Communist Federation of Austria

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The Communist League of Austria (KBÖ, mostly KB for short) was a small party oriented towards the policies of the Communist Party of China , which existed from 1976 to 1981. It emerged from an amalgamation of the Communist Federation of Vienna, founded at the end of 1972, with other local leagues .

history

The KBÖ had its origins in the anti-authoritarian student movement in Austria. At the end of November 1970 the Marxist-Leninist Students (MLS) split off from the Association of Democratic Students (VDS), which initially dealt mainly with Marxist theory. From May 1971 the MLS started working in cooperation with the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) in order to win over workers for the idea of ​​communism. Later, through contacts with the communist group Neues Rotes Forum Heidelberg , from which the Communist League of West Germany emerged in 1973 , the MLS developed into a Maoist organization that saw the People's Republic of China as its model. The basic theorists became Marx , Engels , Lenin , Stalin and Mao Zedong . At the end of 1972 the Communist League of Vienna was founded, of which ten were founding members, ten intellectuals . In the following two years, communist leagues emerged in Graz (KB Graz etc.), Salzburg / Hallein , Linz , Tyrol and the communist group Klagenfurt , which had the common goal of building a new "Marxist-Leninist" communist party in Austria.

On August 6, 1976, these organizations founded the Communist League of Austria in Vienna and dissolved into it. At the founding meeting, a program and statute were adopted and an assessment of the global political situation was given. Walter Lindner, who had already carried out this function at KB Vienna, was elected Secretary of the Central Committee . The KBÖ did not see itself as the final communist party. He was ready to unite with other groups for this.

By the end of 1976 at the latest, the Communist League of Austria was the organization favored by the Communist Party of China in Austria, since it had unconditionally sided with Chairman Hua Guofeng after the overthrow of the so-called " Gang of Four " . KBÖ delegations visited the People's Republic of China several times from 1977 onwards . Group trips to Albania by the Albanian-Austrian Friendship Society were advertised and visited in 1976 and 1977, before the country, which is politically allied with China , opened up to tourism in general around 1979, for example through the ÖKISTA travel agency . Several members of the political rock band Butterflies took part in such a 3-week trip with factory tours , who critically dealt with the conditions in the country.

In January 1978 the KBÖ held its “1. Ordinary National Delegates Conference ”(DK), at which W. Lindner was confirmed in his office as Secretary of the Central Committee (ZK). In the communiqué of the DK it was declared: “ (the communists of Austria) fight against the attempts of the two superpowers to subject Austria to their economic, political or military control ”. The theory of the three worlds was described as "an indispensable strategic concept for the international class struggle ".

After a controversial Central Committee meeting on February 24, 1980, the KBÖ split at the beginning of March. The representative of a “hard line”, Walter Lindner, held a secret “revolutionary national delegates conference” on March 5th with his supporters, about 20% of the organization. His opponent Gerhard Stemberger wanted to replace the central organ of the class struggle with a left-wing discussion magazine with a cautious political opening. Both camps accused each other of divisions and revisionism and continued their political activity, which had already been reduced in previous years, for a while with the publication of two central organs called the class struggle , until they dissolved. In April 1980, the Vienna branch also split.

After collecting donations, a print shop was set up to produce the newspaper "Klassenkampf" (initially folded A3 to A4, then folded A2 to A4 at the wedding) and the theoretical organ "Der Kommunist" (folded and stapled to something larger than A5) was in Vienna the Halbgasse set up. A few years later, the restaurant rented for this in a courtyard building with large windows on the 1st floor was adapted as a loft apartment .

Fields of activity

The Marxist-Leninist student organization had already participated in a “tram tariff campaign” in Vienna in December 1971. In addition to the not very successful operational work of KB Vienna and later KBÖ, there were fights against the increase in municipal tariffs (e.g. "increase in heating costs"), against the use of nuclear energy under " capitalist conditions" ( Zwentendorf nuclear power plant ) and for an alternative cultural center Main areas of activity.

Internationally, the KBÖ supported numerous liberation movements, including in particular the ZANU through various collection campaigns in their “armed struggle to build a new and prosperous Zimbabwe ”.

On October 8, 1977, the KBÖ supported the three German K groups that were threatened by an application for a ban with a demonstration and rally by 170 participants in front of the German embassy in Vienna .

From 1978 solidarity with the "Democratic Kampuchea " was in the foreground. At the end of August 1979, Walter Lindner met Khieu Samphan in Vienna . On September 11th, the class struggle published a “Joint Declaration of the Workers and Peasants' Party of Turkey (TIKP) and the Communist League of Austria” in support of the “ heroic struggle (es) of the Campuchean people to defend the revolution and the fatherland "the kboe leaning Soviet Union decided as" social fascists "from, in a statement at the end of Pol Pot - the regime in January 1979 stated:" Brezhnev is the Hitler of today, but in potentiated form ".

Voter turnouts

The KBÖ took part in the municipal council elections in Graz in 1978 and received 277 votes (0.18 percent), which was rated as a “complete success”. The 221 votes in the election to the municipal council in Vienna (constituency “Zentrum”, districts 1, 4, 5 and 6) were viewed as a defeat. The 500 necessary support signatures could not be produced for a candidacy in the 1979 National Council election in the constituency association of Vienna. In the municipal council elections in Linz in October 1979, Walter Fehlinger received 392 votes. In response to the election challenge of the KPÖ, which had lost its mandate as a result of this competition, the Constitutional Court revoked the election as illegal and initiated a new election.

Sub-organizations

Members

Former members (including the student organizations) contributed to the development of probation assistance in Austria, a socio-economic vehicle repair company, and the continuation of a local cycling initiative (today part of Radlobby Austria ). Quite a few were or became teachers or leaders at various school levels, from elementary school to university.

Publications

  • Program and statute of the Austrian Communist Federation , publisher: Kommunistischer Bund Österreichs, printing and publishing house: Alois Wieser Gesellschaft mbH, Vienna (1st edition, 1st – 5th thousand) 1976 ISBN 3-85377-011-8 (which changed only slightly , Program and Statute of the Communist Federation of West Germany shifted to Austrian conditions , 1973 ff.) - A6 or slightly smaller, booklet with a red cover on the outside
  • Class struggle , central organ (fortnightly, from 1978 weekly: 1.1976 - 3.1978; 1979 - 1.1981); that was also the name of the monthly central organ (ZO) of the KB Vienna and other groups
  • Communist , theoretical organ (monthly: 1.1976 - 3.1978; [4.] 1979; 5.1980, 1–2)
  • Documents of the 1st Ordinary National Conference of Delegates of the Communist Federation of Austria , Vienna 1978

literature

  • Wilhelm Svoboda : Sandbox Games. A history of left radicalism in the 1970s , Promedia, Vienna 1998 ISBN 3-85371-134-0
  • Christian Schlagitweit: Once a revolution and back. From Maoism to the Communist League or: the Austrian line from Ho Tschi Minh to Pol Pot , University of Vienna, Institute for Contemporary History, August 1, 2001 (unpublished thesis)
  • Robert J. Alexander: Maoism in the developed world , Praeger, Westport, Conn. 2001 (therein: The Communist League of Austria (KB) , p. 56/7; compiled from the country reports Austria in the Yearbook on International Communist Affairs , Volume 1977–1981) ISBN 0-275-96148-6
  • Felix Wemheuer: Mao's red sun over Vienna. Memories of Maoism in Austria , in: Sebastian Gehrig u. a. (Ed.): The cultural revolution as a model? Maoismen in German-speaking countries , Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2008, pp. 53–75 ISBN 978-3-631-57641-0

Remarks

  1. ↑ The Marxist-Leninist Party of Austria , which resulted from a split from the KPÖ, is different
  2. ↑ The own abbreviation was KB
  3. ↑ Peter Fuchs / Karl Peter Schwarz: A visit to the People's Republic of China. Travel report 2nd changed edition, Vienna: Alois Wieser 1975 (1st edition 1974) ISBN 3-85377-001-0
  4. ↑ Communist Federation of Austria founded , in: Kommunistische Volkszeitung (KVZ), No. 32 of August 12, 1976, p. 12; dto. as a short message in: Peking Rundschau No. 35 of August 31, 1976, p. 23.
  5. ^ Telegram from the secretary of the Communist League of Austria, Lindner (on the appointment of Comrade Hua Guofeng as chairman), in: Peking Rundschau, No. 52 of December 28, 1976, p. 23.
  6. ↑ see e.g. B. Short report in: Peking Rundschau No. 48 of November 29, 1977, p. 4.
  7. ^ Communist Federation of Austria's 1st Conference of Delegates , in: Peking Rundschau, No. 6 of February 14, 1978, p. 28.
  8. ^ (Correspondents' report from Vienna) 6000 demonstrating against the Austrian nuclear energy program , in KVZ, No. 44 of October 31, 1977, p. 8; (Correspondents' report, Vienna, January 26, 1978) The Kreisky government's energy program is opposed by the Austrian masses of workers and the people , in: KVZ, No. 5 of January 30, 1978, p. 13.
  9. ↑ MLS leaflet “ 2 Land Rovers for Zimbabwe! “(1977), illustrated by W.Svoboda, Sandkastenspiele , p. 110.
  10. ↑ Ge. Lindner meets Gen. Khieu , in: Klassenkampf, No. 34 of September 3, 1979, p. 3.
  11. ↑ Peking Rundschau No. 48, December 5, 1978, p. 25
  12. ↑ Beijing Rundschau No. 5 of February 6, 1979, p. 23. The TIKP is a party led by Doğu Perinçek , from which today's İşçi Partisi emerged .
  13. ↑ Linz municipal council election : Progress in the town hall , in: Volksstimme , No. 232 of October 4, 1980, p. 1; KPÖ-Linz regained seat in the municipal council , in: Volksstimme No. 234 of October 7, 1980, p. 1; Leo Furtlehner / Wolfgang Moringer: A choice with special features. Repetition of the municipal council elections in Linz - conditions and experiences of the election campaign of the Linz KPÖ , in: Weg und Ziel, 38th year 1980, No. 12, pp. 421–424.
  14. ↑ W. Svoboda, Sandkastenspiele , 1998, p. 28 f.
  15. ^ W. Svoboda, Sandkastenspiele , pp. 29–39.
  16. ↑ cf. the society for the support of the people's struggles of the KG (NRF) Heidelberg and the KBW .
  17. ↑ born 1952 in Villach , journalist with Die Presse , ORF and now foreign correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in Prague
  18. ↑ Communist - Theoretical Organ of the Austrian Communist Federation Materials for the Analysis of Opposition (MAO), Dietmar Kesten, Gelsenkirchen, last change June 12, 2018, accessed February 10, 2019. - 3 issues available.
  19. ↑ was not available

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