Page - 225 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

the ‘thirdway’ to socialism 225 state in the countryside was reduced to that of an auxiliary organ for the transitiontoself-administration.Despiteall itsvirtues, theSocial-Democratic agrarianprogrammedidnotmeetwithalotofresponseamongtheruralpopu- lation.133Peasants, traditionally illdisposedtowardstatism,werenotenthusi- astic.ThoseorganisedintheChristianSocialPartywerereluctantaboutestab- lishing big agricultural enterprises and industrial councils. The programme couldnot inveigle thepeasantry because it scarcely offered themmore than they alreadyhad: peasants hadbeenusingwoods andpasturesheld in com- monsince the fourteenthcentury,while co-operativeshadbeen successfully operatingintheAustriancountrysidesincethelatenineteenthcentury.Asec- ondary factor,whichnonetheless co-determined the fate of the programme, wasthepeasantry’sstronganti-Semitism,manifestingitselfinmistrusttowards the sdap. The rural proletariat, in turn, was aware that the sdap proposals couldonly become reality if theparty seized statepower– and from 1925 to 1926, thechancesofdepriving thebourgeoispartiesofpowerweredecidedly low.Althoughitwashighlyappraisedbysome, it is fair tosaythattheagrarian programme laidbare thedeficiencyof theSocial-Democratic strategy. It rep- resented a theoreticalmodel that lacked the experienceofworkingwithin a coalition, including the failed socialisation of the industry.What ismore, it truly existed in a vacuum.As the SocialDemocrats failed to co-operatewith thesocialistpeasantmovement, theygambledawaytheirchancesof realising theirprogrammeinthecountryside.Theprogrammedidplayapositiverolein Social-Democraticpolitics,whichessentiallyreliedonconvincingthepeasants thattheSocialDemocratsdidnotrepresenta‘redthreat’tothecountryside.All thesame, itwasnotenoughtostopthecorporatist ideologygaininggroundin ruralareas. As an aside, the 1925 agrarian programmewas taken up again in Austria afterWorldWar ii,whensocialdemocrats returned tomodelsof agricultural education, loans to agricultural enterprises, and market regulation for key agriculturalproductsandsocialpolicies. 133 Hanisch cites Hänisch 1995, p. 499, as follows: ‘When the sdap became the strongest individual party at theNationalAssembly elections in 1930, it receivedonly sixpercent of thevotes fromthoseworking inagriculture; incontrast, theChristianSocials received 59percent’ (ourtranslation)–Hanisch2011p.228.