Colonialism 9

In colonial policy we must not take a purely negative position, but we must pursue a positive socialist colonial policy. (Audience: Bravo!) We must move away from the utopian idea of selling the colonies. The ultimate consequence of this view would be to give the United States back to the Indians. (Audience: commotion.) The colonies are there, you have to put up with that.

Quoted by Karl Kautsky (1907): Sozialismus und Kolonialpolitik. Berlin: Buchhandlung Vorwärts, p. 6.

Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932) was a German social democrat and member of the SPD. This quote comes from a speech he made at the International Socialist Congress 1907.

While the Catholic Centre Party supported colonial policy, there were disagreements amongst Socialists. Unlike Bernstein, Karl Kautsky believed that socialism and colonialism were incompatible. Kautsky criticised Bernstein for expressly justifying a relationship of domination (Kautsky 1907: 17): the right of peoples of “higher” cultures to patronise peoples of “lesser” cultures. In the end of the congress, Bernstein only condemned ‘capitalist colonial policy,’ since it inevitably led to ‘forced labour and the annihilation of indigenous peoples,’ while socialism alone, he argued, could enable ‘peaceful cultural development.’ In his publication, Kautsky questioned the Europeans’ apparently civilising mission: ‘What do you need to educate and patronise other people?’ (ibid. p. 46).

*Karl Kautsky (1907): Sozialismus und Kolonialpolitik. Berlin: Buchhandlung Vorwärts, p. 6.