Page - 266 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

266 chapter 6 ment.Thedictatorshipoftheproletariat, incontrast, ismerelyavisionof thefuturebasedonsocialist theory.33 ourtranslation Bauer’s tirelessoppositiontothedictatorshipof theproletariatbegstheques- tion as towhat ‘state of the future’ he envisioned. In this respect, it isworth pointingoutthatBauerwasoneofthefewMarxiststoformulatetheprogram- maticprinciplesof anewpolitical andeconomicorder.Although thesewere essentiallynomore thanbasic outlinesof a social organisationalmodel, this didnotdiminishthevalueofBauer’seffort.Ratherthaneducingtheclassical- Marxist texts, which offered but the faintest, utopian outlines, he based his outline on his own theories of democracy and the state.When reconstruct- ing Bauer’s vision of a ‘state of the future’, the basic assumption at its core shouldbethestartingpointofanalysis:Bauersawthenecessityfordemocracy to evolve internally frombourgeois via proletarian and onwards to socialist democracy. The logical conclusion from the ‘three phasesmodel’ is that the capitalist state evolves into aworkers’ state during the first phase and only becomes socialist during the second.This evolutionarymodelof transforma- tion already contains the rudiments of thepolemicsBauerwould laterwage againstLenin’s interpretationofMarxism.ForLenin,whotendedtoavoidthe term‘socialism’, communismwasasocio-economic formationthatwould fol- lowimmediatelyaftercapitalismintheformofaclasslessandstatelesssociety basedonhorizontalself-management.Bauer,ontheotherhand,strictlyrejec- tedsuchaninterpretation.Hisvisionwasfirmlyrootedinaperceivednecessity to preserve thepolitical dimensionof the state. Unlike Lenin, Bauer didnot believethattheseizureofpowerbytheproletariatwouldimmediately leadto theabolitionoftheclassstate. If theworkersacquiredcontrolovertheleader- ship of the state, he argued, thiswould effect a change in its class structure, but not its abolition. To be precise, a proletarian state built on democratic foundationswould emerge during the first phase – one that has nothing to 33 ‘[S]olangedieMachtverhältnissederKlasseninEuropadieVölkernichtvordieWahlzwis- chenbürgerlicherDemokratieundproletarischerDiktaturstellen, sondernvordieWahl zwischender bürgerlichenDemokratie unddemFaschismus, solangemuss das Prolet- ariat in seiner geschichtlichen Praxis in den demokratischen Ländern die bürgerliche Demokratie gegen den Faschismus verteidigen, in den faschistischen Ländern die ele- mentarstendemokratischenFreiheitenwiederzuerobernsuchen. So langebleibtalso in diesen Ländern der Kampf umdieDemokratie, die bürgerlicheDemokratie, die reale, tägliche Praxis derArbeiterbewegung, dieDiktatur des Proletariats nur eine Zukunfts- vorstellungdersozialistischenTheorie’–Bauer1976p,p.213.