Austro-Marxism: The Ideology of Unity. Volume II. Changing the World: The Politics of Austro-Marxism

Mark E. Blum and William T. Smaldone (eds)

During the first half of the twentieth century, Austrian socialist thinkers such as Otto Bauer, Rudolf Hilferding, Karl Renner, and Max Adler emerged from and helped transform Austrian Social Democracy into one of Europe’s best organized and most effective political and social movements. Equipped with extensive introductions that outline the intellectual and political background within which the Austro Marxists worked, these volumes represent the most thorough effort to date to provide a representative sampling in English of the Austro-Marxists’ key theoretical ideas and their approaches to politic action. Drawing on their writings from the early twentieth century until the collapse of Austrian Socialism in the 1930s, these volumes illustrate the conceptual richness of Austro-Marxist thought and the enduring challenge that socialists faced then and now in the realization of their hopes.

Biographical Note

Mark E. Blum, Ph.D. (1970), University of Pennsylvania, is Professor of History at the University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky. He published books, monographs, and articles on European socialism, including The Austro-Marxists, 1890-1918: A Psychobiographical Study (University of Kentucky, 1985), and most recently, with William Smaldone, Austro-Marxism: The Ideology of Unity, Volume I Austro-Marxist Theory and Strategy (Brill, 2016).

William Smaldone, Ph.D. (1989),SUNY at Binghamton, is Professor of History at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. He has published monographs and articles on the history of European socialism, including, most recently, European Socialism: A Concise History with Documents (Rowman and Littlefield, 2013).

Readership

These volumes would be of interest to academic libraries (servicing graduate and undergraduate students), specialists, and general readers with a serious interest in socialist history.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

(1889–1914): Halcyon Days

Introduction to Part 1

Resolutions of the Austrian Social Democratic Party Congress at Hainfeld (30–1 December 1888 and 1 January 1889) and the Subsequent Party Congress in Vienna (Pentecost 1892)

The Nationalities Programme of the Austrian Social Democratic Workers’ Party (1899)

Otto Bauer
The Road to Power (1909)
Parliamentarianism (1910)
Internal Conflicts in Austrian Social Democracy (1910)
The Dangers of Reformism (1913)
The Basic Question of Our Tactic (1913)

Rudolf Hilferding
Parliamentarianism and the Mass Strike (1904)
With Collective Power (1912)

Karl Renner
What Has Social Democracy Accomplished? (1907)
Sympathies and Antipathies (1909)
Our Party Congress (1909)
The Organisation of the World (1910)
The Reckless Regime (1914)

(1914–20): War and Revolution

Introduction to Part 2

Friedrich Adler
Unity or Threefold Division in the International (1919)
Letter to Leo Trotsky (1919)

Max Adler
Democracy and the Council System (1919)

Otto Bauer
The Russian Revolution and the European Proletariat (1917)
The German-Austrian State (1918)
One Year of Revolution (1919)
Socialisation during the Republic’s First Year (1919)
Council Democracy or Dictatorship? (1919)

Rudolf Hilferding
Historical Necessity or Necessary Politics? (1915)
Europeans, not Central Europeans! (1915)
For the Future of the German Workers’ Movement (1916)
Revolutionary Trust! (1918)
Clarity! (1918)
Expand the Council System! (1919)
The Socialisation Question (1919)
Political and Economic Power Relations and Socialisation (1920)
Revolutionary Politics or Illusions of Power (1920)

Karl Renner
The Crisis of Socialism (1916)
What is Class Struggle? (1919)
On the Threshold of the Transition from Democracy to Socialism (1919)

(1921–7): Stabilisation and Growth

Introduction to Part 3

Friedrich Adler
Imperfections in the Programme Design (1926)
The Conflict over the Definition of Democracy (1926)

Max Adler
Dictatorship (1922)
Political or Social Democracy (1926)
Towards a Discussion of the New Party Programme (1926)

Otto Bauer
The Struggle for Power (1924)
The Social Democratic Agrarian Programme (1925)
The Programme of the Social Democratic Workers Party of German Austria (1926)
The Party’s Next Tasks (1927)
The July Events (1927)

Rudolf Hilferding
The Transformation of Politics (1922)
Problems of Our Time (1924)
Realistic Pacifism (1924)
The Heidelberg Programme (1925)
The Tasks of Social Democracy in the Republic (1927)

Karl Renner
Principle in Practice (1925)

(1928–34): Collapse

Introduction to Part 4

Max Adler
A New Approach to Our Politics? (1928)
Practical and Impractical Class Struggle (1928)
On the Principle of Proletarian Politics (1928)
How Do We Get to Socialism? (1932)

Otto Bauer
Class Struggle in Democracy (1928)
The Prerequisites of Parliamentarianism (1928)
Revolutionary Spadework (1928)
Austria’s Economic and Social Situation (1928)
A Reply to Max Adler (1929)
A Letter to Karl Renner (1930)
We Will Defend Our Threatened Freedom (1932)
For Democracy (1933)
Work for 200,000 (1933)
Social Democracy and the Corporate Order (1933)
Revolution and Counterrevolution in Austria (1934)
Tactical Lessons of the Austrian Catastrophe (1934)

Rudolf Hilferding
Leaving the Government (1930)
In the Danger Zone (1930)
Social Control or Private Control over the Economy (1931)
Under the Threat of Fascism (1932)
Between Decisions (1933)
Revolutionary Socialism (1934)

Karl Renner
Some Experiences of Practical Class Struggle (1928)
A Different Austria. Into the Decisive Struggle! (1930)
Will Democracy Prove Itself? (1932)

Bibliography
Index