Capital accumulation, imperialism and war

Rosa Luxemburg and Otto Bauer

pp. 106-126

in: M. C. Howard, J. E. King, A history of Marxian economics I, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1989

Abstract

After 1907 the divisions within the SPD became more and more apparent. The right wing of the party, although always in the minority, advanced the revisionist case with increasing confidence against the left, whose belief in the inevitability of economic breakdown contributed greatly to their revolutionary political perspective. The central ground was occupied (at the theoretical level) by Kautsky and Hilferding. As we saw in the previous chapter, Kautsky's centrism was increasingly slanted towards the right. Thus the left's attack on class collaboration and the illusion of peaceful social change was directed against Kautsky himself.