Page - 71 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

thematerialist view of history 71 expect suchconsciousness toevolve inacapitalist social formation,unlessas anartificial intellectualconstruct.Theonlyknowledgeonecancarry into the workingclassistheexplanationofthereasonsforitsoppressionandthemech- anismsofhistoricalevolutionasrevealedbyMarxism. In his outstanding historical study Der Kampf umWald undWeide (The Struggle forWoodsandPastures, 1925),Bauerascribedtheemergenceofsocial classes and polarisation of capitalist society to the antagonistic structure of capitalist relationsof production–circumstances thatwould inevitably lead tosocial revolution.Themodeofexistenceincapitalist societieswastheclass struggle, its objective necessity determined by conflicts in people’smaterial sphereof life.Bauer regarded thecontradictionbetweendivergenteconomic interests as thedriving factor behindhumanactivity; he also considered the nationalcomponent,althoughheviewedthisaslessessential.Furthermore,he lookedintootherelementsoftheclassstruggle–thatis,elementsoftheprim- ordial (biological, geographical, demographical)kind.Much likeKarlRenner, hetookhiscuefromSocialDarwinism,interpretingtheclassstruggleasaform oftheindividual’sfightforsurvivalwithinsocialstructures.Bauerbelievedthat theproletarianstruggleagainstthebourgeoisiefollowedthepatternofnatural processes–aviewpointthatleftnoroomforadialecticalperspectiveofdevel- opment.Onwhat, then, is themechanismbehindproletarianstruggleagainst the bourgeoisie based? Bauer strictly ascribed it to the economic base, link- ingcapitalism’sphasesofboomtotheeconomicandpolitical victoriesof the proletariat – and economic collapse to the failure of the class struggle. The claimthattheclassstrugglehadnocontinuouscharacteranddidnotgradually intensify servedas theSocial-Democraticparty’s argument to justifypolitical defeats. TheAustriansocialistsbelievedthat theworkingclasshadtowageaneco- nomic and social struggle for emancipation in order to defend its interests. Thespecificityof theAustromarxistconceptconcernedthemeansandmeth- ods: thestrugglebetweentheright-wingmajority,whichpleadedfortheunity of classes, the centre, which favoured parliamentarymeans of struggle, and the left, which advocated the armed insurrection, intensified duringWorld Wari(wewill investigatethisquestionmorecloselywhendiscussingpolitical thought).Inthisdebate,Bauerconsistentlyarguedthatmethodsdependonthe objectiveconditionsof struggle.While insisting that theworkingclass should usedemocraticmeans into the 1920s,hechangedhismind inviewof the fas- cisisationofAustria,concedingthattheproletariatmustemployrevolutionary methodsif it is todefeatthefascistdictatorship. BauerauthoredsharpanalysesoftheclassstrugglesinAustria,includingthe struggleof thepeasantryagainstaristocratic landowners since the fourteenth