Page - 264 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

264 chapter 6 differencebetweendemocracyanddictatorship.Thisdifferencewasthedegree towhichbasic freedomswere realisedunder these two formsofgovernment. Dictatorship, for him,meant the abolition of the principle of freedom, the basisof thesocialist idea.Astateofdictatorshipwhereall thepower tomake decisionswas,bydefinition, in thehandsofa small group,excludedthe initi- ativeoftheproletariat,withoutwhichsocialismwasimpossible.LikeKautsky, whohadcoined the term,Bauer advocateddemocratic socialism–a formof socialorganisationbasedonthesocialisationofproductionandademocratic politicalorder.AccordingtoBauer,socialismwasinseparablefromdemocracy. Itscorevaluewasthefreedomoftheindividual,bywhichhereferredtoafree- domthat individualsareabletouseconsciously. The antagonism between democracy and dictatorship asserted by Bauer mustalsobeassessed.Asmanyofhisstatementsattest,hesharedMaxAdler’s belief that thetwoconceptswerenotcontradictory inMarxandEngels’sdoc- trineandhadonlybecomeoppositeswiththepracticeofBolshevism.Privately, however,itappearsthatBauerwasnotentirelysureifthiswasaccurate.Infact, Bauer’s idea of dictatorship andMarx’swere clearly divergent. Firstly, Bauer usedtheterm‘dictatorshipoftheproletariat’ todescribeaformofgovernment basedontheruleofaminority.Consequently,hesawnopossibility to recon- cilethisstateformwiththedemocraticorganisationofsocialandpolitical life. Moreover,hewaswell awareof the truemeaningbehindMarx’s formulation: Marx used it to describe a stage in the construction of a classless society, a declarationofintenttochangepropertyrelationsandabolishclasses.Without doubt, theuseofforcewaspartofthisproject. Itwouldbenaivetoexpectthat suchradical socialchangesmightbeachievedbypeacefuldemocraticmeans, andone canhardly suspectMarxof suchnaivety. Thirdly, Bauernoticed the ambiguitywithwhichMarxemployedtheterm‘dictatorship’whenreferringto thenewtypeofstate.Totheextentthatsocialismwouldallowtheworkingclass toexercisepowerbydemocraticmeans,Bauerargued, the term ‘dictatorship’ would become superfluous. A dictatorship subjected to democratic control, afterall,wouldloseitsdictatorialcharacter.Thisinterpretationofdictatorship, accordingtoBauer,waspractically identical totheconceptofpopularrule. In light ofBauer’s insights, it is important todrawa lineof distinctionbetween aworking-class government andadictatorshipof the class. There is no such thingasadictatorshipof theworkingmasses,as it inevitablydegenerates into adictatorshipof their elected representatives.There isnoway toprevent the democratically elected leadership from transforming itself into the dictator- shipof agroupor individual. In short, it is impossible tomakeadictatorship subjecttosocialcontrolasthemechanismofdictatorialruleprecludessuchan option.