Page - 50 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

50 chapter 2 Inviewofthegrowingimportanceofthe‘Bernsteindebate’,theAustriansocial- ists were facedwith a dilemma: they could either subscribe to the thesis of a ‘scientific crisis’ ofMarxism,popularisedparticularlyby theneo-Kantianor positivist-orientedrevisionists,ortaketoMarxism’sdefence.Fewofthosewho chose the latteroptionwere fully awareofMarxism’sdistinct theoretical and methodologicalfeatures,whichiswhytheyfeltthatdrawingonnotions,meth- odsandcriteriaof scientificitydevelopedby thesocial sciencesupuntil then wouldbethecorrectwaytoproceed.Theessentialadvantageoftheirapproach wasthattheycouldfallbackonage-oldscientificandphilosophical traditions thathadaccompanied thebirthofMarxism. Indeed, at the turnof the twen- tiethcentury, itwasnotatall self-evident thatMarxismwaspartofEuropean philosophicalculture. Another crucial question that prompted both interest and controversy in theMarxist campwas the relevance and adequacy ofMarx’s theory to the political practiceof SocialDemocracy,whichwas changingduring theeraof monopolycapitalism.Undertheneweconomicandsocialconditions(concen- trationofcapital, increasingstratificationof theworkingclassandchanges in theclassstructureofsociety)andpoliticalcircumstances(newly legalactivity ofworking-class parties, risingmembership andgrowing trade-union ranks), SocialDemocracy left behind its formative years. Spontaneousmassdemon- strationswerealreadyof thepast, and theSocial-Democraticparties focused on defending reformist gains. They did not stand in theway of the process throughwhich theworking class was gradually integrated into the existing socio-political structures. Theirmain objectivewas to transform the capital- ist state intoasocialist statebydemocraticmeans.At the turnof thecentury, thisposition foundaparticularlyacuteexpression inrevisionism,whichgave a theoretical grounding to earlier attempts at combiningMarxismwithnon- Marxistcurrents inthesocialsciences.Basedonempiricalresearch, it further- moreput themain thesesofhistoricalmaterialismintoquestion–rightly so, ashistorywouldshow.Forthepracticeoftheworkers’movement,revisionism meantabandoningtherevolutionaryprinciplesofMarx’stheoryandstrength- ening reformist politics based on a temporary acceptance of the bourgeois- democratic state –despite its simultaneous verbal and ideological negation. The strong influence of revisionism on the workers’ movement shaped the worldviewofSocial-Democraticpartiesat thebeginningofthetwentiethcen- tury: itsfoundationwasnon-revolutionaryMarxismandthereformistorienta- tionofworkersduringthe ‘goldenage’ofcapitalisminthe1890s.12 12 Bauer rightly recognised that this worldviewmet the expectations of the progressive