Brno program

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The Brno Program , also known as the Brno Nationality Program , was the result of the party congress of the Austrian Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP) on September 29, 1899 in Brno , in which the solution of the nationality and language problem of the imperial-royal Cisleithania demanded the formation of a democratic nationality federal state has been.

SDAP party congress in Brno 1899

prehistory

As a result of the dispute over the Baden language regulation , which dominated domestic politics, the social democrats were also forced to draft a constructive program on the nationality problem. The Social Democrats adopted a basic program in which equality of peoples was demanded by transforming the monarchy into a democratic federal state of autonomous peoples.

text

"Since the national turmoil in Austria paralyzes every political progress and every cultural development of the peoples, ... the party congress declares: The finite settlement of the nationality and language question in Austria in the sense of equal rights and equality and reason is above all a cultural demand, therefore situated in the vital interests of the proletariat; it is only possible in a truly democratic community based on universal, equal and direct suffrage, in which all feudal privileges in the state and in the countries are abolished, for only in such a community can the working classes, in truth the elements that sustain the state and society are given expression; The maintenance and development of the national uniqueness of all peoples in Austria is only possible on the basis of equal rights and while avoiding any oppression, therefore, above all else, any bureaucratic state centralism as well as the feudal privileges of the countries must be combated.

Under these conditions, but also only under these, it will be possible in Austria to put national order in place of the national quarrel, with recognition of the following guiding principles:

  1. Austria is to be transformed into a democratic federal state of nationalities.
  2. In place of the historical crown lands , nationally demarcated self-governing bodies are formed, whose legislation and administration is carried out by national chambers, elected on the basis of general, equal and direct suffrage.
  3. All self-governing areas of one and the same nation together form a unified national association that handles its national affairs completely autonomously.
  4. The rights of the national minorities are safeguarded by a separate law to be passed by the Reich Parliament.
  5. We do not recognize any national prerogative and therefore reject the demand for a state language; How far an intermediary language is necessary will be determined by the Reich Parliament.

The party congress ... solemnly declares that it recognizes the right of every nationality to national existence and national development; But that the peoples can achieve any progress in their culture only in close solidarity with one another, not in petty quarrel with one another, that especially the working class of all tongues, in the interest of each individual nation as well as in the interest of the community as a whole, clings to the international comradeship and fraternization and its political and trade union Fight must lead in unified unity. "

Aftermath

Victor Adler played a key role in formulating the program . Through the implicit recognition of the Habsburg State as a “nationality federal state”, social democracy became a “respectable” factor because it sustained and stabilized the state. In contrast to the centrifugal forces of the national parties, the Austrian social democracy, with its Greater Austrian concept, entered a community of interests with the crown and civil servants, the traditional pillars of the entire monarchy. Therefore, the left wing of the party, especially Otto Bauer , rejected the program as revisionist and illusionary.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Klaus Berchtold (ed.): Austrian party programs 1868–1966. Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, Vienna 1967, p. 144.
  2. ↑ quoted from: Klaus Berchtold (Hrsg.): Austrian Party Programs 1868–1966 . Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, Vienna 1967, pp. 144f;
    Hartmut and Silke Lehmann: The nationality problem in Austria 1848-1918 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1973, ISBN 3-525-35664-2 , pp. 73ff.
    Otto Bauer: The question of nationalities and social democracy
  3. ^ Brno Nationality Program . In: dasrotewien.at - Web dictionary of the Viennese social democracy. SPÖ Vienna (Ed.)
  4. ^ Peter Schöffer: The struggle for the right to vote of the Austrian social democracy 1888 / 89-1897. From the Hainfeld Unification Party Congress to Badeni's electoral reform and the entry of the first Social Democrats into the Reichsrat. Verlag Steiner, Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-515-04622-4 , pp. 691ff.