Page - 308 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

308 chapter 8 whichreflected thesocialandpolitical conditionof themiddleclasses. Itdir- ected its attacksparticularly against theworkers.Becauseof their class solid- arityandorganisation,Bauerargued,workerswerebetterequippedtodefend themselvesagainsttheeffectsofeconomiccrisisthanthepettybourgeoisie.Its psychologicalbasiswasthemiddleclasses’ fearofbeingdeclassedandprolet- arianised.According toBauer, the fascist ideologyprevailed incountrieswith aweakparliamentary tradition, anunstable capitalist economy, anda social structure subject to unexpected fluctuations in thewake ofwar and revolu- tion. TheideologyoffascismwasbynomeanstheprinciplefocusofBauer’swrit- ings.Hewas farmore interested intheattitudesofdifferentsocialgroupsand classestowardsfascism–and,tobeprecise,thequestionofwhichsocialforces fascismreliedontogainmomentumprior toassumingpower.Bauerpointed outthatthebigcapitalistsandaristocrats feltnothingbutcontemptforHitler andrejectedthefascist ideologyandmovement.Nordidthebourgeoisiecon- verttoNationalSocialism.Initially, itdidnotevenconsiderthatthemovement mightseizepower;rather, itvieweditasausefultooltobreaktheresistanceof theworkingclassagainstitsowndeflationarypoliticsandattacksonsocialand political legislation,aswellascurbtheinfluenceof theworkers’organisations and tradeunions. Thebourgeoisie naively imagined that it could effortlessly excludefascismfromthepoliticalstageonceithadengagedwithit inorderto stabilisebourgeoispoliticalandeconomicrule.However,itturnedouttobethe otherwayround,asthe ‘thirdforce’heldthebourgeoisiecaptiveinstead.Ana- lysing the social consistencyof the fascistmovements, Bauer concluded that fascism,whilewinningsupportinallsocialgroups,deriveditsspecificstrength anddevelopment fromthemiddleclasses, i.e. thepettybourgeoisie, artisans, intelligentsia, youth and bankrupted peasants. Contemporary research con- firmsthis.29 Inanarticleentitled ‘Der24.April 1932’,Bauerwroteafterthe1932elections that the causeof fascismwas a rebellionof thepetty bourgeoisie, yet hedid 29 Research conducted byBendix proves that in 1921, 61.6 percent of themembers of the fascistparty came fromthemiddleclasses. InGermany in 1933,membersof themiddle classes also prevailed inHitler’s party. See Bendix 1966, pp. 596–609. The relationship betweenfascismandthemiddleclassesisoneofthekeyquestionsinsociologicalandhis- toricalliteratureonfascism.Thefollowingauthorsfocusedontheroleofthemiddleclass: Harold Lasswell, David Joseph Saposs, SvenRonulf, Talcott Parsons, Nathaniel Preston, SeymourMartinLipset, andLuigi Salvatorelli. CompareDeFelice 1977, p. 129.Compare alsoSaage’sdepictionoftherelationshipbetweenNazismandthemiddleclassesinSaage 1977,chapters5and6.