Except at the very time of publication by Jean Jaurès of his Histoire socialiste de la Révolution française, the translation into French of a short brochure entitled La lutte des classes en France en 1789 by Karl Kautsky, then one of the major fi gures of the Second International, has rarely received any attention. While this piece cannot compare with the magnitude of the work by Jaures, the writings of Kautsky still retain a measure of interest for the guesdistes who envisaged a stricter application of historical materialism to the events of the « Great Revolution », more closely conforming to their « marxism », than Jaures. In this context, Jaures and Kautsky display their differences about the place accorded to the « revolutionary traditions », in the review Mouvement socialiste. A study of the reception of the Kautsky’s work permits to understand the diversity of interpretations of the French Revolution among French socialists.