Democracy and class society

....In the epoch of capitalism's steady and organic growth, which was accompanied by and tied in with the systematic class differentiation of the nation, democracy played a major historical role, including that of the education of the proletariat. Its greatest role was in Europe. But in the age of imperialism, which in Europe is above all the age of decaying capitalism, democracy has reached a dead end. That is why we see in Austria, where the constitution was framed by the Social Democrats, where the social democracy holds a position of exceptionally great importance, controlling the capital city, and where, consequently, we ought to see democratic forms of transition from capitalism to socialism in their most finished expression, we find instead that politics is governed, on the one hand, by attacking bands of fascists, and, on the other, by retreating detachments of half-armed social democratic workers, while the role of grand symphonic conductor of this democracy is taken by an old police official of the Hapsburg school. 

Fascism is the second authorized agent of the bourgeoisie. Like the social democracy, and to an even greater extent, fascism has its own army, its own interests, and its own logic of operation. We know that in order to save and consolidate bourgeois society, fascism in Italy was forced to come into violent conflict not only with the social democracy but also with the traditional parties of the bourgeoisie. The same can be observed in Poland. It should not be imagined that all the agencies of bourgeois rule function in complete harmony. Fortunately it is not so. Economic anarchy is supplemented by political anarchy. Fascism, fed by the social democracy, is forced to crack the latter's skull in order to come to power. Austrian social democracy is doing everything it can to facilitate this surgical operation for the fascists.

It is hard to imagine more concentrated nonsense than Otto Bauer's arguments on the impermissibility of violence except forthe defense of the existing democracy. Translated into the language of classes, this argument means: violence is permissible to guarantee the interests of the bourgeoisie, organized as the state, but it is impermissible for the establishment of a proletarian state.

A juridical formula is appended to this theory. Bauer chews over again the old formulations of Lassalle on law and revolution. But Lassalle was speaking while on trial. There his arguments were pertinent. But the attempt to turn a juridical duel with the prosecutor into a philosophy of historical development is nothing but a subterfuge of cowardice. As Bauer would have it, the use of violence is permissible only in response to an already accomplished coup d'etat, when "law" no longer has any foundation, but it is impermissible twenty-four hours before the coup, in order to prevent it. Along this line, Bauer draws the demarcation between Austro-Marxism and Bolshevism as if it were a question of two schools of criminal law. In reality the difference lies in the fact that Bolshevism seeks to overthrow bourgeois rule while social democracy seeks to eternalize it. There can be no doubt that if a coup were made, Bauer would declare: "We did not call upon the workers to take arms against the fascists when we had powerful organizations, a legal press, 43 percent of the deputies, and the Vienna municipality; when the fascists were anticonstitutional bands attacking law and order. How could we do so now, when the fascists control the state apparatus and base themselves on the new laws they have created; when we have been deprived of everything, have been outlawed, and have no legal communication with the masses (who are, moreover, obviously disillusioned and discouraged, and have gone over to fascism in large numbers)? A call for armed uprising now could only be the work of criminal adventurists or Bolsheviks." In making such 180 degree tum in their philosophy, the Austro-Marxists would simply remain one hundred percent true to themselves....

The Austrian Crisis and Communism

(November 13, 1929)

Writings of Leon Trotsky 1929

by Leon Trotsky