Wimberger party conference

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The Vienna Party Congress in 1897, later known as the Wimberger Party Congress , was the sixth party congress of the Austrian Social Democrats (SDAP) and took place from June 6 to 12, 1897 in the Hotel Wimberger at Neubaugürtel 34, then in the 15th district in Vienna . The hotel, which opened in 1873 for the Vienna World Exhibition, not far from Westbahnhof , was a popular meeting place for decades.

The party congress was shaped by the nationality question within the social democratic movement in the multi-ethnic state , especially by the conflict between Czech and German delegates. As a result, six national sections were formed in the party (Germans, Czechs, Poles, Italians, Ruthenians and Southern Slavs), which subsequently appeared more and more as independent parties.

Josef Stalin mentioned the Wimberger party congress in his 1913 book Marxism and National Question , in which he dealt extensively with social democracy in Austria. He described the splitting up of the Austrian Social Democrats into national factions as a mistake and a reason for the weakness of the labor movement in the Habsburg Empire.

prehistory

The plan to combine the growing labor movement of the Habsburg Monarchy in a common party had existed since 1874, when a meeting of delegates from various trade unions and workers' associations took place in Neudörfl , which was then Hungarian and now Burgenland . Due to ideological differences between moderate and anarchist groups, a joint social democratic party was not founded until the turn of the year 1888/89 under the leadership of Victor Adler in Hainfeld, Lower Austria . At this founding party convention (also Hainfeld's unification party convention ) a social democratic party was created for all countries represented in the Austrian Reichsrat ( Cisleithanien ). Delegates from the Hungarian half of the empire ( Transleithanien ) were not involved.

As a result, the social democratic movement was able to expand its following due to the advancing industrialization, especially in Vienna, Bohemia and Moravia as well as in the working-class strongholds in Upper and Lower Austria and Styria .

Soon the SDAP was faced with problems similar to those of the Habsburg monarchy as a whole. The nationality issue in particular led to tensions in the movement, which, however, could still be contained at the four following party congresses. These goods:

  • Second party congress of the Austrian Social Democrats in the Hotel Union in Vienna 9th , Nussdorfer Strasse 23, from June 28th to 30th, 1891
  • Third party conference of the Austrian Social Democrats in the Drei-Engel-Hallen, Vienna 4th , Große Neugasse 36, from June 5th to 9th, 1892
  • Fourth party congress of the Austrian Social Democrats in Schwender's Colosseum in Vienna, 15th , then 14th , from March 25th to 31st, 1894
  • Fifth party congress of the Austrian Social Democrats on Schützeninsel ( Střelecký ostrov ) in Prague from April 5 to 11, 1896

Reichsrat elections 1897

The social democratic electoral committee for the second constituency ( Steyr ) calls for an electoral meeting on the occasion of the Reichsrat election in 1897
Election poster for Ignacy Daszyński, candidate in the constituency of Krakow-Liszky-Podgórze-Skawina

In 1896, the electoral law was reformed in Cisleithanien and for the first time universal male suffrage was introduced regardless of property and tax payments, but only for a newly created fifth census-free voter class within the curial suffrage . A sixth of the deputies should now be elected by the fifth curia, however the members of the first four curiae also had a right to vote in the fifth and thus a plural vote . However, this reform was a partial success for the Social Democrats, which had always advocated unrestricted universal suffrage and thus for the first time had the chance to join the Reichsrat. In the individual constituencies of the Austrian half of the empire, the local Social Democrats now formed election committees to put forward candidates. In March 1897 the elections to the Reichsrat finally took place, and fourteen social democratic candidates managed to get one of the 72 places of the fifth curia. A total of 425 mandates were awarded through all curia. This first small electoral victory was an important step towards becoming an established party, but it had two bitter " downsides " for social democracy.

On the one hand, contrary to all expectations, the Viennese Social Democrats did not succeed in gaining a mandate in one of the Viennese working-class districts. All 14 Reichsrat mandates were obtained outside of Austria under the Enns (including Vienna) (for example by Ignacy Daszyński in Galicia and the chemical unionist Anton Schrammel in Bohemia), although there were prominent figures with Victor Adler, Jakob Reumann , Ludwig August Bretschneider and Engelbert Pernerstorfer Personalities had run. Not only did the Social Democrats benefit from the reform of the electoral law, but also the Christian Socialists , who, particularly in Vienna, also managed to address petty-bourgeois voters. For example, Victor Adler lost in his constituency to Julius Prochazka, a Christian social worker who was previously completely unknown.

On the other hand, the spontaneous formation of social democratic electoral committees in the constituencies of the Austrian half of the empire without any fundamental decision by the party had created a local organizational level, whose representatives wanted to retain this provisional federal structure even after the election. These tendencies, which contradicted the supra-ethnic internationalism of the labor movement, were reinforced by the Baden language ordinance of April 5, 1897.

Against this background, a party congress was called on June 6, 1897 at the Hotel Wimberger in Vienna.

Sixth party congress

The topics of the party congress were initially the recent elections and the question of how election campaigns can be better organized in the future. It turned out that the Social Democrats were not sufficiently prepared for this and, in particular, had failed to raise funds for the election campaign in good time. In addition, the status of the consumer associations was discussed and a motion was submitted that the newly elected Social Democratic MPs should work in the Reichsrat to improve their legal basis. Victor Adler's suggestion that every party member should also join a consumer association was not accepted. This was only to find a majority two years later at the party congress in Brno in 1899.

Another topic was Engelbert Pernerstorfer's spectacular entry into the party in 1896. He had already been an independent member of the Reichsrat for the constituency of Wiener Neustadt - Neunkirchen since 1885 and was previously close to German national circles around Ritter von Schönerer , and later to the social-liberal circle of Fabier . In the elections of 1897, however, now as a Social Democrat, he was unable to defend his mandate. This and the fact that he had distanced himself from Schönerer because of his anti-Semitism , but still adhered to German-national ideas, met with criticism from parts of the delegates.

Franz Schuhmeier from Vienna-Ottakring was confirmed as Reich Party Secretary in the Hotel Wimberger .

Nationality issue

The dominant theme of the Wimberger party congress, however, was the future organization of the party. In the course of the election campaign, numerous social democratic electoral committees were set up in the regions of the Austrian half of the empire, which had put forward democratic candidates. These election committees had represented quite different positions in the election campaign. In the mixed-language regions from Bukovina to Galicia and Bohemia to Carniola and Trieste, these committees were able to score points with the dedicated internationalism of the labor movement where there was strong nationalist competition. In some cases, however, these committees are only based on the electorate of one ethnic group. In Bohemia in particular, the social question of the workers often took a back seat to the national question between Czechs and German Bohemians . At the same time, bitter struggles raged within the ethnic groups between the ideological camps for the favor of the voters. The Czechoslovak Social Democrats in Austria ( Sociálně-democická strana českoslovanská v Rakousku ) had therefore already renamed themselves in 1893 to the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party of Workers ( Českoslovanská sociálně democická strana dělnupschechá ) and tried to assert themselves against the young people with national demands .

In Galicia and Austrian Silesia, on the other hand, the Polish Social Democrats wavered between internationalist positions and the national demand for the restoration of an independent Polish state. In 1893 there was a split between the Polish-national PPS ( Polska Partia Socjalistyczna ), founded in French exile, and the more internationalist-communist SDKP ( Socjaldemokracja Królestwa Polskiego ), which in Austria officially became the Social Democratic Party of Galicia and Silesia-Teschen ( Partia Socjalno-Demokratieyczna Galicji i Śląska Cieszyńskiego ). Even Rosa Luxemburg , co-founder of the SDPK, spoke up and sharply criticized the nationalist positions of the Polish Social Democrats. She was of the opinion that Poland could only become independent through a revolution in the German Empire as well as in Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire . Therefore, before the Wimberger Party Congress, she recommended that the Social Democrats in all regions of the Habsburg Empire create a strict centralization of the party organization.

However, given the complex interests of the Habsburg Empire and the poor election results of the Viennese Social Democrats, this proposal was illusory. So the delegates looked for a compromise. For pragmatic reasons, it was decided to orient the local party organization to the state electoral districts and thus to make the spontaneously formed election committees official party bodies. There should be a national party organization in each case. Political responsibility for the entire party was transferred to a collective representation in Vienna, whose members were sent by the executive committees of the national sections. In addition, a permanent overall executive was set up for the social democracy of all of Cisleithania, which was formed from the representatives of the national representations who were present in Vienna. It was also determined that a general party congress should take place every two years to decide on matters affecting all nationalities.

In this way, the unity of the social democrats in all of Austria was formally preserved, but at the same time the centralistic principle was abandoned. Instead, a strongly federal structure emerged at the Wimberger party conference. However, the peoples' right to self-determination was explicitly rejected and the aim was to achieve equal coexistence between the ethnic groups within the state of Austria.

consequences

The first party congress of the social democrats of the entire Austrian half of the empire took place from September 24th to 29th, 1899 in the workers' hostel in Brno . There the course taken at the Wimberg party congress on the nationality issue was formulated in a new party program, which became known as the Brno program . Above all, the struggle for comprehensive universal suffrage unified the social democracy of the Habsburg Empire in the following years and brought it new successes after its introduction in 1906. In the Reichsrat elections of 1907, the party became the second strongest force behind the Christian Socialists.

But the centrifugal forces of the multi-ethnic state also showed their effect within the social democracy. In the Reichsrat elections of 1911 , the Social Democrats even became the strongest party, but the members of the various Crown Lands split up into different factions and unity was thus formally ended.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Arbeiter-Zeitung , Vienna, June 6, 1897, No. 155, p. 2 f.
  2. ^ Günther Sandner: Austromarxism and multiculturalism; Karl Renner and Otto Bauer on the national question in the Habsburg state. Vienna 2002. (online as PDF at kakanien.ac.at ; PDF; 166 kB)
  3. ^ Peter Schöffer: The struggle for electoral rights of the Austrian social democracy 1888 / 89-1897. Franz Steiner Verlag, 1986, ISBN 3-515-04622-4 , p. 789.
  4. ↑ Arbeiter-Zeitung , No. 27, July 3, 1891, p. 1 f.
  5. ↑ Three Angel Halls on the dasrotewien.at website
  6. ↑ Arbeiter-Zeitung , No. 24, June 10, 1892, p. 2 f.
  7. ↑ Schwender's Coliseum on the dasrotewien website
  8. ↑ Arbeiter-Zeitung , No. 95, April 5, 1896, p. 1
  9. ^ ÖNB - ALEX: Stenographic protocols - House of Representatives , XII. Session: March 27, 1897 - June 2, 1897; Appendix: List of electoral districts or electoral bodies and their representatives. P. 498, Galicia and Cracow, e) General Voting Class, 2.) City Cracow with the judicial districts Cracow, Liszky, Podgórze, Skawina
  10. ^ ÖNB - ALEX: Stenographic protocols - House of Representatives , XII. Session: March 27, 1897 - June 2, 1897; Appendix: List of electoral districts or electoral bodies and their representatives. P. 490, Bohemia, e) General voter class, 6.) Leitmeritz, Aussig, Tetschen, Böhmisch-Leipa, Wegstädtl
  11. ^ Margarete Grandner: Cooperative trade union policy in the war economy. Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 1992, ISBN 3-205-05411-3 , p. 11.
  12. ^ Ilse Reiter: Gustav Harpner (1864–1924): from anarchist defender to lawyer for the republic. Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-205-78144-8 , p. 23.
  13. ^ ÖNB - ALEX: Stenographic protocols - House of Representatives , XII. Session: March 27, 1897 - June 2, 1897; Appendix: List of electoral districts or electoral bodies and their representatives. P. 501, Austria under the Enns, e) General voter class, 2.) Vienna, Landstrasse, Favoriten, Wieden, Simmering
  14. ^ Social Democratic Workers' Party in German Austria: Protocol of the Social Democratic Party Congress. LA Bretschneider, 1898, p. 58.
  15. ^ Social Democratic Workers' Party in German Austria: Protocol of the Social Democratic Party Congress. LA Bretschneider, 1898, p. 70 and 71.
  16. ^ Peter Schöffer: The struggle for electoral rights of the Austrian social democracy 1888 / 89-1897. Franz Steiner Verlag, 1986, ISBN 3-515-04622-4 , p. 566.
  17. ^ Peter Schöffer: The struggle for electoral rights of the Austrian social democracy 1888 / 89-1897. Franz Steiner Verlag, 1986, ISBN 3-515-04622-4 , p. 567, footnote .
  18. ^ Peter Schöffer: The struggle for electoral rights of the Austrian social democracy 1888 / 89-1897. Franz Steiner Verlag, 1986, ISBN 3-515-04622-4 , p. 567, footnote .