51. ‘The Driving Forces of Imperialism’ (March 1915)

Karl Radek's article on "The Driving Forces of Imperialism", like the preceding one by Rosa Luxemburg, can be read as a response to Kautsky's identification of democracy with the national state. Kautsky thought imperialist contradictions could be overcome by combining democratic states in an economic federation to eliminate tariffs. The significance that Kautsky attached to the state exemplified the thinking that paralysed the Second International. In every country, social-chauvinists found democratic justification for supporting the national war-effort: British and French labour leaders pointed to the threat of postwar reaction posed by Hohenzollern Germany, ignoring the fact that their own countries were allied with tsarist Russia; German and Austrian Social Democrats claimed that an Entente-victory would strengthen Russia, forgetting that defence of their own fatherlands meant war against bourgeois democracies in Britain and France. Keywords:Driving Forces; imperialism; Karl Radek; Rosa Luxemburg