Page - 305 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

the spectre of fascism 305 immenselypopular–particularly inItalyandGermany–werepolitical rather thaneconomic: the Italiansweredisgruntledby the fact that British, French andAmericancapitalismhaddeprivedthecountryofitswarloot.TheGermans werebitteroverthelostwarandunjustTreatyofVersailles,andtheparliament- arydemocraticsysteminbothcountrieswas immatureandfragile.Baueralso thoughtthattheself-inflicteddefeatoftheGermanrevolutionandsplittingof theworkers’movementhadpavedthewayforfascism.Aparticularlyimportant aspectofhisunderstandingwasthathethoughtof fascismasasupranational phenomenon,evenif therhetoriccontainedinhistextsprovokedalotofmis- understanding.24Hequalifiedhisassessmentby linking it tohistorical reality and thenational varieties of fascism, especiallyAustromarxism.Rather than being a scholarly construct, Bauer’s comprehensions of fascismwere that of anactivepolitician.25Theyweredeeply rooted in theexperienceof the inter- national, but especially theGerman,workers’movement, andwere intended asaweaponintheanti-fascist struggle. Itwouldbeamistake to lookat them as a coherentwhole, considering that they evolvedalongwith theEuropean political situation and the workers’ movement itself. According to Pelinka, Bauer’s interpretations contain three different – if overlapping – theories of fascismreflecting threeperiods in theEuropeanandAustrianworkers’move- ment:26 Yugoslavia.Accordingtohim,thegovernmentsthathademergedinthesecountrieswere merelycounter-revolutionary, lackingelements thatwerecrucial for thedevelopmentof fascism,suchasamassbasisandapetty-bourgeois ideology.SeeBauer1976p,p. 136. 24 Bauerfrequentlyusedtheterm‘fascism’withoutspecifyingwhetherhemeantGermanor Italianfascism. 25 Thisresultedincontradictionsbetweenthethreetheories.Hanischdemonstratedthis in Hanisch1974. 26 Pelinkadepicts the threephases of Bauer’s theory of fascismas corresponding to three chapters in the history of Austrian Social Democracy. Compare Pelinka 1985, p. 26. In contrast, Botz identifies six distinct theories of fascism in Bauer’s writings – a view I donot share: (1) anearly theorybasedonBonapartism(1923); (2) a simplified theoryof Bonapartism; (3) the fascismtheoryof theLinzprogramme(1926); (4) theassessmentof Austrofascism;(5)anexpandedtheoryofBonapartism(1936);and(6)fascismtheoryasa theoryof imperialism.SeeBotz1985,p. 161. Inmyview,the ‘threetheories’model ismore accurateon twocounts. First, because in the 1920s, theBonapartismmodelonly served Bauerasanaidtoexplainthevictoryoffascism;later, itremainedanintegralcomponent ofhis theory,whichheconsistentlydevelopeduntil 1936.Second,onecanhardlycall the references to the social basis of fascismand strategy of ‘defensive violence’ in the Linz programme,whichwasdraftedbyBauer,atheory.