Integral socialism
The Integral socialism is that international project of the deputy chairman of the Austrian Social Democratic Labor Party (SDAP), Otto Bauer , in which after the First World War international auseinandergedriftete labor movement again in an International event to summarize. This failed attempt is the main feature of the Austro-Marxist path of the SDAP, which was followed by the Austrian Social Democrats from 1918 to 1934.
prehistory
From the beginning the international labor movement had a common goal, the socialist society. What divided them over and over again were the perspectives when and with which methods this goal should be pursued.
Soon after the war began, Lenin was convinced that the world war would create the conditions for the transition to a revolutionary development. On November 1, 1914 he wrote:
- “The Second International is dead, defeated by opportunism. Down with opportunism; Long live the III, who has been cleansed not only of the 'defectors' (...) but also of opportunism. International! "
Lenin put the concrete proposal to found a new, radical International to the vote at the international socialist conference in Zimmerwald near Bern (September 5-8, 1915), but was unable to get through.
After starting the revolution in Russia himself, he was convinced that the epoch of world revolution had now begun. However, only parties would be capable of triggering the revolution if they were organized on the model of the Bolsheviks and would go to work quickly, ruthlessly and unswervingly. In order to pool these forces, Lenin founded the Third International on March 2, 1919 in Moscow as an uncompromising organ for the implementation of the world revolution.
The new organization received the final constitution at the Second World Congress, which took place in Moscow from July 23 to August 7, 1920. This constitution laid down hard conditions for membership in line with its hard tasks. Among them were: Confession to the dictatorship of the proletariat, destruction of parliamentary democracies, preparation of civil war and exclusion of all "reformist elements". In sum, these conditions amounted to an unconditional subordination of the members to the political leadership of Moscow.
The Second International had ceased to exist beginning of the war as a disposition Community de facto: In contradiction to binding decisions of the Socialists congresses before the war, the European socialist parties had mitbeschlossen virtually shut known for war course of their governments and the necessary war credits when the war began.
At the conference that took place in Bern at the beginning of February 1919, it was agreed that the International should be re-established. However, since the left wing was already beginning to split off, the Austrian Friedrich Adler , whose assassination attempt on Austrian Prime Minister Karl Stürgkh had initiated the left turn in the Austrian SDAP , pleaded for the establishment of a new International to be suspended, as it was for Adler current point in time would “make the unification of the proletarians of all countries more difficult” and slam the gate for “class-conscious revolutionary parties of all countries”.
In Austria, too, the party leadership only distanced itself from the Imperial and Royal Government from the 1917 party congress and, after the death of the reformist party founder and party chairman Victor Adler in 1918, who was replaced by the likewise reformist Karl Seitz , had elected the Marxist Otto Bauer as deputy chairman. The SDAP won the first elections after the war in 1919 and took over government responsibility in a coalition with the Christian Socialists.
Bauer had experienced the Russian Revolution as a prisoner of war and through his contacts with officials of the Mensheviks became a staunch supporter of the “Marxist center”. As such, he belonged to the left (Marxist) wing of the party in Austria. Bauer has always defended the Bolsheviks, since only "they alone could start and keep [this revolutionary process] going".
Integral socialism - idea and implementation
When Friedrich Adler returned from the Socialist Congress in February 1919 and the Third International was constituted immediately afterwards, he and Otto Bauer came to the conclusion that the planned founding of another International would only widen the gap between the new Communist International and the rest of the labor movement. At the party congress in 1920 he therefore proposed to the SDAP delegates to withdraw from the (still) Second International. His arguments:
- "... what has to be achieved is a rebuilding that must not be burdened with the wrong policy in the war of the Second International, nor with the wrong policy after the war of the Third International."
The party congress agreed. They left the Second International, found parties that neither wanted to join either of the two existing organizations, and met with them on February 22, 1921 in Vienna. There were representatives of 20 socialist parties from 23 countries, which meant a third of the world proletariat.
The decision was made not to found a Fourth International, but the International Working Group of Socialist Parties , whose task it should be to pave the way to an all-embracing International. In this international, the goal of a socialist society should remain undisputed, but the individual states should be allowed different paths and different speeds.
The Bolsheviks were expected to “ replace the internal dictatorship with a social democracy ” once the regime had stabilized . At the same time, however, “reformism [of the other European socialists] as the ideology of the working class at a certain stage of development” must slowly but surely move into the “revolutionary struggle”. Through the dictatorship of the proletariat, this would ultimately lead to the same “social democracy” as in the reformed Soviet Union and thus to the reunification of the working class. The result would be “Integral Socialism”.
In the spring of 1921, the situation had not developed in Lenin's favor. Bolshevik regimes in other countries had been eliminated and uprisings suppressed. The young Soviet Union itself had suffered a defeat in its attack on Poland, the problems in its own country (collapse of supplies, uprisings by Kronstadt sailors and farmers in the Tambow district) had cost a lot of blood in the spring and tarnished the glamor of the October Revolution. In addition to the introduction of the neo-capitalist NEP ( New Economic Policy ), the Third International also took a new line with the tactics of a “ united front ” with other, including reformist, socialists, with the goal of world revolution receding into the distance.
At the beginning of December 1921, the Third International initiated the tactic of a “united front” with other socialist parties. Friedrich Adler saw this as an opportunity to bring the representatives of the Third and the (still) Second Internationals to a negotiating table and invited the executives of the two Internationals to a “general conference of the class-conscious world proletariat”, which should serve to prepare a joint world congress .
This congress began on April 2, 1922 in the building of the German Reichstag in Berlin and was not a good star. It had already turned out that the “united front” policy was not seen by the representatives of the Third International as a partnership model, but as an opportunity to attack social democrats and to subvert their organizations and, if possible, to dominate them. In addition, over 2,000 functionaries and members of the Mensheviks had been arrested in the Soviet Union without sufficient justification, and the social democratic ruled Georgia was attacked and annexed in February 1921. The conference failed.
The “working group” immediately drew the consequences and returned to the bosom of the (still) Second International. The new Socialist Workers' International was finally founded at the Socialist Congress in Hamburg on May 21, 1923. Friedrich Adler was elected secretary together with the British Tom Shaw.
Remarks
- ^ Social Democrat, No. 33, in: Lenin: Werke, Vol. 21, p. 27 f.
- ↑ Braunthal: History of the International, Volume 2.553
- ^ Nollau: The International. 66-67
- ^ Julius Braunthal: Viktor and Friedrich Adler. Two Generations of the Labor Movement (Vienna 1965)
- ^ Protocols of the party congress 1920, 199
- ↑ Otto Bauer: Between two world wars ?, Prague, 1936. Page 327
- ^ Nollau: Die Internationale. 321
literature
- Julius Braunthal : Victor and Friedrich Adler. Two generations of the labor movement . Verlag der Wiener Volksbuchhandlung, Vienna 1965.
- Josef Frey: Integral Socialism, a New Way? Reply to Otto Bauer . Vienna 1937 (written under the pseudonym Erich Schmied).