chiefly responsible. Kautsky, who was recognised as thd" foremost theorist of socialism and almost as the executor of the spiritual heritage of Marx and Engels, was born At Prague in 1354. Although at first a Czech Nationalist, he turned during the '7o's to socialism and later to pure Marxism. In order to propagate his views as widely as possible, he founded 4 'Die Neue Zeit" at Stuttgart in 1883 as a scientific review of socialism and carried it on until 1917. His importance as the theorist of socialism was recognised outside Germany. He played a prominent part at international socialist congresses and was a member of the International Bureau at Brussels, (while much of his work was translated into foreign languages. He was strongly against terrorism and the dictatorship of the proletariat. After the German revolution Kautsky jraa entrusted with the examination find publication of the German Foreign •Office documents bearing on war-guilt, v. iAs a pendant to his book "How the [World-War Came About" he wrote a pamphlet "Delbruck and Wilhelm H." in which he declared that some of the conclusions he reached in the former .were too far-reaching and that Geri jnany did not plan to bring about the ;war and finally sought to avert it, but that she had political leaders so incompetent or pushful that they led the nation into the adventure without thinking what they were doing. He added that in his book he had done tho Imperial Government too much credit by aspumirg that it ever did anything according to plan, and that its policy of Juno and July, 1914, wag pursued with irresponsible levity. Kautsky was a prolific writer on social policy, producing over 40 bookii, notable among which was "The Materialistic View of History," published in 1927.