Socialism and Labor in Austria and Czechoslovakia *

The situation in the whole Austro-Hungarian Empire was complex and unfavorable to unified action either in fields of Socialism or labor. This was due largely to two reasons. The first was the multiplicity of languages and races in the Empire which split up the Austrian Social Democratic Party into a number of national groups, such as Germans, Czechs, Poles, Italians, Slavs, Ruthenians, respectively grouped in different sections of the empire. It was not until nearly 1890 that any organization began which drove the trade unions into affiliation with the Socialist Party in order to secure political influence. The tyrannical exercise of autocratic power by the government was more drastic than in northern Germany, largely because the labor element in Austro-Hungary was not sufficiently large to insure respect on the part of the government.

However, in 1901, the Socialists elected ten members to the Reichrath, and succeeded in their extensive campaign to secure universal manhood suffrage. This campaign was not successful until the enormous increase of the influence of Socialism in 1905 and 1906 combined with the threat of a general strike, to force the government to carry out to a certain extent the Socialist demands for universal suffrage in December, 1906. This led to a tremendous increase in the Socialist vote throughout the empire, which amounted to over a million, or nearly a third of the total vote. It secured an increase of Socialist members of Parliament from eleven to eighty-seven and it coincided with the increase in two years of the number of trade unionists from 180,000 to over 500,000. This applies to the Austrian half of the empire, and does not include the development of Socialism and trade unionism in Hungary, where a larger proportion of the population is of agricultural instead of industrial character. The agitation for universal suffrage carried on in Hungary at the same time as in Austria was even more violently opposed by the government which dissolved 354 trade unions in 1906 in its attempt to suppress the whole trade union movement.

This led to giving to the Socialist Party of Hungary a more extreme and radical view than to the Socialist Party in Austria. The organization of the Social Democratic Labor Party in Austria was in two branches. The Austrian party proper, centered in Vienna, and the Czecho slovak party, centered in Prague, See Addendum, Part I.

The break between these two elements came in connection with the election of 1911, when, after years of harmonious work, the Czech or Bohemian separate labor unions were created, introducing a nationalist fight in the labor movement. This break in the party entered also into the parliamentary membership, resulting in the cleavage between the two parliamentary groups. Although the International Congress at Copenhagen blamed the Bohemian Separatists, no attention was paid to the attitude of the Congress. The principal leader of the Austrian Party before the war, and practically its founder, was Victor Adler, father of the more recent leader, Friederich Adler.

The Socialist Labor Union press before the war consisted of fifty German, forty-four Czech, eight Polish, one Slovak, one Ruthenian and three Italian organs.

While the Union Labor movement in Austria-Hungary was so strongly thwarted in its development by government opposition, the other phase of labor development, the co-operative movement, was remarkably successful. It increased from 483 branches, with 206,620 members in 1908 to 560 branches with 590,000 members in 1914. Co-operative labor organizations were established in practically every city with an industrial population.

The attitude of the Social Democratic and Labor groups during the war will be studied later.

The Socialist Party of Austro-Hungary, on account of the great variety of languages and nationalities already noticed, and the Separatist tendencies within its ranks, has been termed quite rightly "The Little International," because it represents on a small scale practically all the important characteristics which have to be considered in connection with the big international meetings. This accounts for the lack of influence which the party has exercised in the general international conference.

"There are two Socialist parties in Czecho slovakia: the Social Democratic, which is undoubtedly much stronger, and the former National Socialist Party, now the Socialist Party. Marxism has played a very small part in the Czech Socialist movement. The great majority of the Czech workers regard Socialism primarily as an idealistic conception of a better human society Revolutionary Marxism, or Bolshevism, is foreign to the Czech mind and has therefore no future in Bohemia and on January 16 (1919) the Socialist Party executive published an explicit repudiation of Bolshevik propaganda."

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This statement by Alexander Broz in the "New Europe" (No. 124) will explain why the Bohemians in the United States are an element that can be counted upon for law and order. As a prominent Czech Socialist deputy wrote, "Bolshevism seduces the suffering working classes into a policy that drives the whole nation to still greater misery and involves all classes in political extinction."

The Czechoslovak government by the stand it took against Bela Kun's invasion of Slovakia in July, 1919, by guarding against a general strike, by arresting the Bolshevik agitator Muna and Mme. Janishek, helped to bring about the failure, on June 15, of the Bolshevik rising in Vienna. This was an attempt to turn Austria into a Soviet state as had already been done in Hungary. It was all a part of Bela Kun's plan, and to be done with his money. The conspirators in Vienna were mostly Hungarian propagandists. Fortunately the troops of the garrison refused to be stampeded into joining the Bolsheviks. The Hungarian Bolshevik funds were siezed, including immense quantities of jewelry, and Bela Kun's agents were arrested. The fate of Central Europe had hung by a thread. Bolshevism might have spread to Italy and France if Bohemia had gone to pieces.

SOCIALISM IN AUSTRIA SINCE THE WAR

During the war, Austrian Socialism had even less opportunity to show any independence than German Socialism, being kept so absolutely under oppression. This oppression resulted in the extraordinary assassination of the Austrian Prime Minister, Count Stuergkh, by Friederich Adler, the leader of the militant branch of the Socialist Party. The majority Socialists, as in Germany, supported the government. Only the Left Wing, under young Adler, attempted to remain true to international pacifist Socialism.

The insistent call for peace by the Socialists may have hastened the disintegration of Austria at the close of the war. There is no question but that the misery and hunger in Vinena and throughout Austria after the war, which was more extreme perhaps than in any other part of Europe, was responsible for the rise of Socialist conditions in Vienna which have led during the last year to the practical dictation by extra-governmental Socialist organizations. A condition of partial Communism exists in Vienna, including expropriation of houses for the poor, the dictating of measures by

meetings of the workingmen's associations, the cowing of the middle and upper classes by the Socialists. The attempt to establish a Bolshevik Communist rule in Austria by means of funds sent both directly from Russia by proxy-funds that were refused by Adler in the name of his party- and through funds and jewelry showered by Bela Kun, the Communist ruler of Hungary, in his attempt to repeat in Austria the successful uprising in Hungary, resulted in failure, through the vigilance of the authorities.

The situation in Austria is extremely serious and it is impossible to say how far the despotism of the Socialist Labor Party may go.

CHAPTER XI

Socialism and Labor in the Balkans

There has been considerable Socialist activity throughout the Balkans, notwithstanding the abnormal destruction due to the war. The three principal national groups are the Serbian and Bulgarian and Roumanian, as Greek Socialism is negligible. In all three of these countries, the character of the Socialist movement is decidedly radical, much more so than in the neighboring Czecho-Slovak region of Bohemia, and Slovakia. This is shown by the adhesion of all three groups to the Zimmerwald and Kienthal programs, by their refusal to join the Second International Conferences, and by their adhesion to the Third (Moscow) International. The Roumanian Socialists, reorganized after the war, almost provoked a revolution at the time of the invasion of Hungary. In the political field, it is in Bulgaria that the Socialists, or, as they call themselves, the Social Democrats, have obtained the greatest power, electing a large number of deputies to the recent Parliament, notwithstanding the repressive measures of the government. The Socialist Party in Serbia is, since the war, rather disorganized. In Bulgaria, there are two sections to the party; one called the broad-minded, which supported the war and governmental positions, the latter called the narrow-minded, which endorsed the Zimmerwald Conference, and more than 1,000 of whose members were imprisoned. It was in May, 1919, that the radical section of the party broke away and called itself the Communist Party, adopting a program thoroughly in harmony with the Communist International.

During the last year the Serbian Socialist Party has been reorganized and has decided to join the Third (Moscow) International. It sent a delegate to attend the organization meeting in Moscow in December, 1919. In certain sections of the new Jugo-Slav State, especially Croatia, the Communist section of the Social Democrats have made great gains.

Bulgaria was also represented at that time by a delegate who gave to the Congress in his speech a verbatim reproduction of the Manifesto recently issued by the Bulgarian Socialists.

The Communist Party has gained steadily in Bulgaria since the close of the war. In the 1919 elections, notwithstanding the

See Addendum, Part 1.