Mainstream Weekly(The text by Karl Kautsky below was first published in Die Gesellschaft, 1925
Marked up: Zdravko Saveski for marxists.org, 2008)
THE DESPOTISM of the Bolshevik party in Russia appears to be stronger and less open to attack than ever. Yet already it shows signs of impending collapse. That has been proved very recently by the Trotsky case. It may seem at first sight as if its swift and easy settlement has strengthened the dictatorial regime to the greatest degree, and has shown that no opposition to this regime is now possible. But it is precisely the ease with which the opposition was suppressed that has demonstrated how deep the inner decay of Bolshevism already is. For this was not an external opposition that faced the present masters of Russia, but one from within their own ranks, the opposition of a man who together with Lenin created the dictatorship and justified it both practically and theoretically, while the majority of Russia’s present ruling elite initially adopted a hesitant and vacillating attitude towards it