Unit list (Austria)
The unity list was an electoral alliance of several anti-Marxist Austrian parties that was formed with a view to the National Council election in 1927 .
In the First Republic the polarization of the political camps became more and more evident. When the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP) confidently presented its Linz program in autumn 1926 , its class-struggle rhetoric aroused fears of an Austro-Marxist proletarian dictatorship among many bourgeoisie .
The Christian Social Party (CS) had internal party turmoil behind it, and its government policies did nothing to improve its image. In the upcoming election, the CS threatened a massive loss of votes and mandates. Chancellor Ignaz Seipel therefore campaigned together with business circles for the formation of a “united front” of all non-Marxist parties, the core of which was to be the CS and whose task was the “common defense against social democratic dominance in Austria”. And this goal was actually achieved: At the beginning of 1927, the CS found itself in an electoral alliance with the Greater German People's Party (GDVP) and the "German Social Association" of Walter Riehl , the National Socialist Schulzgruppe and the "Mittelständische Volkspartei". Under the name of the unity list , this alliance ran for the National Council election and several simultaneous state and municipal council elections on April 24, 1927.
Seipel also tried to win the Landbund for the unit list, but he ran independently. In the government negotiations after the election, the Landbund entered into a coalition with the parties CS and GDVP, which were included in the unified list.
In the election campaign, particular attention was drawn to the financial policy in Red Vienna . While the Christian Social Federal Government is trying to stimulate the economy with tax relief, in “Bolshevik” Vienna the Breitner taxes ( housing tax , luxury tax, amusement tax, etc.) would put an enormous strain on the economy and hinder its development. The provisions of tenant protection were criticized as being economically unreasonable. An envisaged relaxation of the protection against dismissal and an increase in the rent provoked violent reactions from the SDAP, which claimed on posters that the interest rate was threatened by 15-25,000 times higher.
A week before the election on April 24, 1927, Seipel declared in the Reichspost that the aim was to prevent the social democratic policy, which was so catastrophic for Vienna, from spreading to the entire country and to break the social democratic dominance in the federal capital. This hope was only partially fulfilled: The SDAP was not able to extend its dominance to the whole of Germany and the unified list won the most votes in the National Council election, but the SDAP was able to look forward to an increase in mandates in the National Council and its dominant position in the Vienna municipal council elections to be expanded.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Robert Kriechbaumer : The great stories of politics. Political culture and parties in Austria from the turn of the century to 1945 (= series of publications by the Research Institute for Political-Historical Studies of the Dr. Wilfried Haslauer Library, Salzburg . Volume 12 ). Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2001, ISBN 3-205-99400-0 , p. 264-273 .
- ^ Felix Czeike (Ed.): Historisches Lexikon Wien . Volume 2, Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-218-00544-2 , p. 143 ( entry in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna).
- ↑ Robert Kriechbaumer: "Save this Austria ...": the minutes of the party congresses of the Christian Social Party in the First Republic . Böhlau, Vienna 2006, ISBN 978-3-205-77378-8 ( limited preview in the Google book search).