Dangers of Reformism by Otto Bauer

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Otto BauerThe Dangers ofReformism

1913)Source:British Socialist, December 1913, pp. 533-543, Otto Bauer

(Vienna), Reformism fromNeue Zeit.

Translated from Die Neue Zeit.

Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.

The Annual Conference of the German Social-

Democracy in Austria, which took place at Vienna

during the first days of November, deserves also the

attention of our comrades beyond the Austrian

frontiers. For, however peculiar the forms of the

proletarian class war under the special conditions of

the Austrian State, however much it may differ fromthe simple, straight course it takes in other countries

of homogeneous national structure, that Conference

was dominated by the same great question that has

been for many years the fundamental question at all

international congresses and all national conferences

of the International Social-Democracy by the

struggle between the Reformist and the

Revolutionary Socialism. And it is all the more

remarkable that this question should have been

broached in the German-Austrian Social-Democracy,

inasmuch as it is not differences about the theory of

Socialism, but bitter experience in the political field,

that placed the great problem of the Socialist

movement on the agenda.


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Up to 1904, the Austrian Social-Democratic Party

was a small party. Between 1904 and 1907 it grew by

leaps and bounds. The period of prosperity enabled

the trade unions at that time to increase their

membership enormously; in two or three years theirmembership grew from 189,000 to 501,000. An

exceedingly great number of industrial fights

resulted in an increase of wages, a shortening of the

hours of labour, and advantageous agreements. And

to those great successes in industrial conflicts was

added a great political victory. The military quarrel

with Hungary, which forced the Crown to threaten

the aristocratic Parliament with Universal Suffrage,induced the Austrian working class to start the fight

for Universal Suffrage in Austria too. The Russian

Revolution gave weight and impetus to that fight.

Allied with Crown and Bureaucracy, the proletariat

smashed the electoral privileges of the feudal

aristocracy and the bourgeoisie.

That great victory brought new crowds of

adherents into the camp of the Social-DemocraticParty. But the mode of thought of those crowds was

altogetherReformist. They had been gained for the

Party by the force of our victories in the period

between 1904 and 1907. They expected an indefinite

number of such victories. Above all, they placed the

most extravagant hopes in the new Parliament

elected on a basis of universal and equal suffrage.

The old Parliament of the privileged classes had done

nothing for the workers; was it not reasonable to

expect that things would change now that the

proletariat, by a bold rush, had gained a Peoples

Parliament"? The workers were full of hope that the

conquest of Universal Suffrage would be followed by

a grand era of social reforms, by a peaceful and rapid


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ascent of the proletariat, a gradual hollowing-out of

capitalism. That Reformist way of thinking of the

mass of the workers was, in Austria, not the result of

conscious Revisionist propaganda, but the inevitable

sequel of the great victories of 1904 and 1907. Butthe Reformist hopes were also here destined to lead

to bitter disappointments.

In the first place, the economic position of the

working class became decidedly worse. A general rise

of prices took place. In 1908 we passed through a

severe economic crisis. The recovery from that crisis

was impeded, in 1909, by the threat of war, following

the annexation of Bosnia, and in 1910 and 1911 by the

effect of two bad harvests. But in the autumn of 1912

there occurred, on account of the Balkan troubles, a

crisis of such severity as had not been experienced in

Austria since the seventies. The employers

organisations, which had become strong in

consequence of the great successes of the trade

unions in the preceding period, made use of that

state of trade which was so unfavourable to theworkers. Since 1907, the wages of fully-employed

workers have risen much more slowly than the prices

of food and rent. The wages of a great part of the

working class were considerably reduced by means of

short time. And tens of thousands have been out of

work for many months.

It was at that time of terrible working-class misery

that the ominous change of the foreign policy ofAustria-Hungary took place. The Balkan policy of the

Monarchy, a peaceful and quiet policy in the period

of the Mrgsteg Agreement (1903-1908), became

violent and dangerous from the time that Count

Ahrenthal, by announcing the intention of building


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the Sandjak Railway, had torn to pieces the

agreement with Russia. The annexation of Bosnia

and the hostility shown to Servia during the last year

brought Austria-Hungary twice during four years

within serious danger of war. Twice during four yearsgreat portions of the Army were placed on a war

footing. Last year, tens of thousands of reservists,

tens of thousands of heads of families, were for fully

eight months under arms near the Servian frontier.

Militarism was redoubling its efforts. In 1911,

Austria, which up to then had had no considerable

Navy, proceeded to build a Dreadnought squadron.

In 1912, the annual number of recruits was at onestroke increased by one-half. Concurrently with this

the attitude of the governing classes toward the

Social-Democratic Party underwent a change. In

1905 and 1906 the working-class had been the ally of

the Crown against the Parliament of privilege, and

now Social-Democracy, the only serious opponent of

Imperialism and Militarism, was regarded as the

enemy. The administrative authorities and the law

courts now showed themselves more hostile to theworking class than ever.

Parliament proved itself impotent and without

influence in face of that development. The

introduction of a universal and equal suffrage had

widened, complicated, intensified the struggles of the

Austrian nations for the power in the State. Nations

which the old electoral system had prevented from

being heard could only develop their historical rule

in full after the democratisation of the suffrage. Such

was the case with the Ruthenians and the Slovenes.

The development of latter years has strengthened the

self-consciousness of both of them. In the case of the

Ruthenians, the cause of this was the Russian


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Revolution, and in the case of the Slovenes it was the

victories of the southern Slavs on the Balkan

Peninsula. Young, unsatisfied, with as yet no social

differentiation, the whole power of their people is

being concentrated in their fights for a University, fora reform of the suffrage for their Diet,[1]or for a

greater representation (share) in the bureaucracy.

And as the smaller nations can never hope to obtain

a majority in the Imperial Parliament for their

demands, they make use of the weapon

of obstructionin order to enforce the fulfilment of

their wishes. But the greater nations Germans,

Czechs, Poles did not dare to take that weaponaway from them. For they also have neither of them a

majority in Parliament. Also they are each of them

afraid of the possibility of being vanquished by a

coalition hostile to them. Each of them, therefore,

desires to retain for itself the possibility of

obstruction. As every nation has come to regard the

right of obstruction as an indispensable means of

defence, Parliament had to submit to two dozen

Ruthenians and Slovenes again and again making allParliamentary work impossible. The popular

representative body becoming incapable of deciding

anything, bureaucracy usurped the power of deciding

things. By means of the notorious Section 14 of the

fundamental State Law it forced on the Empire laws

without the consent of the Imperial Parliament.

But also in times in which Parliament was not

hamstrung by obstruction, things were far different

from what the mass of the proletariat had hoped. In

Austria, too, the intensification of class antagonism

has grown at an exceedingly quick rate. The trade

union successes drove the small traders[2]into the

arms of the great captains of industry. The growth of
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the co-operative societies has filled the small

shopkeepers with wild hatred for the working class.

Fights about the corn duties and the prohibition of

the cattle import, and the rise of wages in agriculture

in consequence of a shortness of labour on the land,have mobilised peasant and landlord against Social-

Democracy. The tendency in the direction of uniting

the whole of the possessing classes against the

proletariat was strengthened by the electoral reform.

Formerly, the middle-class parties had been able to

fight each other undisturbed in the electoral

classes,[3]but now all of them saw themselves

menaced by the Social-Democracy. Except for thesmall band of Radicals, all middle-class parties in the

German-speaking parts of the Monarchy united

against the Social-Democratic Party. In Parliament,

all attempts to obtain protective Labour legislation

met with the resistance of all middle-class parties.

Here, the one reactionary mass has become a

reality.

So things had turned out quite differently fromwhat the people had hoped. Instead of the expected

era of positive achievements, of social reforms, of

the hollowing out of capitalism, we had a period of

high prices, of economic crisis, of armaments and

mobilisations, of nationalist obstruction, of

absolutist dictatorship, of the coalition of all the

middle-class parties against us, and of stagnation in

all social legislation.

At first, the mass of the people were hoping to be

able to stem the tide of development by skilful

tactics. From 1905 till 1907 we had succeeded, by an

alliance with the Crown, in breaking the resistance of

the nobility and the middle classes against an equal
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suffrage. Even after the electoral reform many still

believed in the possibility of a co-operation of the

International Social-Democracy with the

Government of the International Austrian States

against middle-class Nationalism. The presence ofsome Social-Democrats at the reading of the kings

Speech in 1907[4]and Pernerstorffers visit to the

Court were symptoms of that feeling. But ever since

the Crown turned away from Democracy, since it

made its peace again with the feudal aristocracy of

Hungary and dropped universal and equal suffrage

for Hungary[5]and instituted Tiszas dictatorship;

ever since Imperialism and Militarism forced theworking class to fight against the policy of the

governing class the hope of a co-operation, such as

was possible in 1905 and 1906, has flown.

Immediately after the crisis occasioned by the

annexation of Bosnia, the Party Conference of

Reichenberg (1909) declared that tactical

experiments like Pernerstorffers going to Court must

not be repeated.

As it had proved impossible to gain the expected

social reforms by an alliance with the Government, it

was now decided to enforce them by fighting against

the Government. From 1905 till 1907 street

demonstrations had been our chief weapon, and as

street demonstrations had brought victory under

specially favourable circumstances it was the time

of the military differences with Hungary and the

Russian Revolution the mass of the people were

inclined to think that street demonstrations were

under all circumstances, at all times, an infallible

weapon. In fighting the great rise in prices that

weapon was used repeatedly. But when peaceable

street demonstrations proved of no avail, the masses
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turned street demonstrations into open revolt, in

spite of all exhortations and warnings of their

leaders. Nothing was achieved by this but the

sanguinary vengeance of the State.

Being powerless to change by themselves the

course of evolution, people placed their hope again in

their representatives in Parliament. They still

believed that the hoped-for successes could not fail to

turn up if only their representatives made use of all

appropriate means. At times that obsession of the

masses showed itself in a very naive manner. For

instance, an organisation composed of workers

employed in the workshops of the State Railways

once threatened to withhold their contributions to

the Party if our Parliamentary members did not at

last get the wages of the State Railway workers

raised! The conviction that it was only the wrong

tactics of our members that were at fault if the hoped

for successes were not forthcoming got an

increasingly firm grip on many of the members of

our Party. Gradually that conviction grew into ademand for obstruction in Parliament. People heard

that two dozen Ruthenians had succeeded in

stopping all work in Parliament. Why did our own

members not do the same thing? Why were they

satisfied with speaking and voting against the

Government instead of forcing concessions for the

working class by means of obstruction?

Thus it came about that the branches of Vienna-Meidling and Graz submitted resolutions to the Party

Conference in which they demanded that the

Parliamentary Party should not be satisfied with

mere opposition, but should obstruct the

Government Bills, especially the demands for the


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class war. Every class would use it; to-day it would be

the workers, to-morrow the guild people[6];one day

the Agrarians, and then again the great industrial

employers. Socio-political obstruction would entirely

destroy Parliament, and help Absolutism to get holdof the reins of government. It could not be their work

to destroy Parliament; on the contrary, it would in

future be their duty to co-operate in endeavours to

reform the Standing Orders so as to restrict the

possibilities of obstruction, restore the right of the

majority to decide (without which Parliament was

not possible), and thus protect Parliament against

the growing danger of Absolutism.

The Conference could not deny the force of these

arguments. After a lengthy debate a motion of the

delegates from German Bohemia was adopted in

which obstruction was rejected as a normal

Parliamentary weapon, and was declared to be only

applicable as a last extreme means of Parliamentary

defence.

But, however important that decision might be, it

does not constitute the great achievement of the

Conference. A matter of much greater importance is

that the debate on obstruction led to a discussion

about our whole relation to Parliamentarism and the

bourgeois State itself. The whole debate was based on

the recognition that there is no greater danger for our

Party than the illusion that all that was wanted to

usher in an era of positive successes, social reforms,an era of the hollowing-out of capitalism[7]was

tactical skill. The whole debate was based upon the

recognition that it is of vital interest for the Party to

lead back the mass of the people, who had been

deceived by the great successes of 1904-1907, to the
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old Marxian teaching that capitalist development

does not lead to peaceable, continual improvement,

but to the greater misery of the proletariat, to

increased exploitation, to an intensification of class

antagonism, until we are strong enough to smash thewhole world of capitalism! It was, above all, Victor

Adler who explained it to our comrades in simple and

plain words:- We should always be in a bad state if

we wanted to live by being contentedwith the

successes we achieve in the ,capitalist State; our

strength only grows out of the discontentwith the

whole world of capitalism! It is not an era ofSocial

Reformsthat we can hope for, we can only hope for agreat epoch of SocialRevolution!

And with that change in our relationships to

capitalism in general our relationship to the Austrian

State in particular has changed. In the exultation of

our suffrage victory the illusion had spread in our

ranks that this Austria of ours could become an

exemplary Democratic State, a second Switzerland,

which would prove to the world that all nations couldlive together under the same roof in liberty and

peace. The devastating interior troubles of these last

years, and the catastrophic change for the worse that

has taken place with regard to the European position

of the Empire in consequence of the revolutions that

have taken place in the Balkans, have destroyed that

illusion. At this Party Conference it became evident

for the first time how badly the belief inthe

possibility of the continued existence of Austria has

been shaken.

The epoch of bourgeois revolution in the past

created national States on the ruins of the old feudal

and absolutist States. It left Austria to exist as a mere


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aggregation of remainders of nations that had been

left over in the process of forming national States. It

is an open question whether Austria, under the

pressure of future revolutions, will be able to

transform herself in some measure into a federalState of autonomous nations that will live, or

whether she will have to fall to pieces and give up her

nations to the national communities around us. In

other countries it might be thinkable that the

proletariat, peaceably pressing forward, will gain

control over the machinery of the State; in our case it

is clear that the machinery of the State that we could

take possession of will first have to be forged in thegreat storms of European history.

Of course, these are no new thoughts. In Austria,

too, there have always been comrades who warned us

against Reformist views, and who endeavoured to

bring the mass of the people to the revolutionary way

of thinking. But formerly they were rarely listened to,

and then only by the few. At this last Conference it

became evident, for the first time, that the whole ofthe public opinion in our Party is beginning to

apprehend the dangers of Reformists; that our most

responsible and trusted people, taught by bitter

experience, recognise that the Reformist illusions

only lead to disappointments for which the Party is

made responsible; that, if the mass of the people are

given exaggerated hopes of positive achievements,

and then when those achievements will not

materialise the people will no longer make capitalism

responsible for their misery, but they will hold

Social-Democracy responsible no longer will they

blame the governing classes, but their own

representatives.


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It will certainly not be easy to change the mode of

thought of the great mass of the proletariat. Years of

educational work are necessary for that, and not only

verbal education but also that acquired through

experience. But the fact that the Vienna Conferencemade the first step in this educational work gives it a

special importance in the history of our Party.

That is why that Conference is also deserving of the

attention of our comrades outside of Austria. Austria

has so often been pointed out as a pattern of

international Reformism, and the Austrian Social-

Democracy has been lauded by the Revisionists of all

countries as an example to be followed. Well, Austria

has now demonstrated to the whole of the

International the dangers of exclusive Reformism.

Our experience can be a lesson and warning to the

Parties in other countries.

1.The Diets are the local or State Legislatures of the various

States constituting the Austrian Monarchy. TRANSLATOR.

2.i.e., the small master class employing themselves, or one or

two journeymen; a class still numerous in Austria.

TRANSLATOR.

3.The old Austrian franchise was similar to the existing Prussian

franchise; men paying the highest taxes voting in the first class,

others in the second, etc. TRANSLATOR.

4.It should be stated here, as an explanation, that the Socialist

M.P.s in the Continental Monarchies generally ostentatiously

refrain from being present at the reading of the Kings Speech, so

as to demonstrate their Republicanism. TRANSLATOR.

5.The Austrian Emperor, as King of Hungary, has promised the

Hungarian people universal and equal suffrage, but the fulfilment
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of that promise has hitherto been frustrated by the unscrupulous

Hungarian landocracy dominating the present Hungarian

Parliament.- TRANSLATOR.

6.Small employers or traders. TRANSLATOR.

7.Permeating capitalism, we would say in Great Britain.

TRANSLATOR.
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Dangers of Reformism by Otto Bauer

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