From the beginnings to 2008 (May 2008)
Some important years and decades:
1848 bourgeois revolution, First Vienna General Workers’ Association (March to June anti-feudal revolution, August to September split between bourgeoisie and working-class, October restauration of absolute monarchy)
1866 - 1888 quick development of Socialist workers movement and forming of the Social Democratic Party, officially founded turn of the year 1888/89
1918 January Strike (biggest political strike in Austria); November: bourgeois revolution overthrowing the monarchy, foundation of bourgeois republic (First Republic till 1938)
1927 – 1933 setbacks and fascisation
1934 12th to 15th February: Antifascist Civil War, ban on all workers organisations, installing of fascist regime
1934 – 1938 Austro-Fascism
1938 – 1945 annexion of Austria by Nazi Germany, Nazi-Fascism (Hitler)
1945 – 1955 liberation, refoundation of bourgeois democratic republic (since then Second Republic); nationalization of banks, insurances, steel works, mines and big parts of chemical industry; political dominance of “board of social partnership” that scrutinizes all laws before they are passed in parliament
1950 October Strike (biggest self-organized strike against the SocDem leadership for wage-hikes, ended in a defeat)
1970 – 1985 “reform years” and “welfare state” under Social Democratic governments based on the development of an imperialist economy with massive capital export and surplus profit from the exploitation of other peoples
1985 political turn of bourgeoisie to open confrontations with working class; austerity policy, social cuts, privatization and sell-out of nearly all state-owned industries, leading to membership in EU (1994) and NATO-partnership
2002 biggest strike in Austrian history for continuation of “social partnership” that was increasingly undermined by the conservative government
Beginnings to 1945
The roots of Austria as a political and territorial entity go back to the Roman Empire when this area became a separate province in 15 B.C.A. But it was not before the complete devastation of the German speaking kingdoms and principalities in the War of 30 Years (ending in 1648) when the Austrian Empire became more and more important as a separate state in the backward and Eastern-most part of the former (German) Holy Roman Empire.
From 1438 until 1918 the Austrian Habsburg Empire was much larger than today’s Austria. It comprised Chechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, and parts of Poland, Ukrainia, Serbia, Bosnia, and Northern Italy and was a dungeon for those peoples for many centuries. Referring to the area it was the biggest country in Europe (exept Russia with its Asian parts), that’s why Vienna became such a big citiy. (Germany as a national state separating from the Habsburg Empire was formed between 1866 and 1871.) Nowaday’s Austria within the current borders was founded in 1918 with the smashing of the Habsburg Empire and the proclamation of the First Republic.
The first associations of journeymen (brotherhoods) in Vienna can be traced back to the year of 1411. It was a first form of organisation similar to modern Trade Unions. In those times their main task was protection and assistance against masters and foremen.
In the 15th century mining became the first capitalist industry in Austria with the miners forming the first industrial proletariat.
In the 17th and 18th centuries the manufacture period brought deep-going changes. The enterprises became bigger and bigger, i.e. more and more workers were concentrated in one place. But they lost all the fixed rights of the journeyman (esp. to forming brotherhoods and associations). So the Austrian working class had no organisations for for more than 150 years.
As the economy of the Austrian Empire was much behind that of Western Europe (England, Holland, France etc.) the imperial state supported the monopolization and, within a few decades in the second half of the 18th century, large textile and other factories were created with up to 50,000 workers in one factory. That was really big even in comparison with the English of French competitors.
By means of employing masses of women and children the wages were pressed lower and lower and around 1800 the proletariat lived and worked in horrible conditions. The normal work day lasted 12 to 14 hours, 6 days a week, and very often the workers even slept on the factory floor. In 1787 the modern Emperor Joseph II published a decree that children under the age of 8 should be used as factory workers only in situations of exceptional necessities. Three years later, when Joseph II died, this law was abolished.
The first welfare system was also created during the days of Joseph II in state-owned enterprises. First in some mines, then in some textile mills, simple forms of old-age pensions and widow’s pensions were introduced. In other places the workers were allowed to pay part of their wages into some (self-organized) insurance or pension plan.
All through the first half of the 19th century there existed no political or militant organisations of the workers in Austria, all such activities were brutally suppressed. There was no open class struggle but only separated struggles against different factory-owners. The main form of militant struggle was therefore the violent strike and the destruction of machines.
The year of 1848 was very important for the further development in Austria. It was the year of the bourgeois revolution in most countries of Europe.
In March the workers in Austria marched and fought for democracy side by side with the bourgeoisie and the students. The demands for a new constitution with general right to vote (for males only) and a constituent assembly were fulfilled and the Emperor and his court fled from Vienna to Innsbruck in Tyrol. But soon the bigger part of the bourgeoisie now ruling in Vienna became afraid of the workers’ power and formed a united front with the noblemen and big landlords. So not even one representative of the workers was elected into the new Parliament. Although the workers could now form their own associations (esp. the First Vienna General Workers Association) the political level of knowledge and consciousness was very low. When Karl Marx spoke on two meetings in Vienna in August and September 1848 only very very few understood his words about the Revolution in Paris and about Wages and Capital. Even the word of Socialism was widely unknown among workers.
Nevertheless the workers’ reaction on a wage-cut at the end of August was massive and militant. That led to a complete split between workers and most parts even of the middle and small bourgeoisie. And when the Emperor tried to force his way back to Vienna it was only the workers who defended the city in October. For more than one week Vienna was attacked and bombed by the imperial army and nearly all buildings of Vienna were destroyed in this October 1848. Two thirds of the dead were factory workers and the recently founded workers associations were dissolved.
In the following two decades the workers movement was more or less an underground movement. The political organisations developed within the frames of workers insurance and pension plans and cooperative purchasing groups and that sort. The Austrian emperor ruled with absolute power and was supported by big parts of the German speaking bourgeoisie and the landlords of most parts of the large empire.
In 1866 the Austrian army suffered a bitter defeat against the Prussian army. In Hungary the nationalist united front of bourgeoisie, workers and liberal noblemen forced an agreement from the Austrian emperor in 1867 that granted part souvereignty to the Hungarian half of the empire – the treaty called “Ausgleich” (a German word meaning both balance and settlement). In the following years the Austrian economy grew quickly and the workers movement founded their first Socialist and Marxist organisations.
Even Marx in his Report of the General Council to the 4th Congress of the First International in Basel in 1869 mentioned the exceptionally fast development of the Austrian Social-Democratic workers movement since 1866. In 1869 the First International had already more than 13,000 members in Austria, most of them in Vienna region.
Although the first Party Congress of the Social-Democratic Party was organized secretely in 1874 (in Neudörfl, 50 kms south of Vienna) it was no lasting success. More than 20 years later the historical official founding congress took place on the turn of the year 1888/89 in Hainfeld (100kms SW of Vienna). A short but Marxist programme was adopted and the Party joined the Second International that was formed in Paris in 1889.
There were three main week points that characterized these Socialdemocrats from the beginning: Their concentration on the building and strenghtening of trade unions in all fields as a means to fight for better working and living conditions. Their concentration on the issue of universal suffrage as a means to improve the political situation. And as a third point the ever deepening split beween the various nationalities within the working class and party.
Already in 1897 a separated Trade Union Commission of the Czech Social Democrats was founded in Prague and in 1899 the Party adopted a programme on the question of nationalities that divided the Party along the mother tongues of their members.
From the very beginning of the 20th century the leaders of the Social Democrats did not at all fight at the forefront of rebellions and militant struggles but did everything to advance their struggle for unversal suffrage that became a success step by step in 1905 and 1918.
At that time the SocDem leadership developed a typical Austrian form of Revisonism that is internationally known as Austro-Marxism. It it a sort of centrism linking rather radical Marxist phrases with extreme passiveness and opportunism in moments of high activity of the masses. Here are some examples from Austrian history:
- In 1914 when the Austrian emperor declared war against Serbia the leadership of Austrian Social Democrats did nothing against the war but obeyed to the patriotic internal class peace – although the 2nd International had recently adopted several resolutions to convert an imperialist war into a class war.
- In January 1918, still in war, an underground group of left SocDem, calling themselves the Left Radicals, succeeded in organizing one of the largest strikes of the whole 20th century in Austria mobilising first 10,000s in the Vienna region and within one week up to 750,000 in various industrial regions of the monarchy. The most important slogans were: improve the food supply, stop the war and overthrow the monarchy.
But the SocDem leadership did everything from demagogic speeches in mass meetings to secret consultations with the imperial government to calm down the protests and choke off the mass strike.
- In Feb. 1918, still during in World War I, sailors of the Austrian navy staged a mutiny in the harbour of Kotor (nowadays Montenegro), hoisted the Red Flag on their war ships and in town and founded a revolutionary council. But the leadership of the SocDem did everything to suppress any message about this rebellion against war and for socialism till the revolutionaries were defeated.
- In November 1918 during a vast mass meeting in Vienna celebrating the end of the monarchy radical forces led by young Communists demanded a socialist republic, tore down the red-white-red flag from the parliament, hoisted the red flag and tried to occupate the parliament to dissolve this bourgeois assembly. But the leaders of the SocDem put in units af the People’s Defence Forces loyal to them to drive out the revolutionaries. A similar reaction came from the Austro-Marxist leaders shortly later when the Red Guard, a Communist-led unit of People’s Defence Forces, occupied the building of a reactionary newspaper to print revolutionary publications there.
- In 1919 armed forces under SocDem leadership several times opend fire against demonstrating masses in the streets of Vienna.
And in an assessment of the November revolution of 1918 one of the most prominent and so-called “leftist” leaders of the Austro-Marxists, Otto Bauer, proudly said that is had been the Social Democrats who had rescued the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois republic from the wild hords of revolutionary masses by entering the bourgeois government.
In November 1918 in the middle of the revolutionary overthrow of the monarchy the CP of Austria was founded by a small group of very young comrades. They had nearly no experience and no appreciated leaders of the working class but were confronted with a well-experienced, influential Social Democratic party organisation. Therefore they were very much dependent on the political, ideological and organisational support of the Comintern (Third International).
When the revolutionary wave was over the Austrian bourgeoisie soon started the fascisation process, pushed the SocDem out of government and started abolishing the “rubble of the revolution” as it was called, meaning the abolition of democratic and social rights achieved in the years 1918-21. In neighbouring Hungary a fascist regime had already been established (following the Republic of Workers Councils defeated in 1919) and in Italy the fascist leader Mussolini started his march to Rome (in 1922 after the end of the period of revolutionary factory councils in Northern Italy).
But in Austria the bourgeoisie was weak because big parts of their former wealth got lost when the Habsburg empire fell apart into many small national countries leading to an economic disaster all through the two decades of the First Republic of Austria. Therefore the influence and position of the working class was rather strong and the SocDem used it to strengthen their position within the bourgeois state.
The SocDem Republican Protection League (“Republikanischer Schutzbund”), an armed militia of up to 80,000 men was relatively well equipped, the SocDem came up to 45% in elections and had the clear majority in nearly all industrial towns of Austria. In that time Vienna was in a special situation because it was the only federal province with a SocDem majority in elections to bourgeois bodies. Therefore the SocDem could e.g. legally impose new taxes on the bourgeoisie, especially the luxury tax that provided the money for the construction of council houses, public bath-houses, eating-halls, hospitals, kindergartens, schools etc.
But the mighty SocDem party stepped back further and further in the years 1923 to 1933 when the Austrian bourgeoisie advanced their offensive against the working class. The SocDem leaders always firmly proclaimed that this or that attack had been the very last to accept and that the party was standing prepared (“guns ready”, as they said) to counter the next attack - or they even threatened to overthrow the bourgeoisie if it did not respect the rules of a democratic republic etc. etc.
In 1927 some fascists opened fire from shotguns against a SocDem demonstration in the East Austrian village of Schattendorf (100 kms SE of Vienna). When the court of justice set the murderers free the workers of Vienna spontanuously laid down work and came out into the streets. They set fire in the building of justice and fought bravely against the attacking police. But the SocDem leaders brought in loyal troops of the Republican Protection League militia and working hand in hand with the police drove the workers out of the streets of the city centre. The fighting went on for some days in the suburbs; about 85 workers were killed, more than 1000 wounded and thousands charged and put into prison.
Fascism was on the march. In 1933 the CP was banned as well as the SocDem Republican Defence League and other workers organisations. In January 1934 the police provocatively started to search for weapons in the SocDem workers clubs.
On the 12th Feb. 1934 armed SocDem workers resisted a police attack on their party building in Linz. This was the beginning of Civil War that lasted for 3 days. The SocDem central party leaders in Vienna and most of the provincial leaders did not support the armed resistence and many of them either hid or fled abroad just when the struggle began. Only in Upper Austria (Linz, Steyr, Attnang etc.) and Styria (esp. Bruck/Mur) the SocDem leaders stood on the side of the fighting workers. In most other provinces and towns the workers of the Republican Defence League could not even get their arms (especially machine guns etc.) because only the leaders knew the depots where they were were hidden. Therefore the SocDem workers fought alone without leading centre and could not start any real offensive. It was more or less a defence battle against the well equipped army that attacked the council houses and workers cultural buildings with heavy artillery. The then still very small and not really infuential CP could not change the situation during the fighting. Their members had been expelled from the SocDem Republican Defence League and had formed a small commmunist workers militia (“Arbeiterwehr”) that fought bravely in some of the districts of Vienna and started offensives wherever it was possible. Soon the badly armed workers could not hold their positions against the army and withdrew. Some hundreds of them fled to Chechia and later to the Soviet Union. More than thousand were killed during the 3-day-fighting, thousands arrested and nine working class leaders were executed.
After that Civil War of February 1934 many workers understood what the CP had always but fruitlessly told them: The SocDem party is betraying you. So till autumn 1934 more than 12,000 former members of SocDem joined the CP - that now meant four times the membership they had had before Feb.34 (approx. 4,000). With the dissolution of the SocDem party and the strengthening of the CP by the most advanced elements of the working class the Communist Party of Austria became the leading force during the period of struggle against fascism (Austro Fascism 1933-38, German nationalist Nazi fascism 1938-45).
1934-1945: Struggle against Fascism
After the prohibition of all workers’ organisations in February 1934 and the abolition of all former democratic regulations of industrial law (including e.g. the law of works councils and the annulment of all Social Democrat mandates of works councils) the working-class movement could only act from underground.
With the serious defeat of the workers movement under the leadership of Social Democrats for many workers the faith in this party vanished and the betrayal of their leaders made them leave the Social Democratic party. At the same time, among many revolutionary-minded workers there was a turn towards Communism. Many joined the CP Austria (but as many turned towards NSDAP – “National Socialist German Workers Party”, Nazi party). CP Austria (KPÖ), already illegal since 1933, could quadruple their membership (from under 4000 in February to 16,000 in autumn 1934) and became a party with mass influence.
Many important leaders of the Social Democrats rejected any illegal organisational activity as senseless, but the middle and basic cadres of Social Democrats founded the “Revolutionary Socialists” (RS). At the beginning they worked closely together with CP Austria but soon a right current prevailed that orientated themselves clearly against communism and any united front.
Promptly after the defeat of the workers movement in 1934 the Austro-fascist regime of Dollfuss and Schuschnigg (Christian Social Party with support of “Home Defence” – in German: “Heimwehr”) founded the “Patriotic Front” – in German: “Vaterländische Front” – the only legal party. At the same time they tried with pressure by the state to build up yellow united trade unions, but within two years Social Democrat and Communist forces had an essential influence within them at least on the basic level.
But the working-class movement had to fight on two fronts since from 1936 onwards the Austro-fascist regime – first oriented on Italian fascism (Mussolini fascism) – got under heavier pressure and influence of NSDAP fascism (Hitler fascism). Austro fascism disintegrated rapidly because the Austrian bourgeoisie was at variance about the further path to go. They more and more turned towards Hitler fascism that had grasped power in Germany at the beginning of 1933. This type seemed to be the more certain guarantor against the increasing force of the workers. When in February 1938 the National Socialists (Nazi) were given a share in the Austro fascist government (e.g. Nazi minister of the interior) the illegal workers organisations (KPÖ, RS, trade unions) sent delegates to the government, demanded the immediate restauration of democratic rights and organised a conference of members of works councils that was tolerated by the Austro fascist regime because of the developing mass movement. The Hitler fascists reacted with the invasion of the German Army (“Wehrmacht”) on 12 March. With the power of the Nazi regime they proclaimed the “Anschluss” (connection) of Austria to the German Reich cheered by many Austrians, and with some quick improvements for the people and terrorist suppression of any opposition they established a remarkably more brutal and powerful oppressive regime.
Already in the first days after the seizing of total power by the Hitler fascists (Nazi-NSDAP) on 12 March 1938 dozens of enemies from Austria were transported to the concentraion camp of Dachau (near Munich). At the same time the Nazi tried everything to bind at least the German nationalist minded workers to them by serious privileges, e.g. expusion of families of Jewish origin from their homes and prompt billeting of German nationalist minded workers families. By this way within short time more families got a new flat than in the 15 years up to 1934 of Red Vienna building social homes in council houses.
On 8/9th November 1938 the Hitler fascists started an anti-Jewish pogrome during that practically all Jewish temples and stores and many flats were looted and destroyed. During this night the average Vienna people took part so eagerly that the Nazi regime decided to accelerate the policy of expulsion and killing of persons of Jewish origin. In 1938 more than 200,000 people lived in Austria who were called Jews by the Nuremberg racist law and of them about one third was killed until 1944. An ingenious system of more than 50 concentration and extermination camps (Mauthausen, Gusen, Hartheim etc.) was spread all over Austria where political enemies, handicapped and people rated “inferior” because of racist reasons were crammed together.
Right form the beginning the CP Austria organised resistance against the Hitler regime on various levels whereas the Revolutionary Socialists and other Social Democrats proclaimed a decision in March 1938 to stop all activities. In spite of big waves of arrest and numerous executions the party structures of CP could always be reorganised. Between 1938 and 1945 the KPÖ could win more than 13,000 new militants and in total about 80% of all activities of resistance are credited to KPÖ. Thousands of Communsts bcame martyrs of the struggle against fascism, among them 13 members of the Central Committee of KPÖ.
From 1943 the KPÖ concentrated on the building of the “Austrian Freedom Front” (Österreichische Freiheitsfront), an anti-fascist and patriotic united front and on the building of partisan/guerilla units in certain mountainous regions of Austria (Upper Styria, Eastern Carinthia, Salzkammergut/Upper Austria).
In the Slovenian region of Southern Carinthia a large resistance movement had developed even earlier being independent from those KPÖ initiated activities. The Slovenian resistance orientated on the CP Yugoslavia and the partisans led by Tito. Since 1942 Slovenian partisan units had been built who had fought such great encounters with the German Army since 1943 that Southern Carinthia was declared an “area of fight against bandits”. A whole SS police division had to be transferred from the eastern front to Carinthia and up to 10,000 German armed forces were deployed here for fighting the partisans.
Yet the brave struggle of the Carinthian Slovenians under the leadership of the CP Yugoslavia and of the German speaking forces under the leadership of the KPÖ was not enough to free Austria from fascism and German occupation. It was the invasion of the joined forces of the anti Hitler coalition (Red Army of the Soviet Union, US-American, British and French armed forces) that overthrew the Nazi regime. Vienna was liberated by the Red Army in April 1945 (cf. Liberation monument on Schwarzenberg Square), Western Austria by units of the US Army.
The Soviet Union under Stalin promptly declared the reestablishment of the independent and democratic Republic of Austria and made the rightist Social Democrat leader Renner (who had for some time collaborated with the Hitler fascists) head of the first government.
Superior control was in the hands of the Alllied Council of the four occupation forces of the Anti-Hitler coalition (until 1955).
Altogether more than 700,000 Austrians had been members of NSDAP or leading functionaries of their mass organisations (of 7 Mill. inhabitants of Austria). About 100,000 Austrians had been murdered by the Hitlerites, some 35,000 of them because of resistance.
Soon after the end of war against Germany and Japan the US (together with other imperialists) started the so-called Cold War against the Soviet Union. They aimed at conquering Eastern Europe and encircling and strangling the Soviet Union.
The communists could not convert their very big share in Austrian resistance into political influence since the whole resistance movement was in general very weak until the end of fascism -. with the exception of the Slovene speaking parts of Carinthia. At no time more than about 10 per cent of the population were at the side of anti-fascist resistance (even as passive sympathisers) of the Austrian Freedom Front or other organisations. According to the political line of the partisans under the leadership of KPÖ in their struggle for an independent and democratic Austria the fighting units delivered their arms and dissolved their groups when the allied troops entered Austria and restored the Republic of Austria. The armed organisations in the towns and cities reacted in the same way, especially the Communist Youth Association in Vienna and Communist groups in factories who had occupied their work-places at the end of war.
Although KPÖ was part of the first governments of the Second Republic, and for a short time even held the post of the minister of the interior, the anti-communist pressure was soon increased and the representatives of KPÖ left the government. In the times of the beginning Cold War Austria became the front-line state against the socialist camp. Two thirds of the Austrian border were neighbouring the later people’s republics of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia.
1945-2008: Second Republic of Austria
Austrian People’s Party (Volkspartei, ÖVP), the succeeding organisation of the Austro-fascists (or Christian Democrats and Home Defence, resp.) won the biggest part of votes in the elections in the autumn of 1945, followed by the Social Democrats who called themselves “Socialists” after 1945. SP and PP (VP) politically picked up the thread of Nazi ideology and anti-communism and CP reached only some 5 per cent of votes on an average. Two years later even the succeeding party of NSDAP, today’s Freedom Party, could take part in elections with a German nationalist programme and gained 10 per cent on average.
Soon Social Democrats and Christian Socials agreed on a bourgeois capitalist programme for the reconstruction of Austria. Their core elements were:
- Stressing the Austrian role of victim (“first country invaded by Hitler”) – in spite of massive participation of Austro-fascists and Austrian NSDAP in the “German invasion” called “Anschluss” (“connection”);
- strict anti-communism and in return massive financial support by US imperialism (“Marshall plan”);
- nationalisation of all banks and heavy industries etc. that were formally owned by the Germans, and in this way large steel and chemical works having been built by forced labourers and prisoners of concentration camps were transferred into Austrian ownership dodging all negotiations about reparations for war;
- subjugation of working class under a regime of institutionalised social partnership with state-controlled united trade unions, state-run institutions for the representation of workers (Chamber of Labour) and capital (Chamber of Commerce), price commission etc.
The policy of the bourgeoisie aimed at saddling the working class with the whole costs of reconstruction. For this PP and SP passed a series of so-called “wages and price agreements” that kept also the prices of some basic staple food low but first of all forced down the wages and salaries.
In September/October 1950 a general strike broke out that was to a large extent organised by KPÖ and mobilised half a million workers in all. The Social Democrats put in goons with sticks recruited mainly among reactionary construction workers against the striking workers, agitated against an alleged “communist putsch”. As a reaction to that accusation the KPÖ stabbed the strike movement in the back by calling for a break. Following that large strike movement nearly 100 leading communist functionaries of the trade unions were expelled from the Austrian Trade Union Centre (ÖGB).
In long negotiations between the Austrian government and the victorious allied forces and against the will of the western imperialists the Soviet Union could reach a treaty of neutrality for Austria that included a prohibition of any membership with NATO or other alliances. Since the CP of Austria had become legal again in 1945 it had developed as a patriotic and democratic but not as a socialist force. As far as we know, the last concrete discussions in the leadership of KPÖ about a revolutionary seizure of power at least in parts of Austria took place in 1952 but was soon choked off by the right opportunists. Since then KPÖ has oriented only on the way of peaceful change, especially using bourgeois parlamentary methods.
In comparison with Western Europe Austria was an economically backward country up to the 1960ies and threatened to become a semi-colony of West Germany. One part of the big bourgeoisie pressed for modernizing capitalism, for the abolition of feudal remnants and wanted a modern state and cultural superstructure. Exactly at that time, in the middle of the 1960ies, the big Austrian enterprises started again (for the first time since 1914!) to export capital systematically (e.g. to Greece, Nigeria, South Africa). Nevertheless there were also strong backward oriented forces among the big capital and at the end of the 1960ies it turned out that with the clerical conservative PP (ÖVP) the required modernizations could not to be put into action. As the SP under Kreisky had given up all socialist orientation and presented itself as a social people’s party it became the ideal government of Austrian monopoly capital.
At the same time the harsh citicism of CP of China and PL Albania against the revisionist and social imperialist CPSU became public. This had also an effect on the KPÖ and already in 1963 the “Red Flag” (Rote Fahne) journal was published by the anti-revisionist current under the leadership of the responsible editor of the theory organ of KPÖ, Franz Strobl. After four years of preparation the Marxist-Leninist Party of Austria (MLPÖ) was founded. In the beginning 1970ies, when the differences about the general line of the International Communist Movement became more vehement, MLPÖ severely criticized the “Theory of the Three Worlds”, orientated itself very much on the PL Albania, but did not participate in the worst libel against Mao and the CP of China by numerous Hoxha disciples.
The invasion of Czechoslovakia by troops of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Treaty in 1968 led to a split off by a “Euro-Revisionist” current of the KPÖ having their main protagonists in the Trade Union faction (“Gewerkschaftliche Einheit” / “Trade Union Unity”) and the youth (“Freie Österreichische Jugend” / “Free Austrian Youth”). KPÖ however firmly supported without any bigger deviations (since 1927) the course of the Soviet Union and regarding their perspectives of socialism in the 1970ies also hoped for the support of Breshnev troops from the neighbouring countries. Only with the end of the Soviet Union in 1990/91 bigger political and organisational shocks jolted the KPÖ and led to a differentiation of a larger petty-bourgeois wing and a smaller social fascist Stalin-Breshnev wing.
In the beginning 1970ies a wave of trade unionist and workplace struggles started (e.g. 1972 a strike wave for tax reform, 1973 self-organised strike at Böhler steelworks and in other large enterprises for wage hikes) as well as political struggles of the youth movement (e.g. 1971 anti-militarist marches, 1972 Vietnam marches with occupation of Salzburg airport against Nixon landing there).
After some initial success in party-building, MLPÖ (with about 100 old cadres from KPÖ) did not succed in consolidating their influence within the working class. Part of their forces returned to KPÖ, others formed further groups or gave up.
So after 1970 a second current of young members of the KPÖ and others from the youth movement developed but was more strongly orientated on Mao Zedong’s CP of China and formed the “Communist League of Austria” (“Kommunistischer Bund” / KB). In the beginning they had remarkable success in building an organisational structure in various industrial regions of Austria and communist cells in several large enterprises and gaining a considerable influence in various mass movements (right to abortion, rights of national minorities, anti nuclear power plants etc.). But after a few years the KB broke up under the pressure of their political tasks of revolutionary leadership of mass movements and the complicated debates of the Internationational Marxist-Leninist Movement about the road to revolution (Three World Theory, Cultural Revolution, Social–Imperialism, Maoism etc.)
In the 15 years from 1970 to 1985 under Social Democrat (SPÖ) governments far reaching reforms from above were introduced and Austria became a modern imperialist country. The SocDem government under Kreisky accellerated the development of Austrian imperialism through an economic policy known as Austro-Keynesianism. In these years the monopoly capital (still to a big part nationalised) cleverly used the formally neutral status between the blocks of NATO and COMECON and strengthened its imperialist position by engaging in profitabel trade relationship with the “Eastern Block” as well as e.g. the Arab region or with nonaligned countries such as India.
The core of SocDem interior politics was the deep-going de-politisation of the working class by labour aristocracy, labour bureaucracy and keeping the workers in governmental leading strings. The boards of social partnership established after Word War Two with delegates from Chamber of Labour, Trade Union, Chamber of Commerce and Trade Association had an absolute control of all legal drafts and bills introduced in parliament. Not before the boards of social partnership had agreed to a certain bill it could be put to vote in the National Assembly. Thus important improvements and a better safeguard for the living conditions of the masses were introduced through reforms from above – and nearly without struggle (these reforms were normally made marching in step with the big imperialist neighbouring countries of Germany and Italy).
In the legal field the SocDem governments realized a lot of capitalist modernisations: equality of women in family legislation, governmental care for all ill and old people, right to abortion within a time limit, reform of penalty code, enlargement to five weeks of paid holidays, reduction of working hours to 40 (or 38.8) hours a week, full 13th and 14th salary (Christmas and holiday pay) for all (some branches with 15th salary), clear and real increase of wages and salaries, extra pay of 50% and 100% for overtime work, school reform, educational reform etc.
With the years of crisis at the beginning of the 1980ies the SocDems started to realize a programme of privatizing the national industry, pressure on wages etc. The working class reacted to this end of automatic real increase of wages and salaries and worker-friendly reforms from above with turning away from the SPÖ and an increasing lack of interest in “politics” (esp. elections), and partly certain disappointed strata turned to the racist FPÖ (getting up to 29% of the votes). Now it became bitterly obvious that the Marxist-Leninist organisations had not succeeded in advancing the party-building process. KB (Communist League) had dispersed and dissolved in the meantime, MLPÖ made only weak propaganda activities and played (nearly) no role in the social movements.
KPÖ however restricted themselves to (more or less verbal) defence of the nationalised industry and public services, participated in the state-run trade union and social partnership although they, in words, criticized cooperation with capital and oriented themselves on elections (results: 0.5 to 1% of votes). The emerging green alternative movement concentrated more on preservation of environment than on social issues.
But there was also a number of relatively broad workers’ struggles and people’s movements:
In 1981 10,000 people demonstrated in Judenburg (Styria) against the closure of the steel works there.
From 1980/81 onwards a big anti-fascist movement developed against the reorganisation of neo-nazi forces.
In 1982/83 a broad peace movement developed that brought together 70,000 to 100,000 participants in marches and rallies.
At the end of the 1980ies a relatively broad movement against racist laws against foreigners developed linking with the migrants organisations but soon after 1992 trickled away in the state funded multi-culti sector.
In the 1990ies the resistance of the working class against the offensive of the capital (still) mainly expressed itself within the social partnership boards. There were nearly no strikes, at best protest meetings in enterprises. With the break-down of the Eastern Block during the worst international capitalist crisis since 1929 and with the full opening of the countries of Eastern Europe for the western imperialists the Austrian imperialism started a huge offensive.
Joining the European Union (EU) in 1995 was enforced by using enormous means of propaganda. Soon an incomparable capital export to Eastern Europe began and Austria became the main investor and biggest exploiter in many of these countries.
With the opening of the East the working class was on the one hand given a share of this upswing (material improvements) but was on the other hand confronted with production transfer and dismissals, lower wages and worsening working conditions.
So it came to a drifting away of better off and poorer strata of workers. While the workers of the bigger companies were especially defending their rights of industrial law and social gains of the 1970ies and 1980ies also new coordinations and movements of part-time workers arose fighting for a better protection of their working conditions.
Starting in 1985 substantial parts of the working-class politically left the SPÖ and moved over to ÖVP and Greens, others to FPÖ and the split off BZÖ in the federal province of Carinthia. SPÖ clearly lost their influence in the working class, especially in small and medium enterprises.
In protest against the increasing depriving of political power SPÖ demonstrated impressively in 2003 that they still have a large influence within the working class. On occasion of planned pension cuts by the ÖVP-FPÖ government SPÖ could, within a few months, organize a general strike with 1 million participants (of a workforce of 3 mill.) and demonstrations with 200,000 people (for the continuation of social partnership and against pension cuts) – and without having any problems could also send the movement home at their will. By doing so SPÖ had impressively shown their important role for the bourgeoisie in keeping the working class quiet and became again the leading party in government. Despite the problems of SPÖ in consolidating the cracking Austrian Trade Union Centre and despite initially angry protests especially of the youth against the unaltered policy of offensive of the capitalist monopolies, the working class movement of the first decade of the 21st century has not succeeded in getting forward in the organisational fields. The building of class conscious and militant groups in enterprises and at the basis of trade unions as well as the construction of revolutionary organisations, especially a Revolutionary Communist Party, are still in the first phase. #
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MLLitV, Stiftgasse 8, A-1070 Wien, Austria.
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