Page - XXVIII - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

xxviii foreword defendedagainstmycritique in a televiseddebate: he argued that thepolit- icalsituationintheFirstRepublichadbeenan‘uncontrollable’ (andtherefore hopeless) state of affairs.Whatever Bauer andother leadersmayhavedone, orrefrainedfromdoing, itwouldnothavechangedthefatalendingfordemo- cracyandforAustriainanyway,shapeorform.From1918to1927(atthelatest), thesituationwassoseverethateventhebestpolitical strategycouldnothave steeredAustriabacktoanypromisingcourse. Ifweadheredtothis interpreta- tionofhistoricaleventsandtheircontext,itwouldindeedbecomesuperfluous to investigate possible errors and their sources, as avoidablemistakeswould onlybesupersededbyunavoidableones. This pessimistic and deterministic perspective, however, is itself an after- effect of theoptimistic determinism thatBauermaintained for too long. For him, thehistoricalnecessityof socialismwascertainupuntil thepointwhen developmentbrushedasidenot only socialism, but alsodemocracy itself. To counter the determinist perspective held by Bauer and Magaziner, which merelyunderwenta transformation fromconfidence invictory todoom-and- gloomfatalism,onemightciteWilhelmEllenbogen’sstatementfromhismem- oir,DieKatastrophederösterreichischenSozialdemokratie (TheDisasterofAus- trian Social Democracy), which I edited: ‘Perhaps the party would have not experiencedanyfundamentalbreakatallhadithandledthedemocracyques- tioncorrectly’. What,then,didthewrongapproachtodemocracy,whichledtosuchdevast- atingresults,consistof?Putinaconciseformula,itispossibletosaythatunder Otto Bauer’s towering influence, the Austrian Social Democraticmovement remained inopposition for too long, confident in its victoryandsuccumbing to the illusion that its victory in theupcomingelectionswassecureanyway– andapart fromthat, capitalismwoulddecayandcollapseunder itsowncon- tradictions.Holdingontothistwofoldperspective,whichwouldguaranteethe victoryof theproletariat and itsparty, theSocialDemocrats in 1931 andeven 1932, closed theirminds to anykindof agreement that stillmight havebeen able to somehowprevent thedemise of democracy andbuild a united front againstNationalSocialism.BythetimeBauerrealisedthatthealternativewas nolonger‘capitalismorsocialism’,but‘democracyorfascism’,itwastoolate.At that stage, under thepressureofMussolini and theHeimwehr, thebourgeois opposing party was no longer interested in a peaceful solution – especially as theSocialDemocrats acquiesced inDollfuss’s violationof theconstitution withouta fight,notevenattempting togetDollfuss toconcedebymeansofa generalstrikeormassdemonstration. Inhiswrittendefence,DerAufstandderösterreichischenArbeiter(TheUpris- ing of theAustrianWorkers), Bauer admitted tomiscalculations, yet did not