Terrorism and Communism

A Reply to Karl Kautsky

Written in 1920 in the midst of the Russian Civil War, Trotsky’s famous book is a reply to Karl Kautsky’s attack on the October Revolution and the Bolsheviks who led it. Kautsky criticised the conduct of the Red forces in the Civil War.

In his powerful polemic Trotsky addresses head-on the question of violence in the struggle for social change. He explains that at some point every revolution has to confront the violence of the old order determined to defend its power and privileges and that the progressive forces have no alternative but to take up arms and strive by all means to defeat the reactionaries.

Many of the moral-political issues raised by the ongoing struggle in Iraq are the same ones dealt with by Trotsky in this impassioned book.