Karl Kautsky, Czech-German journalist, philosopher, and theoretician (born 1854)

Karl Johann Kautsky was an Austro-German philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theorist. He was one of the most authoritative promulgators of orthodox Marxism after the death of Friedrich Engels in 1895 and was for decades the leading theorist of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Second International. His influence was so pervasive that he was often called the "Pope of Marxism", and his views dominated European Marxism until the outbreak of World War I in 1914.