A founder of the Austrian Communist movement on the politics and functioning of Austria’s Workers’ Councils that sprang up in the collapse of the Habsburgs.

‘Workers’ Councils in German Austria’ by Hilda Wertheim from Communist International. Vol. 1 No. 13. September, 1920.

IMMEDIATELY after the revolution, the Workers’ Councils in German Austria had unlimited scope for action before them. Not only the factory workers took part in the elections, which were held soon after the revolution, but whole strata of the petty bourgeoisie, the civil functionaries, employees, men of learned professions, all strove to participate in the new institution, which evidently had a future before it. However, notwithstanding the elevation of public spirit which followed the collapse of Austrian militarism, the greater majority of the Workers’ Councils still continued to remain under the influence of the Social-Democratic Party, which adopted peculiar tactics for deceiving and restraining the revolutionary class. Thus, the Workers’ Councils, after preparing to send their representatives into all the institutions and organs of the government, partly for the purpose of control and at the same time for the practical study of the vital functions in the economic life of the nation, did not carry their intention into effect, obeying the authoritative command of the Social-Democratic central organisation in the Workers’ Councils. In this way, from the very beginning, the sessions of the Workers’ Councils became meetings for mere political discussion. Only several months later, when the newly elected National Assembly manifested a marked change in social interrelations in favour of the bourgeoisie, did the Workers’ Councils proceed to form Commissions and to intervene in the economic life of the country. From that moment nothing else remained to do, even for the plenary meetings, than, properly speaking, to hear the reports of the Commissions and to determine the attitude of the Workers’ Councils as a whole in relation to concrete questions. But, in these respects also the Workers’ Councils remained fully under the tutelage of the Social-Democrats; and, as before in questions of politics, now in the economic struggle, their actions were remarkable for their timidity and irresolution. The first attacks of the bourgeois Press, which did not take long to appear, filled the Workers’ Councils with such awe that, at each new proposition, they started such endless discussions of all the consequences which might follow, that the first zeal generally cooled down, or the best moment for the proposed action was allowed to pass.

At that time, during the as yet unsettled general conditions, the bourgeoisie, although not concealing its hatred toward the Workers’ Councils, and on the contrary unremittingly abusing them, still did not venture to proceed to active measures, which might have served as a test of the practical correlation of forces. Just at that moment the Workers’ Councils could have carried out an almost unlimited intervention in the economic life in the interests of the working class. They limited their activity, however, to patching up deficiencies–and even that they did badly, and as though unwillingly. Under these conditions, life became more and more difficult for the lower classes of the population, the devaluation of money leading to an extreme rise in the prices of necessities. Winter found the proletarian masses of Vienna without food or clothing, without lighting materials, and without fuel. From time to time it became necessary to stop the tramcar traffic, owing to absence of coal, and the working masses had to walk cold and hungry to their places of business. The Workers’ Councils looked on at all these conditions with folded arms; the workers soon began to treat the Soviets with indifference, then with enmity, and finally stormily demanded re-elections.

The new Workers’ Council, elected in October and November of 1919, differed from the preceding one in that it contained already a considerable Communist minority. The Communists endeavoured to rouse the new Workers’ Council out of its passive condition, and to induce it to proceed to decisive action. They insisted on energetic measures being adopted against the speculators in coal and foodstuffs, and demanded that all concealed goods be requisitioned and sold immediately to the hungry and cold proletariat. They demanded the requisitioning of the uninhabited or only partly inhabited larger houses and palaces, as dwellings for the proletarian families which were sheltered in barracks. They demanded the requisitioning of all private motor cars and carriages during the interruption of the tramcar traffic, for the transport of all workers to their place of work. But these demands fell through–in most cases in the plenary session, encountering a stubborn resistance on the part of the Social-Democratic Party and the official leaders of the Trade Unions. These groups, one may say, still held the majority of the Workers’ Councils in check. They, as formerly, managed to parry all our arguments by pointing out that the measures proposed by us would lead immediately to a civil war. Even when we succeeded in obtaining the desired results in the plenary sessions, the resolutions of the latter were paralysed by the sabotage of the Social-Democrats in the commissions.

The Social-Democrats endeavoured by all means to condemn the Workers’ Councils to inaction. Thus, for instance, they appointed sessions of the Soviet only very rarely, and at a time of day when long debates were impossible, in view of the prohibition to use the light. At the time set by law, 8 p.m., every meeting had to be closed, even if the most urgent needs of the suffering proletariat of Vienna were being discussed. Another method of sabotaging the activity of the Soviet consisted in transforming a session into a meeting for the reading of a report on some political subject, the person submitting the report being generally a Social-Democrat. There was no need to apprehend any discussions on politics, all those who were present being obliged to hurry home because the house doors were closed very early. Nevertheless, under the untiring pressure of the Communist members of the Soviet, and under the influence of the growing ire of the working masses, the Workers’ Council at last decided to undertake revolutionary action. For the beginning, an imposing mass demonstration of the Vienna proletariat was proposed, as a sign of protest against reaction and in favour of the taxation of all property. But even in this case the official leaders of the Social-Democratic Party skilfully extricated themselves from the difficult situation. Executive Committee of the district Workers’ Council, in which the Right Social-Democrats still predominated, convened a “joint meeting” instead of a meeting of the area Workers’ Council–that is, an organisation which includes, besides the members of the district Workers’ Council, a great number of official leaders of the Social-Democratic Party, the Trade Unions, co-operative societies and sick-benefit societies. The decisions of this enlarged meeting would certainly bear a greater political weight. The first session of the “joint meeting” did not have time to transact all the business; a second one was appointed, and this would have gone on further if the Communists had not made this plan fail by leaving the Assembly altogether. But the Social-Democrats had attained their object; the most favourable moment for the demonstration passed, and the district Workers’ Council did not meet during a whole fortnight. The “joint meeting” pronounced itself against a demonstration of the masses, and, before its collapse, it found time to threaten the district Workers’ Council with a sabotage of all its resolutions on the part of the powerful organisation of Trade Unions.

Thus, from the beginning of March, 1920, the Workers’ Councils of German Austria, and in particular the Vienna Workers’ Council, have entered into a new phase. The declaration of war against the Workers’ Councils on the part of the Right Social-Democrats, and their sabotage by the bureaucrats of the Trade Unions, who do not attend the meetings of the Workers’ Councils, threaten to render the conflict still more acute, and to bring matters to a climax.

Meanwhile, the proletariat of Vienna is waiting, living in conditions of cold and hunger, under an impossible yoke. All the laws and regulations tending in any way to limit the provoking luxury of the bourgeoisie are violated in the most brazen manner, and the authorities which should put an end to such a bacchanalia remain inactive. While the proletarian quarters of the town are sunk in darkness and silence, in the brilliantly illumined saloons the speculators and traders, which the decaying capitalist order has brought out on to the surface in innumerable quantities, are dancing and rioting madly.

But already, amid the strains of music and laughter, the first sullen growls of distant thunder may be heard in Vienna. The oppressed and insulted working class of German Austria is beginning to protest and revolt against the accursed system which again and again gives the workers stones instead of bread.

Vienna, 1920.

HILDA WERTHEIM.

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