Socialist Workers' Party (Austria)

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The Socialist Workers' Party (SAP), commonly known as Left Socialists , was a small Austrian party from 1950–1956.

After his exclusion from the SPÖ at the end of October 1948, Erwin Scharf brought out the weekly newspaper Der neue Vorwärts . In the leading article of the first edition of December 5, 1948, he called on all dissatisfied, class-struggle- minded socialists to "collect" and was actually able to motivate some to work on the newspaper. Sharply criticized that the SPÖ had "handed over" Austria to the ÖVP , the SPÖ pursued conservative politics and had become a defender of the ruling system.

On March 12 and 13, 1949, the first country conference of the left-wing socialists grouped around Scharf was held in Vienna, with around 30 people participating. They decided to establish themselves as the Association of Progressive Socialists. To constitute Friends of the New Forward (VFS). As such, they took part in the National Council election in Austria in 1949 together with the KPÖ as a left-wing bloc (LB) . As in 1945, Scharf made it into the National Council , only this time for the LB instead of the SPÖ.

Shortly after the elections in October 1949, the VFS leadership put the establishment of a left-wing socialist party on the agenda. On November 4th and 5th, 1950, the founding congress of the new party took place, in which several hundred people took part. Scharf was elected party chairman. In 1950 and 1951 it was possible to attract some socialists who were dissatisfied with the SPÖ, but the close ties to the KPÖ meant that many were repelled again. The political line of the SAP became more and more similar to that of the KPÖ, so the theory of social fascism was adopted by, for example, at a conference of functionaries in September 1952 the SPÖ was described as “the pioneer of a new fascism”.

In 1953 they entered the electoral community of the Austrian People's Opposition together with the KPÖ and the Democratic Union in the National Council election in Austria in 1953 .

1955 seemed to be a turning point in the SAP after it was decided to run for the state elections in Upper Austria in 1955 independently of the communists. However, this turned out to be a failure, with 2351 votes a result of only 0.38 percent was achieved. Then the SAP renewed its alliance with the communists for the National Council election in Austria in 1956 . At an extraordinary party congress on July 15, 1956, the federal executive committee of the SAP presented a resolution to unite the party with the communists. This was accepted with 73 to 1 vote. Thus, the party's delegates joined the KPÖ as one. However, the situation with the members was different: of 8,750 members only 80 declared that they wanted to support the path of the KPÖ.

The Association of Progressive Socialists - the association was never canceled under association law - resolved to dissolve in November 1956.

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