The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-03-05
BY d. 4. MANUuSKY
Article XIII

AEkACi6 All
Preparing the Rout of the PrOIetariat
IN the Linz program, Austrian
seelal-democracy threatened to an
sWer with violence if the ruling class
resorted TO violence first. Since then
soeial-oemocracy in Austria has re-
peatedly had good grounds to reply
TO violence. Such, for example, was
the case on Aug. Is, 1929, after the
hTst fascist attack on the workers
IN st. Lorentz. Such was the case
on Sept. Is, 1881, during the Helm
WelIr PutSch. In all these cases, the
soeial-democracy preferred to en-
ploy methods Of persuasion" in deal
ing with the class enemy Of the pro
Eletariat The whole idea Of these
ostensibly Fabian" tactics is to lead
the proletariat to defeat.
The ruling classes are proceeding
10 open civil war, but not on the
spur OF the moment, not at any
trifling excuse. They are making
preparations. assuring themselves by
Q number Of preliminary measures of
those favorable positions which guar
antee victory. They do not begin
to shoot and provoke the oppressed
masses until they have sufficiently
dlsorganized and disarmed the latter.
From month to month the ruling
classes persistently get ready for
violence on large scale by a whole
Ssries of acts of violence" on a
smaller scale. And woe to the class
which passively accepts today's small
acts of violence in the hope of re-
sisting the great violence" of TO-
morrowl The tactic of the lesser
eyil' reckons on just such a disarm-
ing of the proletariat. It conforms
fully with the process Of fascination
which has gone on in Austria dur
ing recent years, and here, too. lies
me real meaning Of the treacherous
tactics of Austrian social democracy.
Attack" and defense? Where can
You draw clear line of denarcation
between them in the class struggle
COR in war? The class which svstern-
Satically retreats without holding I'D
fthe enemy, without ever launching
an attack, such class, like an army
n war, will inevitably be defeated,
OTTO BAUER declares the prole-
" sarian dictatorship to be a specific
form proper to the Russian revolu.
ton and the Russian proletariat. In
support of this theory, he quotes a
historical analogy. France, he saws.
got rid Of the relics Of feudalism BY
the Jacobin method, I. e., by a revolu-
tionaTy democratic dictatorship. But
this method was not one which the
bourgeoisie of other countries were
obliged to follow, for they carried
through their bourgeois revolutions
without employing Jacobin methods.
The same applies to the proletarian
dictatorship in the Soviet Union
1t Is difficult to read such a state
ment without a sense of shame, be-
cause Otto Bauer here comes for
ward, after the event, as a defender
Of the method by which the tasks
OF the bourgeois revolution are solved
by reactionary means, by an agree
nent between the bourgeois and
feudal classes.
Let us remember what was the
essence of the Jacobin revolutionary
democratic dictatorship 1t consisted
precisely in the fact that the petty
bourgeoisie and the plebeian elements
in town and country seized the hege-
mony at the decisive moment Of the
revolution and succeeded "by the
blows of their terrible hammer in
obliterating all the feudal ruins from
the face of France as if by magic"
Marx.
The Jacobin dictatorship solved