Break-Up of the Hapsburg Empire, by A.B. Zeman

[p024] Break-Up of the Empire. By A. B. Zeman. University Press, 30s. Habsburg Oxford Austria-Hungary entered the First World War as an empire consisting of a dozen different national groups. At the end of the war, it was shattered. What brought about this collapse? Mr. Zeman considers the decisive factor to have been the hesitancy, irresoluteness and lack of ‘political

[p025] 22 acumen’ of the Austro-Hungarian government. In-his view, even as late as spring 1917, decisive action might still have saved the monarchy. Similarly, some people have argued that if Nicholas II had been more ‘decisive’ he might have prevented the Russian Revolution. Commenting on this, Trotsky pointed out how frequently such traits were ‘indivi- dual scratches made by a higher law of development’. Russia and Austria-Hungary had more in common in 1914 than hesitant rulers. Russia was also a huge Empire of heterogeneous national composition. The important question for Marxists is: Why did the Austro- Hungarian Empire not take the same revolutionary road as Russia? It is not simply that there is a conflict, as Mr. Zeman seems to think, between a ‘national’ and a ‘social’ interpre- tation of history and that Austria- Hungary took the first and Russia the second road. _ National feelings were _ strong in: both cases, but the Russian Marxists filled national form with social content. What was lacking in Austria- ‘Hungary was a revolutionary party. Austrian Social Democracy always bowed down before the ruling class, even mirroring the state apparatus by maintaining national divisions in the party and trade unions. It was only in October 1918, when the Empire was falling apart, that Otto Bauer brought forward the demand for national self-determination. Such a demand could earlier have been a revolutionary slogan against the Habsburgs. In these circumstances it ‘was the last desperate hope for the Austro-German bourgeoisie who in fact adopted it as their programme. Having no other alternative, the ruling class was prepared to accept the national revolution. Otto Bauer was therefore quite: safe in declaring that this was ‘a national and not a social revolution’. The bourgeoisie would not have given way peacefully to that—in fact they appealed to Italy (one of the powers anxious to grab as much as possible from the break-up) to occupy Vienna to put down the working class! Mass strikes in January 1918 -re- vealed, as Mr. Zeman points out, ‘the wide gap between the leaders and the party’s rank and file. The workers were by no means concerned with their bread and butter only; the strike ‘shared their views. ‘themselves to. minor posts - Austro-Hungarian Empire is LABOUR REVIEW —Spring, 1962 movement was inspired by political motives . . . The sympathy of the strikers (was) with the first socialist state in the world’. ; And again: ‘speakers frequently re- minded the strikers that there was no need to fear the machine guns the military authorities might turn against them; the soldiers manning the guns were their comrades and Leaflets distri- buted among the strikers also pro- pagated Bolshevik ideas: the masses of Austrian workers demand peace at any price; their hopes are Rinned to Lenin and Trotsky’. The Social Democrats in the armed forces, hunger demon- strations and more strikes in rapid succession. Eventually the Social Democrats who, even after the col- lapse of the monarchy, tried to limit in the bourgeois government, were pushed into power by the workers and soldiers. There was, however, no revolutionary party, and the Social Democrats, the caretakers of capital- ism, handed power back. The lesson of the collapse of the that no crisis, however severe, will auto- matically lead to socialism. For that, a revolutionary party, armed with theory and steeled in practice, is also necessary. G.G. All in the mind