Page - 146 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

146 chapter 4 tionassuch,butratherBauer’sapproachtoit.Ourreconstructionwilltherefore refer to the aforementioned researchers’ key conclusions andwill be limited toabrief expositionof theSocialDemocrats’ stance.Embroiledas theywere in ideologicalandtacticaldifficulties, theSocialDemocratshadnotyet taken upaunifiedpositiononthenationalquestion inthe 1860s–70s.57Documents fromthefirstcongressesof theworkers’organisationstestify totheconflictof opinions.58 Likewise, during the period of unification, the Social Democrats were in doubt as towhether they should simply dismiss the national ques- tion as a bourgeois chimera and instead campaign for internationalism, or elseseekasolutionwithintheexistingconstitutional framework.Thefounder of themovement, Victor Adler, was aware of this dilemma. He resisted any debate on the national question in the party as best he could, wary that it mightleadtoasplit inthelabourmovement.59AdleragreedwithKautskythat thenationalquestioncouldbe reduced toa languageproblemand therefore hadtobe transferred fromtheeconomicandpoliticalontoacultural terrain. Adlerunderestimatedtheunderlyingsocio-economicandpoliticalreasonsfor national conflicts. Nor did he recognise the degree of tensions that existed betweenworkersofdifferentnationalities. In theprogrammeof theunifying Hainfeldcongress, theSocialDemocratsconsequentlyarguedformaintaining thestatusquoofthemonarchy–apolicythatAdlerandKautskyhadauthored. OnAdler’s inference,therewasconspicuoussilencearoundthenationalques- tion,whichhadbeenbypassed in favourof a strong focuson the struggle for universal suffrage. The resolution proclaimed at congress defined the party as international, yet did not define internationalismmore closely. The party 57 Themoderatesadvocatedacompromisewith the liberal andnationalparties,while the radicalsaimedtomaintainindependentpoliticalactionandinternationalism. 58 TheManifesto totheWorkingPeopleofAustria,whichhadbeenformulatedbythe fifth Viennaworkers’ congress on 10May 1868, called upon the solidarity of workers of all Austro-Hungariannationsandassuredthemthatthetimeofnationaldivisionswasover. TheApril 1874partycongress inNeudörfl adoptedadiametricallyoppositeposition: the resolutionapprovedofseparatistnationalorganisationsandadoptedtherightofnations to self-determination.Theprogrammeadoptedat thecongress inWienerNeustadt (13– 15August1876),conversely,wasabackwardstepwhencomparedtotheprogressiveparts of the1874programme: itattemptedtounitetheworkersaroundtheslogan, ‘theworkers ofAustria fight, but theydo sowithin the frameworkof the existing constitution’ – see Berchtold1967,p. 199.The‘programmaticresolution’of1877,whichcontainedacommon positionofallnationalorganisationsonuniversal suffrage, representedacompromiseof sorts.FormoreontheprogrammesmentionedhereandthenationalprogrammeofBern, compareKulemann1979,pp. 120–6. 59 CompareKonrad1977,p. 138.