Page - 268 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

268 chapter 6 ship between themwas roughly analogous to the relationship between the integralconceptofsocialistdemocracyandtheBolsheviks’theoreticaloutlines forafuturepoliticalorder. 4 CoalitionWork AmongMarxist theorists, only Lenin entertained the illusion that capitalism could be abolished and communism built in its ruins during his lifetime.35 His contemporaries, the SocialDemocrats inWesternEurope,were farmore cautiousaboutthehistoricalmomentatwhichthetransformationofthepolit- icalorderwas tounfold.Accordingly, thevisionofa futurestateordermerely had theoretical andpropagandisticvalue inBauer’sdoctrine,whereas for the political practiceof SocialDemocracy, itwas irrelevant. Thedistant strategic goalwas obscuredbyday-to-daypolitics,whoseobjective, according toAus- tromarxistrevolutionaryandstatetheory,wastogainastrongpositionforthe workingclass inthecapitaliststate.Thiswouldservetheclassasafoundation forafutureseizureofpower.Parliamentwasdesignatedastheplacewherethe fateof theproletariatwouldbedecided. AsthisispreciselywhatthepartyregardedasitscorestrategysincetheHain- feldparty congress, it accepted the limitations that this choicedemanded in the struggle for socialism. In theparliamentaryarena, thepartyhadachoice between two tactics: it could either continue the struggle for its programme in isolation, aware that its chancesof successdependedupon thenumberof voters it couldwin.Alternatively, it couldnegotiatewithothergroups inpar- liamentandseektocometoanunderstandingonlesscontroversialquestions. Fromits inceptionupuntil 1914, thesdapdidnotcollaboratewithbourgeois partiesatall. Therewere several reasons for this. Forone, theexistingparties lacked commonpurposes: suffice it to say, theChristian Socials andGreater Germanswerenotinterestedinsdap-ledcampaignsforuniversalsuffrageand thecreationof strong tradeunions toprotect the interestsofworkersagainst despoticbosses.Positionsonthenationalquestionalsodiffered.Somefeatures oftheAustrianempire’spartysystemneedtobeconsidered.Firstly,eachparty had its ownelectorate, andeachelectoratehaddistinct expectationsof their politics. Secondly, the Social Democrats, although increasingly amass party commanding an ever-greater number of seats in parliament,werenomatch 35 However, he grew increasingly sceptical about the possibility of building communism quickly intheSovietUnioninthe1920s.