On The State Theory Of Otto Bauer

Otto Bauer (1881-1938) was one of the main leaders of the Social DemocraticParty of Austria during the two wars. As one of the Austrian Marxist theorists, OttoBauer played a pivotal role in the development of socialism in Austria as well as thesubsequent development of Democratic Socialism in Europe. Any kind of ideas are theproduct of a specific historical period. Based on the special situation of the internationalstruggle of the proletariat and the social history of Austria, Otto Bauer brought forwardsome theories on the national issues, such as “equilibrium in the class struggle”,“thefunctions of democratic theory","social power theory”, which showed us a special roadto socialism with Austria characteristics. However, because of the limitations of thetimes, Bauer was considered to be the representatives of revisionism and opportunism.His theories and works were criticized and neglected. This didn’t match with his statuson the history of the socialism. Therefore, this paper systematically sorted out Bauer’stheory of the state and described Bauer’s understanding of the basic idea of the theoryof the state. We can explore a useful contribution and defects about the Marxist theoryof the state, and changes in the understanding of national theory. On the one hand, it cando some basic research to understand Bauer’s the theory of the state comprehensivelyand accurately. On the other hand, it can also provide a theoretical grasp of Marxismfrom the perspective of dialectical materialism revelation.This paper is divided into five parts. The first part is the introduction, brieflysummarized Otto Bauer and "Austria Marxist", elaborates the reasons and the presentsituation of research. The second section provides a brief description of the basic coresof the classic writers of Marxism theory of the state content. The third part discusses thespecific contents of the national theory of Bauer,such as “equilibrium in the classstruggle”,“the functions of democratic theory","social power theory”,“defensiveforce theory” and “the whole socialism”. Based on these points, we can describe the internal relations between Bauer’s theory and the Marxist’s theory of the state. Thefourth part mainly expounds how to evaluate Bauer ’s theory of the state and toillustrate the contributions and problems through the analysis of Bauer ’s state theoryand the enlightenment of contemporary China. The fifth part is the conclusion to make asummary about the research of this paper and study of deficiency and defect.