Page - 202 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

202 chapter 5 fascismwouldwin indefinitely, that theworkingclasswould lose itsposition, andthattheconsequencesofwarwouldbefatal. Bauer’s ideaof ‘integral socialism’wasbynomeansunfamiliar– it accom- paniedthefoundingoftheViennaInternationalin1921,andindeedMaxAdler had longsinceadvocated it inhiswritings.Baueronlygraduallyadopted this positionfrom1921onward,althoughthedegreeofhisradicalismwasinconsist- ent.Inthisauthor’sview,Bauer’s1922positionsweremoreradicalthanthosehe advocatedin1936,whenhisprogrammeforco-operationbetweenbothwings oftheworkers’movementreacheditsfullmaturity.Whentheexecutivesofthe three internationalsmet at theApril 1922 congress, Bauer did not, unlike in thelaterperiod,thinkoftheideologicaldifferencesbetweenSocialDemocrats andCommunistsas fundamental. Insteadofblamingthedivisionswithinthe workers’movementsolelyondifferenttheoreticalpremises,strategicgoalsand resultantdecisionsby theparty leaders,he identifieddifferent socio-political conditions in the East andwest as part of the reason. Because of these, he argued, themethods adoptedby theworking class in the struggle for social- ismdiffered too.Characteristically forBauer’sperspective,his congress thesis concerning co-operationbetween the two tendenciesdidnot speakofunity, butofcoexistenceanddivisionofspheresofinfluence.Thewestwastoremain theSocialDemocrats’ ideologicalsphereofinfluence,theEastthedominionof theCommunists.84Tobeprecise,Bauerdidnotthinkthattherewasaspacefor theCommunistpartiesintheWesterncountries,norfortheMenshevikoppos- itionintheEast.OnecannotbutnoticethatBauercontradictedhimself,evenif hewasunawareofit:hisdemandforadivisionofspheresofinfluenceimplied, after all, that the Social-Democratic andCommunist partieswere ideologic- allydifferent.However,Baueradoptedadifferent tone for thecongressof the threeinternationals,defendingtheRussianRevolutionfromcritiqueinhisown campandattacksbythebourgeoisgroups.DespitetheundeniableroleofRus- sian conditions, it is surprising thatBauerdidnot recognise the influenceof Lenin’sdoctrineontheshapethatBolshevismtookinpractice.Afterall,Lenin hadoutlinedthedoctrine,whichclearlydefinedtheroleof thepartyafter the revolution,asearlyas in1902whenhewroteWhatIsToBeDone? In 1934, Bauer admitted in the journal,DerKampf, that themain subject ofdisputebetweenSocialDemocrats andCommunistshadbeenvanquished with the fall ofdemocracy.85Nonetheless, he thought that thecontradictions between reformist and revolutionary socialism, which in his view resulted 84 CompareMerchav1978,p.35. 85 SeeBauer1934c,p. 110.