AUSTRIA TO-DAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25964, 3 October 1945, Page 6

AUSTRIA TO-DAY

STATE OF TRANSITION LEFTIST PRESSURE ON GOVERNMENT By the Special Correspondent in Vienna of The Times, London The free and independent Austria ordained by the Allied declaration at Moscow in 1943 is a State that has yet to be reborn. Physically, its boundaries do not definitely exist; politically, it has neither Constitution nor Government; administratively, it has hardly emerged from complete absorption within Hitler’s Germany, as seven different Reichsgaue which were deprived of even the unifying name of Ostmark, The part which the Allies have in the rebirth of Austria is represented by the work of the quadripartite Allied Commission; the part of Austria itself is shown in the present efforts of Dr Renner’s Provisional Government to govern and in the activities of the political parties to influence the future. The Renner Government, with its limited powers and limited sphere of action, is a creation of the war—indeed, of the battlefield. Its formation represented complete Austrian political unity in the face of overwhelming disaster and adversity. When Renner himself arrived in Vienna on April 21 he learned that in many of the communes the political parties had unanimously appointed provisional chiefs of administration and had entered into contact with the Russian occupying armies. It was not merely the Communists who had been in contact with the Russians, but representatives of all political parties opposed to the Nazi regime. In Vienna itself Leopold Kunschak, veteran leader of the Christian Social Party, had offered himself to. and been accepted by, the Russians equally wdth Johann Koplenig. the Communist, and Adolf Scharf, the Social Democrat. Renner has described his first conference in the capital as one which agreed unanimously and instantly to ‘ concerted action.” Three Political Parties

Concerted action was maintained in face of the dire adversity and distress of the early months of Russian occupation. To-day it is weakening, if only because in a world that is no longer a battlefield the ideologies of political parties assert themselves above political unity. Renner has held his small team together, but pressure from the Left increases daily. Under the influence' of Russian victory the Communist Party, which never gained a seat in the Austrian Parliament of the democratic period has greatly strengthened itself. Yet that same influence also tends toward maintaining political unity (or “concerted action”) because so great a part of the Provisional Government’s activities has hitherto been by way of meeting Russian demands. It remains true, however, that whereas Austria from 1918 until the suspension of Parliament by Dollfuss in 1933 had two main parties—the Christian Social and the Social Democratic—it now has. in the Communists, a third party of comparable (though untested, and probably unreal) strength. This was recognised by Renner in forming his Cabinet, which consists of three Social Democrats, three representatives of the People’s Party (successors to the Christian Social Party), two Communists, and two non-party experts. In addition to leading the Cabinet, Renner is at the head of an advisory council, consisting of one other Social Democrat (Dr Scharf), one People’s Party representative (Leopold Figl), and one Communist (Johann Koplenig). This council the Chancellor regards as a transitional expedient representing the vanished Parliament of Austria. A similar—though perhaps more real —vestige of legality resides in the person of the Chancellor himself in that he was the last chairman of the Nationalrat before Dollfuss suspended Parliament.

Past Deeds Condoned

This sense of legality, reminiscent of certain arguments which French politicians used in North Africa during the Darlan regime, is extended far enough by the People’s Party to maintain that, as the Austrian Parliament of the democratic period technically suspended itself, it has therefore never ceased to exist, and so can be reassembled. The point is not worth pursuing except in so far as it explains, in part at least, why no guilt or moral stigma attaches to people still living who served in minor capacities under Dollfuss and Schuschnigg. Schuschnigg himself, returning to a reborn democratic Austria, would be regarded even by the Communists as an “elderly statesman” in whose past there were admittedly one or two deviations from the path of democracy. The Christian Social Party, to which both Dollfuss and Schuschnigg belonged before the suspension of Parliament and from the Right wing of which they subsequently drew their supporters, is now known as the Austrian People’s Party (Oesterreichische Volkspartei). The new name is significant as showing the waning influence of the clerical element that was formerly so strong in the old Christian Social Party. It is probable that the party will again draw much of its support from the country people—landowners, farmers, traders —and in Vienna from the wealthier classes and the professions.

Communist Party’s Standing

It is worth noting that Renner describes the three members of his Cabinet drawn from the People’s Party as belonging “ two to the capitalist and one to the agrarian political trend.” In the same memorandum Renner, a veteran of the Social Democratic Party, groups the three Social Democrats (of whom he is one) and the two Communists of his Cabinet together as “ five members belonging to the Socialist political trend.” This is in keeping with the popular notion current before 1933 that the Social Democrats were more radical than the Communists. The new strength of the Communist Party in Austria is founded not so much on radical policy as on prospective cooperation with Soviet Russia. It would accordingly be rash to describe this new strength as popularity, just as it would be idle to deny that the Russians are unpopular in Vienna and in that part of Austria which the Red Army occupies. The democratically-minded people in the Russian zone of occupation ipay have welcomed the triumph of Russian arms as liberation, but, unlike the British electorate, they do not enjoy the right of rewarding the architects of victory with instant dismissal. Bond of Former Sufferings The Austrian Communist Party which basked in the sunshine of Soviet victory is now somewhat in the shade after the past months of Russian occupation, with all its personal hardships and uncertainties. Already a very definite movement in favour of the Social Democrats has shown itself in elections to factory committees in Vienna; in a single case only one Communist was elected among 12 delegates. It is doubtful, torn whether the achievements of the Social Democrats in Vienna before the party was suppressed by Dollfuss in 1934 are forgotten; indeed, the battle-scarred buildings of the famous Vienna working class municipal settlements stand as a potent reminder, and, in spite of years of suppression, the vast social and cultural organisations of the party are coming slowly to life again. Men of all three democratic parties have suffered imprisonment and worse since the coming of the Nazis in 1938, and many had suffered long before that. This common suffering has bred a certain determination to make parliamentary democracy in the new Austria workable. It was not workable in 1933, when the Austrian Republic was less than 15 years old. because each party had buiit up its own para-military organisation in preparation for civil war, and also because the defence of Austria against encroaching German Nazism had been bargained away to Mussolini in return for a promise to suppress democracy. Five years later came the last phase, with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in partnership, but by then Schuschnigg’s political amnesty that released the Austrian Democrats from prison was too late for any restoration of democracy effective enough to save Austria from Hitler’s treacherous and tyrannical grasp. But, as has already been said, the new democratic Austria of the present

post-war world is not yet reborn. Dr Renner’s Provisional Government, cut off by demarcation lines from the Allied zones of occupation that are not Russian, has been unable to convoke any parliamentary assembly representing the whole country, and has adopted the expedient of the threeparty advisory council to avoid delay in establishing the foundations of the new independent republic. The Constitution of 1920 has been restored within the sphere of the Provisional Government, but it is proposed that the amendment of 1929 (which was never put into effect) shall be adopted so that the future President of the republic is elected by popular vote instead of by the federal assembly. No date for elections can yet be appointed for it is dependent, among other things, on the removal of the demarcation lines. Neither can there be, until they are removed, any extension of the Provisional Government’s authority to the whole of Austria, as suggested by Russia at the Potsdam Conference. The Provisional Government. as an expedient in the present period of transition, has a good (if unexciting) record. On those who would like to see it “ strengthened and broadened” rests a large share of the responsibility and opportunity for opening to Austria those sources, human as well as material, from which the country can alone draw the requisite strength and breadth.