hands, this destruction of the State, which is utterly repugnant to the Opportunists, completely disappears. Nothing remains but an opportunists loophole in his interpretation of "conquest" as the gaining of a majority.
In order to cover up his distortion of Marxism, Kautsky radiates erudition, offering us "quotations" from Marx himself. Marx wrote in 1850 of the necessity of a "decisive centralization of force in the hands of the State," and Kautsky triumphantly asks: "Does Pannekoek want to destroy 'Centralism'?" This is nothing but a conjuring trick. It is the same sort of thing as Bernstein on "Federation versus Centralism."
Kautsky's "quotation" is neither here nor there. The new form of the State admits Centralism as much as the old; if the workers voluntarily unify their armed forces this will be Centralism; but it will be based on the complete destruction of centralized government apparatus—the army, police, bureaucracy. Kautsky's behaviour is certainly not honest here; the well-known dissertations of Marx and Engels on the Commune are ignored in favor of a quotation which has no relevance at all.
"Perhaps Pannekoek wants to destroy the State functions of the officials (Kautsky continues). But we cannot do without officials even in our party and trade union organizations, much less in the State administration. For state officials our program demands, not annihilation but election by the people. It is not a question as to the precise form which the administrative apparatus will take in the future State, but as to whether our political struggle destroys (literally: dissolves, "auflost") the State before we have conquered it (Kautsky's italics). What Ministry, with its officials, could be destroyed? (Here follows an enumeration of the Ministries of Education, Justice, Finance and War). No, not one of the present Ministries will be abolished in our political struggles against the Government. … I repeat, to avoid misunderstanding, it is not here a question as to what form a victorious Social-Democracy will give to the 'future State,' but as to how our opposition changes the present State" (p. 725).
This is an obvious trick: Revolution was the question Pannekoek raised. Both the title of his article and the passages quoted above clearly enough show that. But Kautsky shifts and changes the point of view from one of Revolution to one of Opportunism, when he jumps over to the question of "opposition." According to him, we must for the present confine ourselves to opposition; after we have won power we can have a talk about other things.
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