Page - 249 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

state, democracy, socialism 249 this onMarx’s periodisation of the 1848 revolution in France and his own analysisof thesocio-politicaldynamics inAustriaafterWorldWari.6 When analysing the revolutionary period in Austria, Bauer distinguished betweenthreestages:thedominanceoftheworkingclassafter1918,thebalance ofclasspowerfrom1919–22,andtherestorationofbourgeoispowerafter 1922. Hearguedthatbetweentheyearsof 1919and1922,neitherthebourgeoisienor theproletariatwere strong enough to rule on their own.Unlike inFranceor Italy,thestateapparatusdidnotbecomeindependentofclassforces,butrather state power was shared between the classes. As Bauer argued, disjuncture occurredasstateorganshadbeenreplacedbytheorganisationsoftheworking class.Thisdevelopmentallowed foranextraordinary typeof state toemerge, which Bauer christened ‘balance of class power’ or, alternatively, a people’s republic.Characterisingthis typeofstate,hewrotewithreferencetotheFirst Republic,whichexisteduntil 1922: ThustheRepublicwasneitherabourgeoisnoraproletarianrepublic. In thisphase, theRepublicwasnotaclassState, that is,notan instrument for the domination of one class over other classes, but the outcome of a compromise between the classes, a result of the balance of class power. Just as the Republic arose inOctober, 1918, upon the basis of a social contract, a political treaty between the three great partieswhich represented the threeclassesof society, so itwasonlyable to surviveby meansofdailycompromisesbetweentheclasses.7 Theaffinitybetweenhisfindingsandthetraditionalconceptofthestateadvoc- atedbytherightwingofthepartywasremarkable.Thelatterwereinfluenced byBernstein, according towhomthemodernbourgeois statewas an instru- menttoobtainthecommoninterestsofsocietyand,consequently,represented atransitionalstagebetweencapitalismandsocialism. thatupsettingthebalanceofclasspowerwould leadtoacivilwaranddestroythedomestic economy. 6 Itwasnotwithoutgenuinebases, thefirstofwhichwastheexistingeconomic,geographical, and demographic situation in the country – i.e. tensions between industrial Vienna and the dispersed agrarian and relatively sparsely populated provinces. The second was the socio-political situationofAustriaduring the revolutionaryperiod: theworkershadgained considerablecontrolover thearmyandpolice,whichputcertain limitsonthebourgeoisie. SeealsoSaage1986,p.86. 7 Bauer1925,p.246.Thisdepictionwasinaccurate.Bauerconvenientlyoverlookedthefactthat, in1920, thebourgeoispartieshadassumedstatepowerontheirown.