Acknowledgements
The ideas of the Marxist thinker and activist Karl Kautsky (1854–1938) have almost been consigned to oblivion in scholarship and political discourse. However, following the completion of my BA in Germanic Studies at the University of Sheffield in 2007, I have had the good fortune of collaborating with some of the few scholars who are still working on his ideas and are looking at fresh material as well as revealing older texts, in an attempt to reassess the history of the European workers’ movement. I wish to thank three such specialists in particular: Mike Macnair, Lars T. Lih and Daniel Gaido. Mike’s excellent Revolutionary Strategy: Marxism and the Challenge of Left Unity,8 as well as his tremendous knowledge of social-democratic history, prompted me to take a closer look at the so-called ‘Marxist Centre’ around Kautsky. Mike also lent me his copy of Lars T. Lih’s Lenin Rediscovered: ‘What Is to be Done?’ in Context,9 which I read in one rather long sitting during a camping holiday in West Wales in the summer of 2008. This book transformed my understanding of both Lenin and Kautsky and inspired me to work more closely on the latter. Ever since bumping into each other at the Marxism Festival in London that same summer, Lars Lih and I have struck up an excellent working relationship. I have never met Daniel Gaido, who is based in Argentina, but was immediately impressed with his translations of Kautsky’s writings on Russia.10 We have regularly discussed by email various aspects of German social democracy, and he has always kindly offered his advice and assistance in matters relating to my work. I hope that my cooperation with Lars, Mike and Daniel will continue into the future, for there is still much work to do.
My cooperation with Mike and Lars in particular has led to two book publications (Zinoviev and Martov: Head-to-Head in Halle;11 Karl Kautsky on Colonialism),12 and, in addition, I have published several academic translations of Kautsky’s works, as well as extended articles in publications such as Weekly Worker, Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory and Revolutionary History. Thanks go to Peter Manson and John Bridge (Weekly Worker), Yassamine Mather and Hillel Ticktin (Critique) and Ted Crawford and Ian Birchall (Revolutionary History) for encouraging me to publish my work with them. The Editorial Board of Historical Materialism and comrade Sebastian Budgen in particular have ensured that my MA dissertation on Kautsky and the translation work I have conducted in the past three or four years could be collated in a single volume: I am most indebted to them for encouraging me to see the project through to the end, as well as to Danny Hayward for his meticulous proofreading. For pointing out to me a wealth of social-democratic material from this period, I must also thank Noa Rodman and Andrew Bonnell. Maciej Zurowski, as usual, answered my numerous questions regarding knifflige German phrases and translation issues.
When I returned to academia in September 2014, my supervisors Peter Thompson and Henk de Berg were extremely helpful in teaching me how best to express my knowledge and experience of working on Kautsky. I would like to thank them both for their support and guidance and for our excellent three-way discussions of German intellectual thought. I am particularly indebted to Henk de Berg for helping me to highlight more clearly where I take over the insights of existing Kautsky research or try to go beyond it. He has also patiently taught me the importance of the Dutch expression Schrijven is weglaten, and spent much of his time going through my drafts and unsplitting my infinitives: I shall endeavour always to avoid splitting them in the future. I must also thank the White Rose Network for providing a fee-waiver for my MA thesis, which forms a chapter of this volume, and the Wolfson Foundation for funding my PhD on the political thought of Oswald Spengler (1880–1936).
The completion of this book has been dependent on my family and friends. I must thank my mother for all she has done for me in the recent past and across my whole life. I am a very fortunate and grateful son. Since completing this book, my father has come back into my life and I am incredibly proud of him for what he has achieved. The love and warmth of my Iranian family (the ‘5+1’, as we call ourselves) has also been a constant inspiration.
I would also like to thank Tina Becker, Lee Rock and Emmalein for allowing me to stay with them during tough times as an MA student, as well as Louise Dyason and Jamie Tedford for their warmth and hospitality – always cheering me up when things got rough.
This book would not have been possible without the encouragement, support and love of my wife, Anahita. Not only has she constantly pushed me to return to academia, she has selflessly supported me and shown her typical strength and courage during what has occasionally been a tough couple of years, with several prolonged absences from each other due to the inhumane idiosyncrasies of current immigration laws. I cannot thank you enough, Anahita. Last but not least, I must mention our beautiful daughter, Clara Yildiz, who has recently arrived in the world and who brings us both so much happiness.
I would like to dedicate this publication to the memory of Mohammad Ali Partovi (1947–88), a leftist activist who was executed in one of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s jails in 1988. As all books were quickly confiscated during his time in prison, he spent months upon end as part of a collective prisoner project to copy, illegally and by hand, a Farsi translation of Kautsky’s classic Foundations of Christianity.13 His story puts the hard work on this project somewhat into perspective, and also underlines how the struggle for democracy and political freedom, a leitmotif of Kautsky’s work, continues to this day, both in Europe and around the world.
Figure 2
One of the handwritten pages copied in prison by Mohammad Ali Partovi
