VII. HOW FASCISM CAME IN AUSTRIA
FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION
Palme Dutt
Palme Dutt
HOW FASCISM CAME IN AUSTRIA
Hard on the heels of the victory of Fascism in Germany came the establishment of the Fascist dictatorship of Dollfuss in Austria during 1933-4.
The rising of the Austrian workers in February 1934, against this Fascist dictatorship, opened a new stage in the struggle of the international working class against Fascism, at the same time as it finally completed the German experience in exposing the illusions of “democratic socialism.” The lesson of Austria is even clearer and sharper in many respects than that of Germany.
1. The Significance of the Austrian Experience.
In the first place, Austria revealed a conflict between two rival forces of Fascism, the Heimwehr and the Nazis, openly reflecting the battle for domination of rival imperialist and Fascist Powers over the living body of the Austrian people. There could be no more striking demonstration of the real role of Fascism as the chauvinist predatory policy of particular groupings of finance-capital, belying all the “national,” “popular” and “pacific” pretences. The battle of Fascist Germany and Fascist Italy over the body of Fascist Austria provides a foretaste of the “majestic peace of World Fascism.” Both these forces were in fact equally united against the working class, but sharply in conflict between themselves for the dominant position. In the initial stage the Clerical-Fascism of Dollfuss, subordinate to Italian Fascism, has conquered; but the further development of events may still bring a change of combinations and the possible ultimate dominance of the Nazis and Pan-German Fascism. In this situation the fatal policy of the working-class organisations under Social Democratic leadership was to endeavour to support one Fascist group against the other, Dollfuss against the Nazis, as the “lesser evil,” and thus to smooth the way at every stage for the advance and victory of Fascism.
Second, the Fascist dictatorship of Dollfuss grew directly out of bourgeois democracy under Dollfuss, even more clearly than the parallel Hindenburg-Hitler process in Germany. Dollfuss was acclaimed throughout Western Europe as the “champion of democracy against Fascism” (i.e., against the German Nazi menace), and on this basis was supported and tolerated by Social Democracy, at the same time as in fact he was carrying through the transition to Fascism. Up to the last, on the very eve of the workers’ rising, Social Democracy was offering to accept and support an emergency dictatorship of Dollfuss, the suspension of the parliamentary regime, and institution of a form of Corporate State, on condition of being permitted to exist under these conditions-the clearest, most conscious expression of the line of Social Fascism. The policy of Social Democracy, of the “lesser evil,” here receives its crushing exposure no less heavily than in Germany.
Third, the Austrian working class was the most highly organised in the capitalist world. In a population of six millions the paying membership of the Social Democratic Party numbered six hundred thousand, and the voting strength one and a half millions, or 70 per cent. of the electorate in Vienna and 40 per cent. of the electorate in the whole country. There was no question of a “split” in organisation. The Communist Party, although playing a role of great significance in the fight (it alone gave the call for the general strike on February 10, which was forced by the workers on the reformist leadership on the 11th), and in the actual launching of the fight (Linz, where the united front of the Communist and Social Democratic workers had been established in defiance of the reformist leadership, and the fight was opened against the express orders of the reformist leadership), was nevertheless extremely weak in
numbers. The attempt to explain the advance and victory of Fascism by the “split” in the working class through the existence of Communism is thus exploded once and for all by the example of Austria.
Social Democracy boasted of its sole complete control of the working class, and thereby admits its sole responsibility for the outcome. “There was no split in the Austrian Labour Movement; the Communists were merely an insignificant minority. The fact that so powerful a party should have been completely smashed is now naturally engaging the attention of Socialists in all countries” (Otto Bauer on “Tactical Lessons of the Austrian Catastrophe”). In reality, the Austrian workers were split, and therefore defeated; but the split was within Social Democracy, between the workers and the leadership, and through the action of the leadership. The real question of the split in the working class through the existence of a Social Fascist leadership is thus laid bare beyond the possibility of concealment.
Fourth, Austrian Social Democracy was, despite the smallness of the country, in its theoretical role and in the high degree of organisation and supposed “practical results,” the leading party and the “model party” of international Social Democracy, and in particular of Left Social Democracy. Where German Social Democracy or British Labourism was far more glaring and shameless in its virtual or specific repudiation of Marxism and acceptance of capitalism, the corruption of the Austrian Social Democratic leadership was covered under the subtle sophistries of “Austro-Marxism.” Further, many of the leaders were obviously “sincere” in their democratic- pacifist betrayal of the struggle; even though by their policy they did everything to assist the strengthening of capitalism and the advance of Fascism, even though by their policy they made the defeat of the struggle certain, though they failed to prepare it, to organise it or to lead it, and did everything to prevent it, nevertheless, when the workers launched it in spite of them, some of them took part and suffered. This is commonly accounted to the Austrian Social Democratic leadership for virtue and for rebuttal of the charge of “Social Fascism.” On the contrary, just this makes the real role of political treachery of the whole line of Social Democracy far more clear and unmistakable. The question of politics is not a simple question of subjective “sincerity.” Long ago, at the Second Congress of the Communist International, when Serrati endeavoured to defend the reformist Turati as “sincere,” and argued against the Twenty-one Conditions on the grounds that it was impossible to produce a “sincerometer “ or test of sincerity, Lenin replied: “We have no need of such an instrument as a ‘sincerometer’; what we have is an instrument to test political directions.” And it is in this sense that the role of Austrian Social Democracy is revealed with unexampled clearness, with a completeness and relative absence of complicating factors unequalled elsewhere, as a role of direct service and assistance to the victory of Fascism.
Fifth, the armed rising of the Austrian workers, both in its strength and in its weaknesses, has marked out and lit up the future line of the fight of the international working class against Fascism. To the experiences and lessons of this struggle, alike political, strategic and tactical, it will be constantly necessary to recur in every country in the further development of the struggle against Fascism.
The Second International endeavours to draw two lessons from the Austrian events. On the one hand, they endeavour to exploit the fight of the Austrian workers, launched in the face of the express warnings and prohibitions of the Social Democratic leadership, as a vindication of the “honour” of Social Democracy after the German exposure, and a proof that Social Democracy can and does fight. On the other hand, they endeavour simultaneously to prove that the Austrian outcome has shown the policy of armed struggle to be impossible and foredoomed to failure; that against modern artillery nothing can avail, and that the Austrian rising was only a “heroic gesture,” nothing more (“No one doubted that the military forces of the Government were much stronger than the power of the workers, and that the workers could not succeed in struggle against the Government” – Bauer).
Thus Social Democracy seeks to prove two opposite conclusions. They wish simultaneously to cover their real policy of surrender with the stolen glory of the rising which they prohibited, and in the next breath to prove the correctness of their policy of surrender, that struggle is impossible, and that the victory of Fascism is consequently inevitable.
Both conclusions are false. The Austrian workers fought, not through the initiative and leadership of Social Democracy, but against the express instructions of Social Democracy. The victory of the workers is not impossible. The lesson of Austria shows the exact opposite, how closely victory was within reach of the workers, had there been leadership and Organisation, had the full forces of the working class been brought into play, had there not been division and chaos at every strategic point of the leadership, and had the struggle been entered on at the right time, with clear political aims and with the tactics of the offensive. Victory was only made impossible by the policy of Social Democracy. It can be, and will be, achieved under revolutionary leadership.
2. The Betrayal of the Central-European Revolution.
As in Germany, so in Austria the issue of the workers’ struggle cannot be judged solely on the basis of the final stage of the Fascist coup, of the days of February 1934, but must be seen in relation to the whole line of development of 1918-1934. just as the strangling of the 1918 revolution in Germany by Social Democracy laid the basis for the ultimate victory of Fascism, so also in Austria.
The victory of the proletarian revolution in Austria was fully in the grasp of the workers in 1918-19, and was only prevented by Social Democracy. This is common ground, and is admitted by the Social Democratic leaders themselves. Otto Bauer describes the situation at the end of the war in his book The Austrian Revolution of 1918:
“There was deep ferment in the barracks of the people’s army. The people’s army felt that it was the bearer of the revolution, the vanguard of the proletariat.... The soldiers with arms in hand hoped for a victory of the proletariat.... “Dictatorship of the proletariat!” “All Power to the Soviets!” was all that could be beard in the streets.”
He continues:
“No bourgeois government could have coped with such a task. It would have been disarmed by the distrust and contempt of the masses. It would have been overthrown in a week by a street uprising and disarmed by its own soldiers. Only the Social Democrats could have safely handled such an unprecedentedly difficult situation, because they enjoyed the confidence of the working masses.... Only the Social Democrats could have stopped peacefully the stormy demonstrations by negotiation and persuasion.Only the Social Democrats could have guided the people’s army and curbed the revolutionary adventures of the working masses.... The profound shake-up of the bourgeois social order was expressed in that a bourgeois government, a government without the participation in it of the Social Democrats, had simply become unthinkable.”
The role of Austrian Social Democracy was thus in fact exactly parallel to that of the German. The power of the workers’ revolution was deliberately destroyed by Social Democracy in the name of bourgeois “democracy.” The bourgeois order was only saved by the Coalition Government from 1918 to 1920 of Austrian Social Democracy and the bourgeois parties, with
Bauer as Foreign Minister and Deutsch as Minister for War. This is the background which lies behind
the victory of Fascism.*
Austrian Social Democracy argued at the time in defence of its policy that, although the proletarian revolution was certainly and easily possible in Austria in 1918-19, it could not hope to maintain itself in so small, dependent and isolated a state, in the face of the forces of imperialism. Yet in fact the Soviet Republic was achieved in Hungary and Bavaria; the drive was strong throughout Germany and Italy. Had Soviet Austria stood in with Soviet Hungary and Bavaria, an unshakable power could have been built up in Central Europe; the whole history of post-war Europe would have been different. Instead, Austrian Social Democracy abandoned Soviet Hungary to its fate, and then, when the White Terror raged in Hungary, pointed to it to prove the fate from which it claimed to have saved the Austrian workers. To-day the event has proved that the Austrian workers were not saved from White Terror; they were only robbed of the possibility of victory when it was in their grasp.
But at the time Austrian Social Democracy held out before the workers, not the real alternative which events were to demonstrate, but an imaginary golden alternative of peaceful advance to socialism through “democracy.” Bauer wrote in his Bolshevism or Social Democracy? (1921):
“In a modem highly-civilised society, where all classes take part in public life, no other form of class-rule is any longer durably possible save one which permits the subject classes freedom to influence “public opinion,” participation in the formation of the collective will of the State, and control over its working: a class-rule, therefore, whose basis rests on the social factors of influence of the ruling class, and not on the use of mechanical instruments of force” (p. 116).
Such was the bourgeois-liberal wisdom of “Austro-Marxism,” now mercilessly exposed by the event, when Bauer and Deutsch have themselves had the opportunity to make the acquaintance at first hand of the “mechanical instruments of force” of the ruling class.
In this way, while the Austrian workers suffered and went short under the “democratic republic,” the magnificent apartment buildings erected in Vienna for a portion of their numbers became the “symbol” of reformist “achievement,” of the supposed “alternative” to Bolshevism- in reality, of the temporary buying off of the workers’ revolt, while the bourgeoisie was not yet strong enough to defeat them, preliminary to smashing them. The Second International Manifesto on the Austrian events declares:
“The fate of the wonderful municipal houses of Vienna is a symbol. The constructive work of the Socialists created them; the guns of Fascism have reduced them to smoking ruins.”
The “symbol” goes very much further than the Second International appears to realise. It was not only the apartment buildings that were struck by the guns; it was the illusions of reformism, of the “alternative” path to Bolshevism.
The Russian journalist, Ilya Ehrenburg,* has related how in 1928 be visited these municipal buildings in all their glory, conducted by a proud representative of Social Democracy. He admired these buildings, their planning, their construction, their beauty, their Organisation, even though he could not fail to see alongside the playing fountain in the beautiful garden an unemployed worker, weak with hunger. But he asked his guide: “You have indeed constructed wonderful houses.... But have you not the feeling that these houses are built on the land of another? Has not the example of our country taught that the worker must pay with his blood for every foot of ground that he conquers? We had to destroy much-to destroy in order after victory to construct. You have begun, not with the machine-gun, but with the compass and the rule. With what will you end?” His companion smiled and replied: “We shall end with the pacific victory of socialism. Do not forget that at the last elections seventy per cent. of the population of Vienna voted for us. That was in 1928. In February 1934, Ilya Ehrenburg revisited these buildings. He saw the battered walls, the gaping holes, the debris under which people said corpses still lay, the trembling, cowering women and children, hunger and misery, and the flags of the Heimwehr flying from the towers. He had witnessed the “pacific victory” of socialism.
Out of the conditions of bourgeois democracy, in Austria as everywhere, Fascism was bred. The bourgeoisie, under the protecting aegis of Social Democracy, under cover of the magnificent apartment buildings, built up its strength anew and prepared its armed forces for the struggle.
But Fascism was not born in a night. It took fifteen years for it to grow to full strength. The workers, seeing what was afoot, insisted on the organisation of their Defence Corps. The leaders promised that if democracy should once be threatened, they would act; they developed their famous “defensive theory of violence,” that violence should only be used by the workers in defence of democracy. Meanwhile they took no action. Fascism grew unchallenged.
In 1927 the anger of the workers at the growth of Fascism and open connivance of the State authorities broke all bounds. Following the acquittal of a Fascist who bad murdered a worker, they rose and stormed the lawcourts of Vienna; Vienna was in their hands, if their leaders had been ready to lead. But their leadership, in control of the municipal administration of Vienna, sided with the bourgeoisie, with the police, with the State authorities, and thus in fact with Fascism, against the workers. The workers’ rising was crushed in blood, with the connivance of Social Democracy.
“Dr. Deutsch, the commander of the Republican Defence Corps, has reminded the world that at the time of the Vienna disorders of 1927, when an excited mob burned down the Palace of justice, not one military weapon of the many thousands at their command wits issued to the Republican Defence Corps. There are photograph,; on record showing that Burgermeister Seitz and other Socialist leaders at the risk of their own lives went out into the midst of the angry mob to calm them. Ninety-five men and women were killed by police bullets on that occasion, and only five police-figures which speak for themselves. Why did not these bloodthirsty revolutionaries seize their opportunity, when the Heimwehr were in their infancy, the army largely socialist, democracy unchallenged in Europe, and the Clerical Party comparatively weak?... It is that the Austrian Social Democratic Party has established by its whole history the right to the description of democratic and pacific” ( New Statesman and Nation, February 24, 1934).
Thus the approval of the bourgeois-liberal journal. The working class will take a different view of 192 7, when Austrian Fascism could have been wiped out in its infancy. The cost of this bourgeois-liberal approval for the “democratic” “pacific” Social Democratic leadership has been the sacrifice of the lives of the best of the Austrian workers, the suppression of the organised working-class movement and the victory of Fascism.
Meanwhile Austrian Social Democracy held out to the workers the illusory prospect of the defeat of Fascism by “democracy.” After the 1930 elections had returned the Social Democratic. Party as the largest party, with 72 representatives, against only 8 representatives for the Heimwehr, the party leadership triumphantly reported:
“Democracy has inflicted a crushing defeat on the Heimwehr and its promoters.... The Heimwehr movement, which until recently believed itself to be on the eve of the final victory, is in a state of rapid decline.... The purely political problems have ended with the complete victory of the working class.” (Report of the Austrian Social Democratic Party to the Vienna Congress of the Second International, July 1931.)
Such was the degree of prevision of the Social Democratic leadership, reposing peacefully in the supposed security of paper ballots, while paralysing the real struggle of the workers.
The illusions of the Italian reformist leadership, after the success of the elections of May 1921, as having “submerged the Fascist reaction under an avalanche of Red votes, or of the German reformist leadership after the elections of November 1932, as marking the “final annihilation of Hitler,” were thus exactly paralleled in Austria. In reality Fascism was preparing its final coup, when the issue would depend, not on paper ballots, but solely on the mass struggle and the organisation of class force.
3. The Fascist Dictatorship and the February Rising.
It was only as the sequel of the whole above chain of development that came the culminating stage since March 7, 1933, when Dollfuss finally threw aside the mask and proclaimed open dictatorship and the suspension of parliament.
Now, if ever, was the time to act even for the “democrats.” Now was the time for the famous “defensive theory of violence” to demonstrate its meaning in practice. But the Social Democratic leadership still found reasons to put off action. Social Democracy was engaged in the policy of the “toleration” of Dollfuss as the “lesser evil” against German Nazism, and was seeking to negotiate an agreement with Dollfuss.
“The Social Democratic Party did not reply with forcible resistance. On the contrary, right down to the last it made every effort to enter into negotiations with the Dollfuss Government.... This peaceful and waiting attitude of the Social Democratic Party only encouraged the Dollfuss-Fey Government to adopt more and more antagonistic measures against the working class and against the Social Democratic Party.”(“International Information,” bulletin of the Second International, February 18, 1934.)
Why, after all the loudly repeated declarations over many years concerning the action that would be taken “if” democracy were once attacked, was no action taken when on March 7, 1933, Dollfuss carried through his coup d’état and suspended democratic institutions?
Basically, because all these typical Social Democratic asseverations of future action “if” democracy is attacked, “if” the bourgeoisie attempt, etc., are inherently and inevitably valueless, and worse than valueless, when the present policy is the policy of class-cooperation. The present policy determines the future action. It is not possible, even if there were the will (and in fact there was not the will) at a moment’s notice to transform a deeply enroutined machine and large-scale organisation of class-co-operation, pacifism and legalism within twenty-four hours into an organ of class struggle and revolution. Only when the united front of struggle has been effectively established in the preceding period, when the leadership and training and practice and Organisation of struggle and militancy on all issues has been already established, only then can there be readiness when the Fascist coup strikes. Otherwise inevitably, whatever the previous promises and threats and boasts, when the time comes, there will be enormous hesitation, sense of overwhelming “difficulties,” yearnings for a “peaceful” settlement, prudent counsels to postpone the struggle, to save what can be saved of the Organisation and not hazard all upon a single battle, desperate efforts for some “way out” without a struggle, hopes against hopes that it is not yet the final issue.
This is what happened to Austrian Social Democracy. Bauer writes of March 7, 1933, and the following eleven months:
“What was to be done now? The Social Democrats knew very well that it would be very difficult for a general strike to succeed in a period of unprecedentedly severe and prolonged unemployment. The Social Democrats made every imaginable effort to avert a violent issue. Over a period of eleven months we tried again and again to establish negotiations with Dollfuss.... Again and again we offered to agree to extensive constitutional reforms and to thegranting of extraordinary powers to the Government for a period of two years, all that we asked in return being the most elementary legal freedom of action for the Party and the trade unions....We over-estimated the possibility of reaching a peaceful settlement.” (Bauer, “Tactical Lessons of the Austrian Catastrophe,” International Information, March 8, 1934.)
Thus “democracy” went by the board. just as German Social Democracy supported the Brüning emergency dictatorship, and sought to come to terms with the Hitler dictatorship, so Austrian Social Democracy was fully prepared to support a Dollfuss emergency dictatorship, in return for a permitted existence of its Organisation under the dictatorship (while the Communist Party was suppressed). Such was the humiliation of “Austro-Marxism” humiliation which did not even attain its object.
The Social Democratic leadership at the party conference in October 1933, had laid down four conditions in the event of any one of which to launch the struggle against the Fascist dictatorship: (1) if a Fascist constitution were proclaimed without consulting parliament; (2) if the Vienna municipal administration were superseded; (3) if the Party were suppressed; (4) if the trade unions were suppressed. In fact this widely advertised strategy of the four conditions never came into operation in practice to launch the struggle. The Fascist dictatorship was steadily engaged in consolidating its position, in disarming the workers, in arresting the local leaders, in arming its forces, and in sapping the workers’ positions in detail, until at last the workers found themselves compelled to resist if they were not to be already completely wiped out before the four conditions came into operation. Thus the four conditions were not a method to prepare the struggle, but in reality a mechanism to paralyse the struggle.
What was the consequence of this whole line of successive surrender and protracted attempts at negotiation? Did it succeed even in “averting a violent issue”? On the contrary. It only ensured that that violent issue should develop under the conditions most favourable to Fascism and most unfavourable to the proletariat. Fascism was able to strengthen and prepare its forces, while the workers were weakened. Bauer continues, in the statement already quoted:
“But during the eleven months that we were trying to secure a peaceful denouement, the military strength of the Government considerably increased, the Heimwehr was supplied with arms, and on the other hand, large sections of the working class – especially the railwaymen– were discouraged, crushed and robbed of their fighting spirit by the oppressive tactics of the Government.”
He is accordingly compelled to make the significant admission (italics added):
“If we had launched our attack at an earlier stage, our action would have been on a greater and more universal scale, and the prospects of victory would have been brighter.Consequently, if we did make a mistake, our mistake consisted in unduly prolonging our efforts for a peaceful settlement and in unduly postponing the decisive struggle. There is no need for us to feel ashamed of this mistake! We made it because we wanted to spare the country and the working class the disaster of a bloody civil war.”
Similarly in his pamphlet “Der Aufstand der Oesterreichischen Arbeiter,” published in English under the title “Austrian Democracy Under Fire,” Bauer writes of the critical days of March, 1933:
“The masses of the workers were awaiting the signal for battle. The railwaymen were not yet so crushed as they were eleven months later. The Government’s military organisation was far weaker than in February 1934. At that time we might have won. But we shrank dismayed from the battle. We still believed that we should be able to reach a peaceful settlement by negotiation. Dollfuss had promised to negotiate with us at an early date – by the end of March or the beginning of April – concerning a reform of the Constitution and of the Parliamentary agenda, and we were still fools enough to trust a promise of Dollfuss. We postponed the fight, because we wanted to spare the country the disaster of a bloody civilwar. The civil war, nevertheless, broke out eleven months later, but under conditions that were considerably less favourable to ourselves. It was a mistake, the most fatal of all our mistakes.”
Did they “spare the working class a bloody civil war”? No; they only ensured its defeat. He admits that “the prospects of victory would have been brighter,” “we might have won,” if they had only acted in March 1933, just as 1927 would have been more favourable than 1933, and 1918-19 than 1927. The “pacific” policy did not avert civil war in the end: it only made the conditions the most unfavourable for the working class and ensured the heaviest defeat in place of victory. “Austro-Marxism” stands condemned out of its own mouth.
The waiting policy meant that Fascism was step by step able to prepare its positions. The Defence Corps was declared illegal. The Communist Party was declared illegal. The Heimwehr was strengthened and fully equipped with arms. Arms of the workers were searched for and seized wherever they could be found. Local leaders were arrested. At strategic points, particularly among the railwaymen, militants were removed and “patriotic” agents installed. All this, of decisive importance for the future struggle, went forward without resistance. The workers pressed more and more for resistance, but the Social Democratic leadership held them back, thus performing its indispensable service to Fascism. The “First Report” of “a Leader of the Austrian Social Democratic Party,” published in the Second International bulletin on February 18, 1934, declares:
“The embitterment of the working class regarding the Government’s policy continually increased.... The embitterment of the workers was directed more and more against the policy of the Party Executive, which was to wait and be prepared for agreement. Growing numbers of members of the Party demanded with increasing force that the offensive should be taken....For months past it has been increasingly difficult for the Party Executive to make the embittered workers understand the necessity for this waiting policy.”
Here is seen the real split in the Austrian working class between the workers (the united front between the Social Democratic and Communist workers was growing in the localities) and the Social Fascist leadership.
When the final struggle at last broke out on February 11, 1934, it broke out in spite of and against the orders of the Social Democratic leadership. The official “Report” already quoted makes this clear:
“During the last week there were growing signs that the Government was preparing for the decisive blow…. These events caused the workers to take the following view:… “In this situation we can no longer allow ourselves to be disorganised by the arrests of Schutzbund leaders and by the confiscation of stores of arms, unless we are to confront a Fascist coup d’état defenceless and unable to fight within a very few days.”
In spite of this the Party Executive still adhered to its line. It considered it to be necessary for the workers to wait for the results of the negotiations between the Federal Chancellor and the Provincial Governments with regard to the demands of the Heimwehr, and that they should not take the offensive until one of the four cases should arise in which a defensive struggle for the defence of the Constitutional order would according to the decision of the Party be unavoidable. On Sunday (February, 10) officers of the Party Executive gave instructions on these lines to comrades who reported on the agitation among the workers,and urgently warned them against taking the initiative on their own account. But the agitation among the masses had reached such a pitch that these warnings fromthe Party Executive were not heeded.”
Thus the honour of the Austrian rising rests wholly with the workers, and not with the Social Democratic leadership. The role of the leadership was only to disorganise the struggle at every stage.
The struggle of the Austrian workers was not defeated by the superior forces of the enemy. It was defeated by the disorganising role of the Social Democratic leadership. This was clear in all the events leading up to the struggle. It was no less clear in the actual struggle.
Instead of being able to enter the struggle with the full strength of their organised force on a strategic plan, with the maximum mobilisation of the masses, and with a clear political lead the workers had to enter the struggle by local initiative from below, sporadically, partially, against hampering opposition from above, losing the possibility of the initiative, losing the possibility of the offensive, and thus yielding all the strategic advantage to the enemy.
“Many people believe that the Socialists would have won control in Austria if all sections of the working class had supported them.
In many places the workers were split among themselves and reached decisions too late.
Several leading trade unions refused to give instructions to strike to the factories they controlled.” (Daily Herald, February 16, 1934.)
The general strike was first vetoed, and, even when the workers compelled the call to be given, after the struggle had already begun, the call never reached the majority of the workers, and a great part of the trade union machine made no attempt to make it effective. The railwaymen continued to carry the Government troops, thus giving to them full liberty of movement and concentration. The struggle of the Defence Corps was fatally cut off from the masses, instead of being developed as a mass struggle, and even the majority of the Defence Corps were never mobilised or brought into the struggle. There was no political mass lead to positive aims of the struggle, but only halting apologetic explanations of “defence of the Constitution.” Because the initiative was lost through disorganisation, through the absence of any central leadership beginning and organising the struggle, the possibility of the offensive and of seizing the main public buildings of the centre at the outset was lost; the Government was able to complete its cordon of the inner city and artillery preparations before the struggle began; the fight was turned from the first into a defensive fight.
Yet even under all these heaviest disadvantages a position was achieved by the second day in which the Government forces weakened and the issue was in doubt:
“On the Government side the troops are reported to be exhausted and disheartened. According to the Vienna correspondent of the Berliner Tageblatt, sections of the Fifth Infantry Regiment have deserted to the Socialists. Deprived of a bully’s “walkover,” the Fascist Heimwehr showed they had little stomach for a real fight. Many have flung down their arms, and the rest may be withdrawn to barracks” (Daily Herald, February 14, 1934).
Bauer himself is compelled to admit that, despite all the Government’s artillery, the victory could have been won by the working class, had the struggle been developed as a mass struggle:
“After four days’ fighting the workers of Vienna were defeated. Was this, result inevitable? Could they conceivably have won? After the experience of those four days we can say, that if the railways had stopped running, if the general strike had spread throughout the country, if the Schutzbund had carried with it the great mass of the workers throughoutthe country, the Government could hardly have succeeded in suppressing the rising.”(Otto Bauer: Austrian Democracy Under Fire, p. 34.)
The closer the analysis of the tactical conditions and Organisation of the struggle, no less than of the conditions leading up to the struggle, the clearer stands out the conclusion that the Austrian rising, the greatest battle of the workers in the post-war period, has not shown the impossibility of the victory of the workers in armed struggle under modern conditions, as the Social Democratic leaders in all countries now endeavour to argue. On the contrary, it has shown the certainty of future victory, once the united front is built up, once revolutionary leadership has replaced Social Democratic treachery, once the poison of pacifist-democratic reformism has been replaced by the revolutionary aims, tactics and Organisation of the working-class fight.
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