Imperialism in Austro-Marxism

This article explores the diversity of positions on imperialism within Marxist political theory of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It analyses and compares the views of Austro-Marxists such as Rudolf Hilferding, Karl Kautsky, Otto Bauer and Karl Rennner with those of orthodox Marxists like Vladimir Lenin, Nikolai Bukharin and Rosa Luxemburg; subsequently we also explore the views of Helene Bauer, Fritz Sternberg and Henryk Grossmann. In opposition to Lenin, Bukharin and Luxemburg, the Austromarxists maintained that imperialism was not an economic necessity for capitalism’s survival but an outcome driven by the interests of specific financial capitalists. They also argued that capitalism had the capacity to adapt and could potentially avoid collapse by transcending national competition through an ultra-imperialist phase of international cooperation, a process they termed the cartelisation of the world. This intellectual divergence highlights a key debate within Marxist thought about the inevitability of capitalist collapse and the role of imperialism in inter-state conflict, a debate with particular relevance in the lead-up to World War I . The first part of the article presents three debates on imperialism between Austromarxists and the Marxist orthodoxy: Kautsky and Hilferding against Lenin and Bukharin; Otto Bauer and Gustav Eckstein against Rosa Luxemburg; Helene Bauer against Fritz Sternberg and Henryk Grossmann. The second part of the article considers the Austromarxist position, especially that of Otto Bauer and Karl Renner, regarding the historical imperialism of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, France and England and their particular forms of submission and exploitation of foreign lands eventually leading into World War I