Austro-marxism versus Impossibilism

[dankolog]

Dear Comrades,

 

I am a Socialist Standard reader and, from time to time, I try to improve my  knowledge of socialism and Marxism by studying some selected articles published online by the SPGB. I am currently particularly interested in Rosa Luxemburg’s ideas, so I have recently read an old contribution named “Rosa Luxemburg and the Collapse of Capitalism” (1969) in which the author discussed his disagreement with Luxemburg on her theory of the "capitalism breakdown".  But what really stroke me was the sentence in which Rudolf Hilferding and Otto Bauer were portrayed as “revisionists” of Marxism similarly to well-known characters like Eduard Bernstein.  Now, I have no doubt that Bernstein was a “revisionist”, but I have always thought  that  Hilferding and Bauer were exactly the opposite: Hilferding gave the best defense of Marx’s economics (1902) against the “marginalist” attack led by Eugen von Boehm-Bawerk (1896) and then actualized “The Capital” in his masterpiece “The Finance Capital” (1910) taking into account the new tendencies of capitalism. Otto Bauer, despite some serious political errors in the direction of the working class movement in Austria, has always considered himself as an orthodox Marxist and, till the end of his life, has always supported the necessity of a world-scale socialist revolution to be achieved by exploiting both the workers’ councils and the democratic methods of the parliamentary system. In this respect I thought he was very close to the SPGB, but obviously I was wrong…  In his book “Between two World Wars?” (1938) Bauer is still very clear on this point. He died  few months later. So could you please tell me why the SPGB thinks that they are simply “revisionists”? I think that one should criticize “Austro-Marxists” when it is the case, but one should also accept  their contributions to the socialist theory when these ideas are original, sound and intellectually stimulating. Thank you for your attention and help.

 

Yours in socialism

 

Dan Kolog.

[ALB]

I think you must be referring to this passage from the article in the January 1969 Socialist Standard:

Quote:

Revisionists such as Bernstein, Otto Bauer and Hilferding did so because, in this way, they sought to justify and strengthen the reformist tendencies within the social-democratic parties. This accounts for the gusto with which Bauer and Hilferding (and Pannekoek—but for different reasons) attempted to refute the arguments in Luxemburg's Accumulation of Capital. To them it seemed that if it could be demonstrated that capitalism would not break down, then this would he ample justification for abandoning revolution altogether and for simply concentrating on modifying the harsher injustices of capitalist society. Of course, they did not put it as blatantly as this and still clung to the face-saving formula that gradually the expropriators would be expropriated But, arguing theoretically, they were quite prepared to suggest that capitalism could maintain itself indefinitely by adopting what today we would call a state-capitalist form. Thus Otto Bauer wrote in his Finance Capital (Der Kampf, June 1910):"The entire capitalistic society would be consciously controlled by a single tribunal, by which the extent of production in all departments would be determined, and by, which by means of a scale of prices, the product of labour would be divided between the cartel magnates on the one hand, and the whole mass of the other members of society on the other, The anarchy of production at present prevailing would thus be brought to an end: we should have a consciously regulated society in an antagonistic form."

I agree that it is wrong to call Bauer and Hilfreding "revisionists" as they did not advocate abandoning the basic tenets of Marxism as did Bernstein, the classic "revisionist", at the turn of the century. They could, however, be labelled "reformists". After all, after WW1, Bauer was Austrian Foreign Minister and Hilferding twice German Finance Minister !How the post WW1 Social Democrats reconciled their commitment to Marxism with administering capitalism is a mystery. They seem to have taken the view that, as long as the working class did not want socialism, all a Social Democratic party could do is to try to obtain reforms within capitalism of benefit to the working class and that this could sometimes best be done by participating in a government of capitalism. They also seem to have taken the view that, as long as capitalism lasts, any government had to respect its economic laws or risk provoking an economic crisis. In any event, during his two spells as German Finance Minister Hilferding pursued a "prudent" financial policy.There is clearly a huge gap between this position and that of the SPGB. We are completely opposed to the participation of socialists in running capitalism as we know that this will inevitably involve conflict with the working class as capitalism cannot be made to work in their interest but is a profit-making system that can only work in the interest of the profit-taking capitalist class.Having said this Hilferding did write, as you point out, a good refutation of the Austrian school economist Boehm-Bawerk. And also a book on Finance Capital which was reviewed in the Socialist Standard in July 1985:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1980s/1985/no-971-july-1985/markets-monopoly-and-warI don't really understand the link between Rosa Luxemburg and Austro-Marxists except perhaps on the National Question, on which both opposed national independence movements. The Austro-Hungarian Empire ruled over people speaking many different languages (German, Hungarian, Czech, Polish, Rumanian, Ukrainian, Italian, Croatian, Slovenian, etc). Faced with this situation the Austrian Social Democrats envisaged not the break-up into independent States but "cultural autonomy", i.e. each language group to have autonomy over education, etc, based on a person's language not where they lived. An interesting solution, which could well be applied in socialism.Bauer was a sort of German-speaker nationalist and argued that the "nation" was the natural unit for socialism. Anton Pannekoek, the Dutch socialist, intervened in this debate within the Austrian Social Democratic party with a pamphlet in 1912 arguing that, on the contrary, the world was the only framework for socialism. His pamphlet can be found here:http://libcom.org/history/class-struggle-nation-anton-pannekoekI don't think we could have put it better ourselves.

[dankolog]

Dear Comrade,thank you so much for your detailed and stimulating reply. I am really happy that somebody, with more experience than I, is helping me to understand the deep differences between Austro-Marxism and “Impossibilism”. This is a very important issue for me, because I have been raised and educated in a family politically very close to the far-left wing of the Italian Socialist Party (well before the final and shameful collapse in the Craxi’s age in the '80-'90). In this political environment, where the leading characters were Lelio Basso, Vittorio Foa and Riccardo Lombardi, there was a sort of "veneration" for Rosa Luxemburg's ideas, but also for "Austro-Marxism". It  was even taught that the latter was, in some sense, a continuation of the former…. but now I can see that, probably, it was not true. I have got somehow the impression that they were trying to construct a sort of “icon”, a bit like Lenin for the pro-Russia communists, in order to give a “revolutionary flavour" to their intrinsically reformist practice. I do not know if there has been a similar phenomenon in the UK with the left wing of the Labour party, say Tony Benn or even the Militant Tendency in Liverpool, but surely you understand what I mean. The other point I still need to clarify is the question of the Russian revolution and the Leninist strategy. I have been taught since my young age that Rosa Luxemburg had deeply criticized the Blanquist attitude of the Bolshevik party in Russia in 1917, and even the fact that Lenin got quickly rid of the Constituent Assembly in 1918, saying that socialism is a open process implying the development of forms, more and more advanced, of democracy. And that this critique was very similar to those by Otto Bauer, Karl Kautsky and Julius Martov, who saw in the undemocratic and authoritarian character of Bolshevism the unavoidable product of the backward conditions of Russia made worse by the horrors and the slaughters of five years of First World War. Do you think it is correct to merge Luxemburg’s ideas with those of the left-wing of the post-war Social-democracy (i.e. the so called “2-and-half International”), at least as far as the critique of Lenin and Bolshevism is concerned?   Yours in socialism Dan Kolog  

[Ed]

dankolog wrote:

The other point I still need to clarify is the question of the Russian revolution and the Leninist strategy. I have been taught since my young age that Rosa Luxemburg had deeply criticized the Blanquist attitude of the Bolshevik party in Russia in 1917

I've heard this many times but never seen the actual article she supposedly wrote. Luxembourg did write of Blanquism and the Bolsheviks, but in their defence against Plekhanov's charges. The article Plekhanov wrote, I have not been able to find. However the article by Luxembourg was written in 1906, so she could have changed her mind, but from this article it seems unlikely.http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1906/06/blanquism.html

[ALB]

Luxemburg's assessment of the Russian Revolution, writen in 1918, can be found here:http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/index.htmYou can see that, while she fully supported the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, she was critical of many of their policies, insisting that "the dictatorship of the proletariat" had to be the dictatorship of the whole working class using democratic methods not the dictatorship of a party.It's a tragedy that she was murdered in January 1919 as, had she survived, she would surely have been more critical of what the Bolsheviks were doing and could have been a prestigious voice that could have prevented so many workers getting sidetracked into Leninism whose pernicious influence still, unfortunately, survives today..Actually, the copy I have of her 1906 article that Ed mentions is a pamphlet brought out by the old ILP who gave it the appropriate title of Leninism or Marxism?  Actually, just checked and this is another of her articles, dating from 1904, which can be found here:http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1904/questions-rsd/index.htm

[Author]

Posts