Page - 143 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

the national question 143 OberwinderandtheradicalsunderAndreasScheu–wereclearthatthesocio- economicandpolitical interestoftheworkingclassrequiredenergeticconsol- idatingaction.Asaconditionforthesuccessofsuchaction,however,aposition had tobe formulated to finally reconcilenational interests andresolve issues concerning nationalism and theworking class. This question also remained fundamental and acute for the Social-Democraticmovement that united in Hainfeld.Notably, thismovement claimed tobeMarxist fromits inception– hence, the Austrian socialists consistently attempted to base their solution to the national question on socialist theory. UnderAustrian conditions, this attemptwasboundtofail.Thisrequiressomeexplanation. Onequestion inparticular springs tomind: did the classicalMarxist texts andthepositionsoftheSecondInternationalcontainanytheoreticalsolutions inthe interestof theworkingclass thatcouldbepractically implementedina multi-nationalstate? For Marx and Engels, the problem of specifically national working-class interests did not really exist.46When theywere active, nationalismwas not a significant factor of political life, and they did not paymuch attention to it.47 They located the sourceofnational conflict in the class character of the bourgeoisstate. Intheirview, freecompetition–i.e. freetrade, theemergence of aworldeconomy, and standardisationof the formsofproduction–would level differences and antagonismsbetween thepeoples during theperiodof capitalistdevelopment.Thesecontradictionswouldthenbeabolishedentirely withtheunificationoftheproletariatanditsseizureofpower.MarxandEngels deemed the socialist revolution the realmeans for the emancipation of the workingclassandoppressednations.Tobeprecise, theclassicalMarxist texts viewed the solution to thenationalquestionasdependinguponthe solution tothesocialquestion.Theyregardednationalstrugglesnotasanindependent factorofhistory,butasanintegralcomponentoftheclassstruggle.Letusnote, however, thatMarx’s –butparticularlyEngels’s – conceptionof thenational problem led them to champion nations that they believedwere carriers of historical progress. For them, large economic and political organisms were progressive.48 Because they believed that these organismswere the focus of revolutionaryenergy, theyprojected theirdesire for socialist revolutionupon themandexpected them toprovide the catalyst. Their thesis that theworld revolutionwasanobjectiveconsequenceofhistoricaldevelopmentandwould 46 HelmutKonradoffersmoredetailsabouttheclassicalMarxistsandthenationalquestion inKonrad1976,pp.6–17. 47 CompareLeichter1976,p.78. 48 SeeKonrad1977,p. 195.