Austromarxism

The Austro-Marxism was during the first half of the 20th century an Austrian school of Marxism .

It was founded in 1904 by Otto Bauer , the deputy party chairman and leading theoretician of the Austrian SDAP (whereby Austromarxism was largely influenced by him), Max Adler and Rudolf Hilferding . In contrast to the Leninist interpretation of Marxism, Bauer made the initiation of the social revolution and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat dependent on the achievement of an absolute majority within the framework of the actually existing parliamentary democracy . The charismatic Otto Bauer knew how to implement this policy, particularly supported by Friedrich Adler , even against internal resistance ( Karl Renner , Wilhelm Ellenbogen ) until after the fall of the party in 1934. As a result, Austromarxism remained the mainstream of thought in the successor organizations of the SDAP, the Revolutionary Socialists (RS) and the exile organization AVOES . Even when the party was re-founded in 1945, space was still given to the ideas of Austromarxism, although this was of very short duration.

According to Otto Bauer, the word "Austromarxism" was first used by the American publicist LB Boudin shortly before the beginning of the First World War.

history

Austro-Marxism was officially propagated by Otto Bauer from 1918 until the February fights in 1934. He put it through in the party committees against (slight) resistance from the left (Max Adler and others) and right ( Karl Renner and others) and anchored it in the party's Linz program . As a result of the sometimes class struggle passages in this program, the term "Austrobolshevism" was also used for this ideological orientation. Bauer's idea of " integral socialism " can be seen as the most striking specific feature of Austromarxism . This is the attempt to u. a. as part of the International Association for socialist parties to Soviet communism and social democracy again under an International unite. In this regard, Bauer called for the Bolsheviks to take steps towards democratization and for the Social Democrats to turn away from reformism and move towards a revolutionary development. Another specific feature can be the conviction that the collapse of the bourgeois-capitalist social order is inevitable and therefore does not need to be specially promoted. Rather, it is necessary to be patient for the development to mature within the framework of a “revolutionary break”, setbacks and undesirable developments have to be received as necessary preliminary stages to the revolutionary end goal, which can only be achieved when the objective conditions necessary for the revolution occur . Otto Bauer's successor Joseph Buttinger and his Revolutionary Socialists also stayed on Otto Bauer's Austro-Marxist course from 1935 to 1938, and the AVOES policy in exile was also shaped by these ideas. It was not until the Socialist Party of Austria , newly founded in 1945 , that after a transition phase that lasted only a few months, it returned fully to the reformist course of the Second International .

Some publicists are of the opinion that everything that Austrian socialists thought and published from 1900 to 1945 should be subsumed under the generic term “Austromarxism”, that the term tends to be more of a description of origin in the sense of an Austrian school of scientific socialism than the clear basis of one common denominator in terms of content. These publicists count among Austromarxism above all those basic thinkers of the party who from 1904 on or published the papers on the theory and politics of scientific socialism or the Marx studies and from 1907 the monthly Der Kampf . This group of people, which ranged from Otto Bauer to Max Adler , Rudolf Hilferding , Gustav Eckstein to Karl Renner or Tatiana Grigorovici as the only woman in the circle of Austromarxists, however, represented very different views. It is therefore difficult to filter out that common denominator from the sum of the writings that could be assessed as specific to Austria. Taking into account the fact that the Austromarxists were basically assigned to the left wing of the Socialist International , the assumption seems justified that “Austromarxism” was a clearly defined pro-Marxist and anti-reformist school of thought, which Otto Bauer as the party's chief ideologist pretended and enforced with varying success.

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The Austrian social democracy concludes that Austromarxism did not represent a solid basis for achieving socialism in a democratic way and did not develop a strategy against burgeoning fascism . With the smashing of the organizations of the workers' movement by Austrofascism and especially with the "annexation" of Austria to National Socialist Germany , the Austro-Marxist theory was essentially only represented underground or in exile; after 1945 it no longer played a significant role in the SPÖ . Nevertheless - especially among the socialist youth - there are still Austromarxist approaches that reflect dissatisfaction with what they consider to be the reformist course of the current party.

Austromarxism can be seen as the predecessor of Eurocommunism . Both worldviews saw themselves as alternatives to Soviet-style socialism.

literature

Detlev Albers u. a. (Ed.): Otto Bauer and the “third” way. The rediscovery of Austromarxism by left-wing socialists and Eurocommunists . Frankfurt am Main 1979.
Otto Bauer: The Austrian Revolution . Vienna 1923.
Otto Bauer: Revolutionary detail work . Vienna 1928.
Joseph Buttinger : Using Austria as an example. A historical contribution to the crisis of the socialist movement . Cologne 1952.
Andreas Fisahn , Thilo Scholle, Ridvan Ciftci (eds.): Marxism as social science. Legal and State Understandings in Austromarxism , Baden-Baden 2018, ISBN 978-3-8487-1237-3 .
Ernst Glaser: In the context of Austromarxism . Vienna 1981.
Ralf Hoffrogge : Socialism and the Labor Movement in Germany and Austria - from the beginning to 1914 , 2nd edition Stuttgart 2017.
Siegmund Kaff : Austrobolshevism as the guardian of "legality" . Amalthea Verlag, Vienna 1930.
Horst Klein: Tatiana Grigorovici (1877–1952) - On the 60th anniversary of the Austromarxist's death In: Year Book for Research on the History of the Labor Movement No. III / 2012, pp. 132–141.
Peter Kulemann: Using the example of Austromarxism. Social democratic labor movement in Austria from Hainfeld to the Dollfuss dictatorship. Hamburg 1979.
Norbert Leser : Between Reformism and Bolshevism. Austromarxism as theory and practice . Vienna 1968.
Christian Möckel: Historical-critical dictionary of Marxism . tape 1 . Argument-Verlag, Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-88619-431-0 , Sp. 92-103 ( Austromarxism [accessed September 21, 2012]).
Michael R. Krätke : Austromarxism and political economy In: Contributions to Marx-Engels research. New episode 2018/19 . Argument Verlag, Hamburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-86754-685-0 , pp. 165-220.

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ Thilo Vogelsang (Ed.): Lexicon on history and politics in the 20th century . Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart, 1971 p. 59
↑ Otto Bauer: Max Adler. A contribution to the history of Austromarxism . In: Der Kampf , August 1937, No. 297.
See: R. de la Vega: Austromarxismus . In: Joachim Ritter u. a. (Ed.): Historical dictionary of philosophy . Volume 1, Schwabe, Basel 1972, Sp. 685.
↑ Ernst Glaser: In the environment of Austromarxism. Vienna 1981, ISBN 3-203-50776-5 .

[vogelsang-1] Thilo Vogelsang (Ed.): Lexicon on history and politics in the 20th century . Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart, 1971 p. 59

[2] Otto Bauer: Max Adler. A contribution to the history of Austromarxism . In: Der Kampf , August 1937, No. 297.
See: R. de la Vega: Austromarxismus . In: Joachim Ritter u. a. (Ed.): Historical dictionary of philosophy . Volume 1, Schwabe, Basel 1972, Sp. 685.

[3] Ernst Glaser: In the environment of Austromarxism. Vienna 1981, ISBN 3-203-50776-5 .