Austro-Marxism
T. B. Bottomore (Translator, Editor, Writer of introduction), Patrick Goode (Translator, Editor)
The texts translated in this volume provide an introduction to the work of an important and influential school of Marxist thinkers—the most prominent among them being Max Adler, Otto Bauer, Rudolf Hilferding, and Karl Renner—who were also active in the Austrian socialist movement from around 1890 until 1934. Through their books, their journals, and their political activities, they had a considerable influence upon European socialism in the first two decades of the twentieth century, as critics of 'revisionism' in German Social Democracy and exponents of a form of Marxism that could claim to be a rigorous and undogmatic science of society while retaining its revolutionary character. Their writings are still little known in the English-speaking world and are greatly neglected elsewhere. This neglect is quite undeserved; for, as Professor Bottomore explains in his Introduction, the Austro-Marxists made a notable contribution to the development of Marxist social science, and their analyses of the changes in twentieth-century capitalism, as well as their studies of Marxism as a method of social inquiry, retain much of their value today. All but one of the texts here translated appear in English for the first time, and the volume contains biographical notes on the principal Austro-Marxists and a useful bibliography. Tom Bottomore is Professor of Sociology at the University of Sussex. His recent books include Marxist Sociology (1975) and Sociology as Social Criticism (1975). Dr. Patrick Goode was until recently a research student at Sussex University. He is the author of Karl Korsch: an Intellectual Biography (forthcoming)
Print Book, English, 1978
Clarendon Press, Oxford [England], 1978