Author: Weber, Heinrich [pseudonym of Otto Bauer (1881-1938)]
Title: Die russische Revolution und das europäische Proletariat
Description: Wien, Ignaz Brand, 1917. orig. wrappers. 22x15cm, 39 pages.. Cover label. Spine chipped & torn. Worn. Good. ¶ ["Bauer...one of the most prominent exponents of Austro-Marxism, an unorthodox school of Marxist thought ...that famously sought to reconcile nationalism and theories of nationalism with socialism....The Russian Revolution captivated Bauer intellectually and opened possibilities for his return to Austria. Victor Adler mobilized prominent socialists among the Entente Powers to negotiate with the provisional government in Petrograd for Bauer’s transfer there from Siberia. After some weeks in Petrograd, Bauer returned in September 1917 to Vienna. Still officially a military officer and employed as an economist in the war ministry, Bauer began publishing on the Russian Revolution under the pseudonyms Heinrich Weber and Karl Mann. Although he joined the Social Democratic Leftist anti-war opposition upon his return and was widely regarded as a radical, even a Bolshevik, Bauer remained ambivalent about the Russian Revolution’s prospects through the end of the war. In his view, the agrarian backwardness of Russian society precluded real socialism from emerging there, instead viewing bourgeois democracy as the likelier outcome. Nonetheless, he recognized that the revolution had ushered in a new phase in the East-Central European Slavic nationalist movements and, further, that Austria-Hungary could not survive the war.... because he did not condone the spontaneous mass protests that surfaced in the final war years,Austrian authorities - who knew of his pseudonyms - allowed him to work virtually unfettered"- Jakub Benes, Intl. Encyclopedia of First World War].

Keywords: Austria, Socialist, Socialism, Russian Revolution, Political History, Politics, , ,