37. ‘Our Struggle against Imperialism’ (May 1912)

This article, written against the background of the Second Moroccan Crisis, is a polemic against Karl Kautsky's theory of imperialism as advanced in his two May Day articles of 1911 and 19121 and in his essay "World Politics, World War and Social Democracy", published in August 1911 and included in this volume. Kautsky hoped that broad sections of the bourgeoisie would be led by their own self-interest to join with workers in opposing the "small minority of officers, public officials, armour-plate manufacturers, suppliers and speculators" who profited personally from arms expenditures and imperial conquests. Denying any possibility of a multi-class alliance against imperialism, still less an inter-imperialist agreement for peaceful division of the world, Karl Radek shared Luxemburg's concern to emphasise the immediate and urgent necessity of socialist revolution as the only conceivable response by the working class. Keywords:imperialism; Karl Kautsky's theory; Second Moroccan Crisis; Social Democracy