Dictatorship vs. Democracy (Terrorism and Communism): a reply to Karl Kantsky

by Leon Trotsky

"Dictatorship vs. Democracy (Terrorism and Communism): a reply to Karl Kantsky" by Leon Trotsky is a political tract published in August 1920. Written in response to Karl Kautsky's critique of the Russian Revolution, Trotsky's work defends the Bolsheviks' rejection of parliamentary democracy and justifies the use of revolutionary force by the dictatorship of the proletariat. The book enters a heated debate between leading Marxist thinkers about democracy, violence, and the proper path for socialist revolution in Soviet Russia.