MARXIST VIEWS ON THE NATIONAL QUESTION: NATIONAL POLICY AND THEORY IN AUSTRIAN SOCIAL DEMOCRACY (1899-1914)

The present work deals with the politics and the national theory developed in Austrian Social Democracy. It analyzes the debates on the national program of the Pan-Austrian Social Democratic Party and the different theoretical and political disputes that took place within it on this issue, as well as their international repercussions on important theorists of German Social Democracy, the Bolsheviks and socialist groups of the Balkans. In turn, it frames these discussions in the political situation from which they emerged, characterized by different national conflicts in Austria on which Social Democracy had to take a position. As fundamental elements of this political framework, we will also analyze the evolution of the Austrian party model (of organizations separated by nationality), the national conflicts within Social Democracy and the different Social Democratic positions on the Austrian imperial state, its possibilities for reform, and the prospects for the solution of the national situation of the different peoples of Austria. We conclude with a critical evaluation of this trajectory and a reflection on how the dominant national theoretical-political program in the Austrian Social Democracy (in its different variants, including the Austro-Marxist School) was ultimately accommodated to the characteristics of the Austrian State and its historical limitations.