Publisher's Synopsis
IN his Communism in Central Europe in the Time of the Reformation, Herr Karl Kautsky shows a thorough knowledge of this particular study, together with a keen critical insight of the general religious, social, and political movements of the period. The keynote to all these movements, as the author is careful to point out in the Introduction, is the financial tyranny of the Papacy. Its dominance he aptly compares with La Haute Finance or the Stock Exchange of modern times. Its jurisdiction, however, was quite as much disputed as that of the latter at the present time. "Both have in common," writes Herr Kautsky, i' the faculty of exciting the enmity of all other ranks of society -- not only of the exploited classes, but also of the exploiters. Both are compelled to relinquish much of their spoils to the greatest of all exploiters, and both view the treasures of the latter with eager, covetous eyes. Nothing is more erroneous than the opinion that the obedience shown to the Papal power during the second half of the Middle Ages was either hearty or stupid. It was neither. It might rather be designated as a sullen submission, always resentful and rebellious whenever chance offered. But so long as the foundations of a new order of society and government were non-existent the Papacy was quite as impregnable as La Haute Finance has hitherto proved itself to be."
Although these movements from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries to the era of the Reformation were to some extent religious, and based upon a sincere desire to return to primitive Christianity, they were less religious than social or political. It is true that they appeared more or less effectually concealed by the veil of religion....
--The Westminster Review, Volume 149
