Page - 12 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

12 chapter 1 ies forSocialDemocracy. Someof them, suchas theanti-MarxistLudwigvon Mises,predictedapoliticalfutureforhim.29SigmundFreud,whomBauerknew personally,didnotagreewiththis flatteringprophecy:heviewedhimasasci- entist and advisedhimagainst taking uppolitics altogether.30 Yet Bauer did notmerely want to be a theorist and analyst. He considered it his duty to transformsocialreality,notjustinterpretit.Hismainreasonsforchampioning socialismwereaxiological rather thaneconomicor social. Forhim, socialism embraced theprospect of amoral and intellectual rebirthof individuals and societies. Inhis firstmajoressays, he remained faithful to thismoralisticper- spective:In‘MarxismusundEthik’(‘MarxismandEthics’,1906)and‘Geschichte einesBuches’ (‘HistoryofaBook’, 1907),whichcontainedhiscommentaryon Marx’sCapital,hedefendedtheevaluativeorientationofsocialism.ForBauer, socialismwas principally an ethical goal, a form of social coexistence that would allow for the full realisationof allmajorhumanvalues.Heheldon to this until the end of his life, regarding it as his obligation to provide a basis for how this ideal, which he approached from aKantian perspective, could be integrated intoMarx’s lawsof social development. In theaforementioned works,heattemptedtoprovidea foundation for socialismthatwasrelianton the premises of Kantian ethics. He overcamehis propensity for Kantianism between1916and1920, yethecontinuedtoperceiveuniversalmoral rightsas therootsofdemocraticidealsandhumanistvalues.Hiswriting,whichhecon- tinuedeven in timesofpolitical failure andafterhispartywasdefeated,was imbuedwithsocialoptimism.Thiswasmanifest inhisunswervingfaithinthe continuityandlinearityofsocialprogressandhisbelief inthevictoryofsocial- ism. Bauer joinedthesdapwhenhebeganhisstudies inthewintersemesterof 1900–1.Atthetime,theunresolvednationalitiesquestionwasthecentralprob- leminAustrianSocial-Democraticpolitics.Nationalitiesconflicts,Czechsep- aratisminparticular, ledtotheintensificationofGermannationalism,butalso restrainedeconomicdevelopmentwithin theempireandcausedseriousdis- ruptionstoparliamentarylife.Indeed,theHainfeldprogrammeof1889entirely ignoredthenationalitiesquestion,advocatinginsteadthegeneralprinciplesof internationalismandtheabolitionofnationalprivileges.Bauerdismissedthis asa ‘naivecosmopolitanism’.31VictorAdlereschewedthenationalquestionat party congresses, as he feared a surge in Slavic nationalist sentiments and a 29 AstoLudwigvonMises’scharacterisationofBauer,compareMozetič 1987,p.7. 30 SeeSinger1979,p. 106. 31 Bauer1996,p.417.