Quiz: The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky

10 questions drawn at random. Score 80% for a silver medal.

1. 1. According to Lenin’s table, what share of delegates were Bolsheviks at the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets?

   13 per cent 66 per cent 90 per cent 51 per cent
2. 2. How does Lenin classify the disfranchisement of the exploiters?

   As the essence of the dictatorship of the proletariat everywhere As a Russian question, not a necessary part of dictatorship As a temporary error to be corrected As a measure Marx demanded in 1875
3. 3. How did Kautsky characterise the Bolsheviks’ appeal to the dictatorship of the proletariat?

   As a misreading of the Communist Manifesto and its ten measures As a borrowing from Blanqui As an invention of Engels after Marx’s death in 1883 As resting on “one single word” Marx once used in an 1875 letter
4. 4. When does Lenin say the countryside passed through its own “November” (proletarian) revolution?

   In the summer and autumn of 1918 In November 1917, with the cities In the spring and summer of 1917 In January 1918
5. 5. Which socialist does Lenin note was at Versailles during the Commune?

   Jules Guesde Auguste Blanqui Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Louis Blanc
6. 6. How does Lenin answer Kautsky’s claim that the Bolsheviks staked everything on a European revolution?

   They had never expected any revolution abroad They counted on it, but not by any given date They admitted it was a mistake They had relied on Germany’s defeat in the war instead
7. 7. What does Lenin credit the Soviet government with doing in foreign policy?

   Tearing the veil of mystery from it Joining the Entente Abolishing the Foreign Commissariat Restoring the tsarist alliances
8. 8. When does Lenin say the Bolsheviks first raised the questions of the soviets as state organs and of changing their party’s name?

   April 1917 1905 January 1918 November 1917
9. 9. What did the Central Executive Committee decide on 14 June 1918, to Kautsky’s indignation?

   To abolish private property in land To sign the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty with Germany To dissolve the Constituent Assembly by decree To exclude the SRs and Mensheviks from the soviets
10. 10. Why does Lenin list his earlier writings against Kautsky in the preface?

    To advertise his collected works To show that he had once agreed with Kautsky on the State To prove he had denounced Kautsky long before taking power To answer Kautsky’s charge that he had plagiarised him