Leading theorist of Austro-Marxism and deputy leader of the Austrian Social Democrats
Born into a Jewish textile manufacturer's family in Vienna, Bauer became active in the Social Democratic Workers' Party in 1900 and made his name with The Question of Nationalities and Social Democracy (1907). A Russian prisoner of war in the First World War, he returned in 1917 to lead the party's left. He was deputy party leader from 1918 to 1934 and foreign minister of German-Austria in 1918–1919. He drove the Linz Programme of 1926 and steered the party on a middle course between reform and revolution, with a policy of waiting. After the defeat of the February Uprising of 1934 he went into exile in Czechoslovakia; he died in Paris in 1938.
Activities and affiliations
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1900–1934
Social Democratic Party of Austria (SDAP/SPÖ)
Social movements and organizing -
1907–1934
Austria state institutionsMember of Parliament
Legislature and state representation -
1907–1934
Social Democratic Party of Austria (SDAP/SPÖ)
Scholarship and theory -
1918–1919
Austria state institutionsForeign Minister of German-Austria
Diplomacy and international organization -
1918–1934
Social Democratic Party of Austria (SDAP/SPÖ)Main
Political and party leadership
Career Timeline
- 1900Became active in the Social Democratic Workers' Party.
- 1907Published The Question of Nationalities and Social Democracy; entered parliament.
- 1914.11.23Taken prisoner by the Russians.
- 1917.09Returned to Vienna in a prisoner exchange.
- 1918–1934Deputy leader of the SDAP.
- 1918.11–1919.07Foreign Minister of German-Austria.
- 1926Led the adoption of the Linz Programme.
- 1934.02Fled to Brno after the February Uprising.
- 1938.07Died of a heart attack in Paris.
Austro-Marxism, the Linz Programme and the policy of waiting (1918–1934)
As a student Bauer founded the workers' school "Zukunft" with Max Adler, Rudolf Hilferding and Karl Renner, the seed of Austro-Marxism. His contacts with Mensheviks as a prisoner of war in Russia made him a supporter of the "Marxist centre", and after Victor Adler's death in 1918 he entered the party leadership at 37. As foreign minister he pursued union with Germany, and resigned in July 1919 when the Allies forbade it.
When the SDAP lost first place to the Christian Socialists in the election of October 1920, Bauer insisted on leaving the coalition; the party did not sit in a federal government again until 1945. In 1926 he drove the Linz Programme, which held class antagonisms to be irreversible and wanted democracy placed in the service of labour to expropriate big capital and landed estates, with a conditional passage that the working class would answer a bourgeois overthrow of democracy with "the means of dictatorship"; opponents cited it as proof of "Austro-Bolshevism". Bauer's rhetoric was revolutionary but his practice reformist: he wanted a "revolutionary pause" until objective conditions matured and the party won an absolute majority. Internationally he tried, through the "Two-and-a-Half International" (International Working Union of Socialist Parties), to mediate between the Second International and the Comintern and reunite them, without success.
In 1931 and 1932 he rejected coalition offers from Seipel and Dollfuss. When Dollfuss suspended parliament in March 1933, the general strike required by the party statutes did not happen. After the Republican Protection League lost the February Uprising of 1934, the party was outlawed; Bauer fled to Brno and supported the underground Revolutionary Socialists. His refusal of coalitions and his advice to wait for the proper historical moment have been criticised for easing Austria's slide from democracy into fascism.