Contribution to the 15th International Communist
Seminar
"Present and past experiences in the international communist movement".
Brussels, 5- 7 May 2006
www.icsbrussels.org , ics[at]icsbrussels.org
The Communist Movement in Austria, the Historic Importance of the Communist International and Today’s Importance of Proletarian Internationalism
Communist Initiative of Austria
1. Conditions of the founding of the Communist Party of Austria (CPA)
2. The Communist International and the bolshevization of the CPA
3. The communist movement and the struggle against fascism
4. Current problems and perspectives of the Austrian and international communist movement
1. Conditions of the founding of the Communist Party of Austria (CPA)
On November 7, 1917, the socialist revolution was victorious in Russia. Almost exactly one year later, on November 3, 1918, the Communist Party of Austria (CPA) was founded in Vienna. Just a few days later, on November 12, 1918, the first Austrian republic was constituted on a bourgeois-democratic basis.
Which general circumstances and conditions influenced the founding of the communist workers’ organization in Austria? The Austrian Social-Democratic Party and its founder and chairman Victor Adler had an honourable and revolutionary history, but – in Austria just like in the most other European countries – this period of social-democratic history became definitely a thing of the past in 1914, when the social-democrats supported the imperialist world war. It appears as some kind of a logical consistency and a symbolic occurrence that Victor Adler, who nevertheless personally represented a political development from revolutionary internationalism to counter-revolutionary social-chauvinism, died at the end of the world war, just one single day before the Austrian republic was officially founded. In these circumstances November 1918 indicates a turning-point in the history of the Austrian workers’ movement. This time finally and completely revealed the counter-revolutionary, revisionist and reformist character of the Social-Democratic Party, coincidently the founding of a revolutionary and internationalist, a real Marxist militant party of the working class became evidently an objective requirement.
At the end of World War I, during the years 1917 and 1918, the Austrian working class was already fighting hard class struggles, the working class already stood in the middle of the revolutionary fight. The insufferable living conditions during the war, the senseless war itself, to which the peoples of the Austro-Hungarian Empire had to go because of banal imperialist interests of the Austrian bourgeoisie, and the certainty, that a better world would be possible, launched a revolutionary process in Austria. The question was: would the revolutionary process remain in its bourgeois-democratic stage or would it be possible to continue this process consequently right to the socialist revolution? The ambition of the working class was beyond question: the workers wanted a socialist Austria, which – together with a socialist Hungary, a socialist Czechoslovakia, a socialist Union of the South Slavic peoples etc. – would liberate mankind. The years 1917 and 1918 stand for a new revolutionary rise in Austria with the most important heights in January 1918, during the great "January-Strike", and in February 1918, during the uprising of the sailors of the navy base at Cattaro/Kotor. But actually there were already since 1914, since the beginning of the war, several militant actions, riots and protest of Austrian workers, who put up different actions of resistance against the imperialist war and the intensified capitalist subjugation. But these actions were not co-ordinated and took place in single locations. In Austria did not exist a fixed organization of socialist opponents of the world war, as it was organized in Germany by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. The only serious attempt in the Austro-Hungarian Empire to do so, starting from socialists from Liberec in Bohemia, was unfortunately not successful. In the Austrian capital, in Vienna, the son of Victor Adler, Friedrich Adler, acquired the status of an opponent of the war, when he angrily resigned his membership of the Social-Democratic Party. But Friedrich Adler was not a consequent revolutionary, who would be able to lead a socialist mass movement against the war and for the social revolution of the working class. Finally his protest against the war was manifested by an act, which would have been worthy of anarchist individualism, but not of revolutionary Marxism, Lenin called this act the "act of despair of a Kautskyite": on October 21, 1916, Friedrich Adler shot and killed the Austrian prime-minister Stuergkh. That was a useless act – and later, after he was amnestied and released from prison, Friedrich Adler continued cutting a poor figure within die Austrian workers’ movement.
The crisis in Austria-Hungary became an acute revolutionary situation with the turn of the years 1917/1918. As we know today, this situation was up to now a historical unique situation for the Austrian working class, this situation offered overwhelmingly the necessary preconditions for the socialist revolution. But there was one basic requirement for a successful revolution, which did not exist at that time in Austria: this lacking requirement was a revolutionary Marxist militant party of the working class, a party of the type of the Russian Bolsheviks. In November 1918 the actual power already passed over to the Austrian working class, but the new found Communist Party was not yet able to take the lead of the revolutionary movement – and the old Social-Democratic Party did not want to take the lead of a revolutionary movement. The Social-Democratic Party, rendering the Austrian bourgeoisie a good service, finished and completed the democratic revolution – and prevented the socialist revolution. The Austrian social-democrats saved the Austrian bourgeoisie from the impending revolution of the working class. The right-wing social-democrat Karl Renner became chancellor of the counter-revolutionary, but however – because of the pressure oft the revolutionized masses – social-reformist government, Karl Seitz became provisional president of the republic, Otto Bauer tried to justify the social-democratic policies with revisionist distortions of Marxism and Friedrich Adler took the lead of the Austrian soviet movement, just in order to paralyse this movement and to reduce the influence of the communists in the soviets. Within the Austrian people’s guard the social-democrats isolated and finally dissolved the communist dominated companies, especially the "Red Guard" of the battalion 41, although – or rather just because – the Communist Party gained more then 20% of the votes within the soldiers’ soviets.
During the following months and years the social-democratic led executive power of the Austrian state used all means of violence und brutality against demonstrating workers, unemployed persons and repatriated or home coming soldiers with socialist or communist opinions. The social-democrats committed their cruellest and most blood-stained crimes against the Austrian working class on April 7 and on June 15, both 1919 and in Vienna, when many demonstrating workers were killed.
Concerning international relations it is again the year 1919, when the counter-revolutionary character of the Austrian social-democrats became obvious. From April to May 1919 the Munich Soviet Republic existed in Bavaria, from March to August 1919 the Hungarian Soviet Republic existed. The young Communist Party of Austria started immediately a campaign of solidarity in favour of the Hungarian Soviet Republic and the leading communist Leo Rothziegel organized about 1,200 Austrian volunteers, who went with him to Hungary and supported the military defence of the Hungarian revolution. In contrast to the internationalist communists the Austrian social-democratic government remained counter-revolutionary. It is quite obvious that Austria would have been the link between Munich and Budapest and with a revolutionary alliance in Central Europe the revolutionary process in Europe would have received a new impetus. And of course there is no doubt that the Hungarian Soviet Republic’s chances of survival would have been immensely improved with Austrian support. But the Austrian Social-Democratic Party ignored the Hungarian appeal and cry for help and solidarity – and when Béla Kun had to flee from Hungary to Austria after the defeat of the Hungarian revolution he was certainly instantly arrested… – This tragic episode of the revolutionary movement in Central Europe displays very well the great importance of proletarian internationalism, which was already solidly realized by the young Communist Party, whereas the Social-Democratic Party apparently regarded the national bourgeoisie as its natural ally… – All these occurrences underscore the absolute necessity of the founding of the Communist Party of Austria.
2. The Communist International and the bolshevization of the CPA
When the Communist Party of Austria (CPA) was founded in November 1918, the CPA could not be immediately regarded as a party of a bolshevist type, as a Leninist party. There was no doubt that for the broad majority of those men and women, who became members of the CPA, the Russian Bolsheviks and the October Revolution were shining examples, and the Austrian working class definitely demanded of its leaders to "speak Russian" to the Austrian bourgeoisie too. Of course the Russian October Revolution was the ignition spark for the rise of a worldwide revolutionary process and for a necessary process of differentiation within the hitherto existing labour movement – a differentiation, which was already anticipated within the Russian social-democracy in 1903. In these circumstances the CPA certainly took part with two delegates in the 1st congress, the founding congress, of the Communist International in March 1919 in Moscow. – But concerning the political substance the CPA was not homogeneously bolshevist at that time, but pluralistic. This pluralistic character of the CPA handicapped the party’s political work and made it rather hard to establish a real revolutionary Marxist party. This problem caused permanent controversies, conflicts and quarrels between the different groups and it was responsible for some political mistakes of the CPA during these first years of existence. Under these difficult conditions, lacking the appropriate structure and the right ideology and strategy, it was impossible for the young CPA to become a revolutionary mass party. The big majority of the working class continued to trust and to follow the Social-Democratic Party, while even some opportunist and actually right-wing former social-democrats became temporary members of the CPA (similar occurrences concerned other new found leftist workers’ parties in those years, for example the Independent Social-Democratic Party in Germany). Nevertheless there are already some members of the CPA in the year 1919, who would be important for the future and the Marxist-Leninist development of the CPA, so especially the only seventeen-year-old Friedl Fuernberg, later secretary of the Communist Youth International (1926-1932) and secretary of the CPA (1932-1971).
When the CPA was founded in November 1918 und organized during the following months, the group of the so called "left-wing extremists" relevantly participated in that work. This group originally sympathized with Friedrich Adler and took decisively part in the "January Strike" in 1918. One of the leaders of the "left-wing extremists" was Franz Koritschoner, who remained one of the leading officials of the CPA until 1924. The name "left-wing extremists" really applied to this founding group of the CPA, as the young CPA, which was one of the first new found communist parties of the world, indeed represented some infantile disorders. It is a matter of fact that the young CPA made some mistakes in its political analysis and as a result the CPA had some wrong strategies. Some of these mistakes can be called "left-wing extremist", some of them today would be called "Trotskyite". In 1920 Lenin himself had to persuade the Austrian communists to participate in the parliamentary elections. Lenin wrote during the same year about the CPA: "In Austria communism went through hard times, which apparently are not completely over yet: growing pains, the illusion that a group, which confesses to communism, could gain mass influence without serious struggle, mistakes concerning official persons." – It was true that the hard times were not over yet. Until 1924 the CPA would be determined by severe inner quarrels, which would be completely overcome not before 1927.
In advance of the 3rd congress of the CPA the year 1919 was already determined by massive disparities of views. Especially Ernst Bettelheim, who led a four-headed leading office of the CPA, was criticized because of putschist tactics. With ideological help of the Communist International and with journalistic help of Karl Radek the CPA could be led to Marxist positions and strategies and the financial help from Moscow for the small CPA was continued again. But within the Communist International the CPA kept representing "left-wing extremist" positions, and until 1921 the putschist offensive strategy got more or less the upper hand again. Therefore the analysis of the 3rd congress of the Communist International about the new stage of revolutionary development, concerning the consolidation and offensive of capitalism and the defensive of the working class, was not completely accepted within the CPA. When the inner party quarrels of the CPA were even settled at an enlarged plenary assembly of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) in 1923, the Communist International and its responsible commissioner for Austria, Alois Neurath, tried to solve the evident problems within the CPA. Franz Koritschoner and Karl Tomann, who had been able to unite the majority of the party at the last congress in March 1923 and who had had the support of the Communist International at that time, had to retire as leading officials after the bad results of the CPA in the parliamentary elections. Johann Koplenig, previously secretary of the CPA’s organization in the Austrian province of Styria, became organizing secretary of the CPA and Gottlieb Fiala became national secretary of the CPA. However, the devastating party quarrels continued in 1924, when the 7th congress of the CPA was held. Now the Communist International nominated Georgi Dimitrov as ECCI-consultant for the CPA and Johann Koplenig took over the provisional leading of the party. The provisional arrangement with Koplenig soon became a normal one and should last for 40 years: at the 19th congress of the CPA in 1965 Koplenig retired as chairman of the CPA.
During the following years after Koplenig’s assumption of office, between 1924 and 1927, the party line of the CPA was clarified with decisive help of the Communist International. Henceforth the CPA could be regarded as a homogenous Marxist-Leninist party. Koplenig himself formerly had got into Russian-tsarist war captivity in World War I, he had been a witness of the revolution and had become a member of the Bolshevik’s party. Until his return to Austria he had been working as bolshevist propagandist. When Koplenig was in Austria again in 1920, he resigned his membership of the Social-Democratic Party, which he had entered in 1909, and became a member of the CPA. Considering this personal and political-ideological background of Koplenig he was a logical and above all a reliable comrade for the Communist International, when the task was the bolshevization of the CPA. The bolshevization of the member parties of the Communist International enabled the international communist movement to evolve a common and homogenous Marxist-Leninist basis, which is indispensable for the united revolutionary fight of the communists of the world, even though the revolutionary movement and communist party of every country must consider different specific conditions. There is no doubt that the bolshevization of the communist parties of the world was necessary and overwhelmingly successful, not only in Austria, but also in other countries, for example in Germany, where the line of the Communist Party was clarified by its 1925 elected chairman Ernst Thaelmann, already previously a member of the ECCI. And the Marxist-Leninist character of the Communist Party of Germany made it possible that in 1946 the proletarian united front was realized in the Socialist Unity Party (SED) and that in 1949 the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was founded under the leadership of Wilhelm Pieck, a fellow-combatant of Thaelmann. – The bolshevization of the CPA enabled the party to be just in time forearmed against fascism. Until 1945 the CPA should be the mainstay of the antifascist resistance in Austria, as well concerning the underground movement as concerning the Austrian liberation battalions within the Yugoslav partisan army. Therefore it was in particular the Austrian communists, who provided that own Austrian contribution to the liberation of the Austrian people, which was precisely demanded by the anti-Hitler coalition in the Moscow Declaration of 1943.
Another essential result of the CPA’s consolidation as a bolshevist, a Leninist party, for which the founding of two theoretical organs in 1932 and 1935 was important too, was the theoretical clarification and solution of the national question in Austria by the CPA in 1937. Alfred Klahr, a young member of the central committee of the CPA, laid the foundations of the theory of the Austrian nation, which developed and evolved separately and independently from the German nation. Klahr could refer directly to the bolshevist position and Marxist-Leninist theory about the national question, which was pointed out and written down by Joseph Stalin in his work "Marxism and the National Question" in 1913 – and by chance just in Vienna, where some Russian revolutionaries were in exile, so in addition to Stalin for example Nikolai Bukharin. The opinion of the CPA about the national question in Austria was a fundamental basis for the antifascist fight against the German occupation and annexation of Austria in 1938, this opinion was the basis of the resurrection of an independent Austrian state in 1945. The CPA’s point of view was soon adopted by the international communist movement and there were two reasons for that: on the one hand the Communist Party of Germany supported immediately the position of the CPA, on the other hand the General Secretary of the Communist International, Georgi Dimitrov, was well informed about all Austrian problems and knew that Klahr’s opinion was the correct one – as it was the Marxist-Leninist one. However, it should take until 1941 that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union officially adopted the theory about the Austrian nation. – The clarification of the national question in Austria by the CPA and the Communist International was also very important, as die Austrian social-democracy denied the existence of an independent Austrian nation and wanted Austria to join the German state, as the Austrians were supposed to be a part of the German nation. The Social-Democratic Party of Austria officially gave up this opinion not until 1945 and many prominent social-democrats, for example Friedrich Adler, continued taking German-national views even after the founding of the second Austrian republic in 1945.
Generally the existence and work of the Communist International had immense importance in building a common and homogenous Marxist-Leninist front of the communist and workers’ parties of the world. And especially concerning the CPA the help of Georgi Dimitrov saved the Austrian section of the Communist International from complete insignificance and perhaps from its disintegration and dissolution. Apart from that the Communist International revived the proletarian internationalism after the bankruptcy of the 2nd International. Some people might think that the dissolution of the Communist International in 1943 was a break with internationalism. But that is a wrong interpretation and not true. Of course internationalism was not given up with the dissolution of the Communist International, but internationalism within the international communist movement only changed its form in accordance with new conditions. The Communist International accomplished its tasks from 1919 to 1943 and after 1945 the relationships oft the communist parties of the world could assume new and appropriate forms.
3. The communist movement and the struggle against fascism
When the 4th congress of the Communist International in 1922 already warned of the fascist danger, the CPA applied this opinion to the Austrian situation. In 1923 the CPA defined the danger of fascism as main problem of the present time. The CPA several times offered the proletarian united front to the Social-Democratic Party of Austria, in order to organize a common fight against reaction and capitalist offensive. These offers of the CPA were criticized by "left-wing extremist" and sectarian groups within the party, but with the successful bolshevization oft the CPA by Johann Koplenig from 1924 to 1927 the party finally took over the views, the analysis and the strategy of the Communist International concerning fascism. During the following years the fight against fascism really became the main task of the CPA. It might have happened that the CPA made some mistakes in this fight, but there is no doubt that within the Austrian workers’ parties it was the Austrian social-democracy, which made the process of fascistization and the establishment of the fascist dictatorship in Austria much easier. The false "radical-reformist" strategy of the Social-Democratic Party was not only unable to lead to the socialist revolution, but led directly and forcibly to the victory of fascism. In practice the fatal role of the Austrian social-democracy was already revealed during the "June Revolt" in 1927, while the Austrian communists and especially Johann Koplenig himself gained widely respect of the social-democratic workers because of clear and revolutionary positions and a courageous behaviour during and after the "June Revolt". When the Austrian monopoly bourgeoisie and the big landed proprietors finally began establishing the open fascist dictatorship, the revolutionary parts of the basis of the social-democratic workers’ militia, of the so called "Republican Defence Association", offered armed resistance during the "February Battles" in 1934. This heroic fight certainly found undivided and active support by the Austrian communists, while the leaders of the Social-Democratic Party failed again and left the fighting Austrian workers in the lurch. Responsible for the defeat of the Austrian working class in this short civil war were several things, of which the communists had already warned before: the wrong organization’s structure as well as a false military strategy of the Republican Defence Association, the not realized arming of the workers and the lacking capacity to act of the Social-Democratic Party’s control. With this background it was a result of the "February Battles" in 1934 that very many social-democratic workers now realized, that the Social-Democratic Party was not able to defend the interests of the working class. Many workers now left the Social-Democratic Party and entered the CPA, which has been already illegal in Austria since May 1933. Just during these difficult times of an illegal existence and work the CPA became a party with mass influence for the first time.
As a result of the victories of fascism in Austria and Germany the 7th congress of the Communist International in 1935 had to point out a profound analysis of fascism and to evolve a promising antifascist strategy. This task was accomplished in particular by Georgi Dimitrov, Palmiro Togliatti, Dmitri Manuilski and Wilhelm Pieck and Dimitrov reported the most important facts concerning the Marxist-Leninist analysis of fascism and the antifascist strategy to the congress. In the name of the Austrian delegation Johann Koplenig addressed the congress. Koplenig fully supported Dimitrov’s explanations and accentuated in his report the importance of the proletarian united front and the antifascist popular front again. In consequence of the results of the 7th congress of the Communist International the CPA continued trying to build the proletarian united front against fascism in Austria. The proletarian united front with the so-called "Revolutionary Socialists", which were emerged from the Social-Democratic Party, was supposed to be the fundament for a wider antifascist popular front in Austria. Finally these attempts were only partly successful and in essence they failed because of the unwilling socialists. And the major part of the antifascist resistance in Austria was further on even more incumbent on the CPA, as the Revolutionary Socialists stopped resistance after the German annexation of Austria in 1938, when the Austro-fascist regime was replaced by German-fascist foreign rule.
When the Communist International called upon the antifascists of the world to support the Spanish republic against fascism in 1936, about 1,700 Austrians answered this appeal and joined in the antifascist struggle for freedom of the Spanish popular front as volunteers within the International Brigades. This organizing of the International Brigades during the civil war in Spain represents obviously one of the liveliest examples of active and practical internationalism and solidarity. Among the Austrian fighters were communists as well as social-democrats. Some former members of the Republican Defence Association just came from their exile in the Soviet Union to Spain. In Austria especially the CPA agitated in favour of the Spanish popular front, while the Revolutionary Socialists and the old Social-Democratic Party’s control-in-exile were mainly concerned with themselves. The civil war in Spain is an example too for inter-governmental solidarity, as the help of the Soviet Union for the Spanish popular front was definitely important, although anticommunists of all shades try to deny this fact.
In Austria the CPA now specified its major task in a new way. In the difficult circumstances of Austrian fascism the CPA tried to strengthen all energies against the impending new world war in general and against the impending occupation of Austria by fascist Germany in particular. In accordance with the theses of the Communist International concerning the popular front and with the theoretical work of Alfred Klahr concerning the national question in Austria the CPA defined the fight against German fascism as national struggle of the Austrian people for freedom and independence. But as the ruling Austro-fascists as well as the Austrian social-democrats denied the existence of the Austrian nation and had a German-national ideology, the CPA remained almost alone and unassisted with its imperturbable will to defend the independence of Austria. – But it should not be unmentioned that there were considerations within parts of the conservative camp around Ernst Karl Winter, which were similar to those of Alfred Klahr, and that an Austrian-patriotic basic attitude existed within Monarchist circles in Austria. – When Austria was finally annexed by Germany in March 1938, some prominent social-democrats, for example Karl Renner and Otto Bauer, regarded this act as an historic progress, the Revolutionary Socialists even called the German-fascist territorial conquests in Europe as a basically positive "European integration". The communists had certainly another point of view. In March 1938 the central committee of the CPA addressed a historic proclamation to the Austrian people, in which the CPA called upon the Austrians to offer resistance and to take part in the national struggle for freedom. And again the CPA got international help and solidarity, as the German Communist Party immediately condemned the German annexation of Austria and the Soviet Union protested against the German aggression. But among the capitalist states of the world solely Mexico officially condemned this criminal act of German fascist imperialism.
The fact that in spring 1945 German fascism was finally defeated all over Europe and Austria was liberated, was regarding the international measure essentially the merit of the Red Army of the Soviet Union. Making great sacrifices the Soviet Union could not only stop the German military forces in its own land, but could also repulse and finally defeat them. When the Red Army liberated Vienna in April 1945, the hope was spread that this could be not only the liberation from the fascist form, but from imperialist capitalism at all. Two things prevented that: on the one hand the formally new found old Social-Democratic Party did not become over night a revolutionary party – quite on the contrary even theoretical socialist perspective of the Austrian social-democracy was finally and ultimately abolished after 1945; on the other hand the imperialist Western bloc immediately began to build a reactionary front against socialism and the people’s democratic movements in Central and Eastern Europe. The main occupation and interest of the former allies of the Soviet Union within the anti-Hitler coalition became again radical anticommunism. In Austria the anticommunist social-democratic-bourgeois front led to the demission of the CPA from the federal government. Unfortunately the CPA could not effectively oppose the following inflammatory campaigns, anticommunist tissues of lies and slanderous attacks of the bourgeois-conservative and social-democratic governments.
On the one hand this new anticommunism had a defensive character, as a consequent antifascism would have revealed that only current monopoly capitalism was the economic and political basis or even more the causal reason of fascism. Therefore a consequent antifascism would have supported forcibly anti-imperialist, anti-monopolist and finally anti-capitalist ideologies and movements – the imperialist states, which had won the war, knew that very well and that is why antifascism was replaced by anticommunism. On the other hand and coincidently anticommunism had an offensive character too. This offensive goal was finally achieved in 1989, 1990 and the following years. The imperialist states built an antisocialist bloc by concentrating all political, economic, ideological and military forces of global imperialism within the NATO and the "European Communities". The task of these imperialist alliances was to destroy socialism, to restore capitalism in Eastern Europe and to integrate the former socialist countries into the monopoly capitalist system again. A certain inner weakness was responsible for the fact that the Soviet Union and the socialist countries of Europe finally could not resist the imperialist pressure from the outside. This weakness in particular was closely bound up with the abandonment of Marxism-Leninism by leading officials of the socialist and communist parties. This weakness was obviously bound up with revisionism within parts of the communist movement.
So the interim defeat of socialism in Europe teaches especially one important lesson: without strong ideological foundations on the basis of Marxism-Leninism there is no successful revolutionary practice. This realization is true as well for the organized revolutionary working class in power as for the communist movement on the road to revolution. Lenin said: "Without a revolutionary theory there cannot be a revolutionary movement." Today’s communists have the duty to remember this sentence very well – and to consider and utilize Lenin’s implicit urging.
4. Current problems and perspectives of the Austrian and international communist movement
Concerning ideological questions today’s central task for the communists is to defend Marxism-Leninism against distortions and revisionist influences. Being successful in this task means the following:
1. The communists must build their theory and programmatic foundations upon the basic positions of Marxism-Leninism – that means especially upon the Marxist theory of the state, upon Lenin’s theory of imperialism, upon the Leninist understanding of the revolutionary party, upon a solid and anti-imperialist internationalism of the working people and the suppressed peoples of the world and in defence of the right of self-determination of the nations.
2. The communists must preserve the awareness of the historic role and importance of the Soviet Union and the socialist states in Europe and defend them.
3. The communists must fight a hard and uncompromising ideological struggle against revisionism.
On this ideological basis and with these prerequisites a worldwide successful new formation and reorganization of the revolutionary forces is possible. This process will be a long-term process and a difficult, a tough and sometimes a troublesome one. But this process is inevitable, if considering the alternatives socialism or barbarism the first possibility is supposed to be the better choice. If the revolutionary communist organizing of the workers is successful, so there will be at the end of this process a Marxist party of the working class, which is not only combat-ready but moreover fit for the revolutionary fight. But if this organizing is not successful, so there would be all preconditions that the imperialist system of robbery would not just continue to exist, but imperialism would bring mankind sooner or later disastrous wars of a new quality, which would be able to make the further existence of mankind as species on this planet very uncertain.
The Communist Initiative therefore wants to contribute to the building and organizing of a revolutionary Marxist party of the working class in Austria. The Communist Initiative takes the view that today’s Communist Party of Austria (CPA) characteristically cannot comply with this demand and actually the CPA explicitly does not make this demand on itself anymore. Certainly it is not due to the Communist Initiative to sit in judgement upon the CPA – the historical verdict upon the CPA as well as upon all other leftist parties will be decided and displayed by the future social practice of the working class. Nevertheless the Communist Initiative regards it as its fraternal duty towards those communists, who are members of the CPA, to point out mistakes and problematic developments of and within the CPA.
But not only the CPA but many communist or former communist parties were not able to deal correctly with the interim defeat of socialism in Europe. The new formation and new orientation of a lot of parties just meant an open revisionist turning concerning ideology and programmatic foundations. One of the most obvious examples is the German Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS, today: "Left Party"), which developed from the Socialist Unity Party of the German Democratic Republic. – And today’s CPA explicitly does not define itself as a Leninist party anymore: the CPA today defines itself as a pluralistic party. Ironically that means that today’s CPA throws the door open to just those or similar ideological confusions, which Johann Koplenig could laboriously overcome with the help of the Communist International between 1924 and 1927. In general, in those days as well as today, pluralism is certainly the possibility for bourgeois ideologies to invade communist organizations. (In addition to that today’s pluralism is supposed to "liberate" the CPA not only from Marxism – but also from the Marxists.) – Concerning the invasion of bourgeois, non-Marxist or even anti-Marxist and anticommunist ideologies the so called "anti-national" ideology played an important part in Austria and in Germany during the last years. The representatives of this pro-imperialist "anti-national" ideology – and some of them can be found in the leader-board of the CPA – even justify, support and openly call for imperialist wars of aggression. Another severe confusion within today’s CPA is the replacement of proletarian internationalism by bourgeois-cosmopolitan illusions. The highest stage of this problematic development is the structural recognition and acceptance of the European Union (EU) by leading officials of the CPA, which means legitimating an imperialist alliance and estimating it positively. The European process of integration, which is in reality deeply antidemocratic because it is of course an imperialist process, was defined as an historical necessity and lawfulness, which would be allegedly a class-indifferent process. This process of integration in Europe would be the overcoming of the bourgeois nation state within bourgeois conditions. Well, especially in Austria such absurd opinions remind fatally of those phrases of Otto Bauer and other social-democrats concerning the supposed "historic progress" of the German annexation of Austria in 1938. Of course in reality this capitalist process of integration – and in the circumstances as well of the continuous process of capitalist internationalizing as of the uninhibited new unfolding and display of the aggressive and repressive character of imperialism – is a process of complete penetration and subordination of all human living conditions and all nations by the monopoly capital. This new offensive of imperialism in political, economic and increasingly military regard suppresses not only the position of existence of the working class, but also of all non-monopolist social strata of the people. This fact underscores the objective possibility for the communist movement to set up anti-imperialist and anti-monopolist strategies and to organize a wide popular resistance against the monopolies. At the end of this first stage of an anti-monopolist fight there might be a new distribution of the interrelation of social forces between the monopoly capital and the working people, which should improve the starting positions and conditions of the socialist revolution.
But the answer to the new imperialist offensive of some socialist and communist parties, in particular the answer of those parties, which assemble within the so-called "European Left Party" (like the CPA or the German "Left Party"/PDS), is the new discovery of social-democratic reformism and the new invention of an alleged "third way" between capitalism and communism. These parties propagate that the bourgeois democracy, its universal suffrage and its parliamentarianism would be that political form, which leads to socialism – that means that the revolutionary proletarian class struggle is "overcome" and "abolished" by these parties within bourgeois society. This revisionist distortion also reminds fatally of the wrong concepts of the Austrian social-democracy between 1918 and 1934. It was Karl Liebknecht, who clearly said – just a few days before he and Rosa Luxemburg were murdered executing an order of the social-democratic leaders in Germany –, that the way to socialism does not lead along the so-called "democracy", but real democracy is only realized in socialism. And in fact the "democratic ways" of the old German and Austrian social-democrats led only directly to fascism.
But not only the theories but also the political practices of the members of the EU-"Left Party" are sometimes rather strange. Just recently the majority of the deputies of the German "Left Party"/PDS in the "European Parliament" voted for an antisocialist resolution concerning the Republic of Cuba. – The CPA does not have elected deputies in the "European Parliament" of the EU, however the CPA is able to place some political emphasis differently. When the Greek KKE invited communist and workers’ parties of the world to Athens for an international congress in November 2005, the CPA surprisingly did not support the solidarity resolutions of the congress for Cuba and Venezuela, more than that the CPA did not even support the protest resolution against the anticommunist initiative of the European Council. And when the Communist Initiative, the Communist Youth of Austria and even Marxist parts of the social-democratic Socialist Youth of Austria recently organized a demonstration of protest and solidarity in favour of the hard-pressed and threatened Czech Communist Youth Union in Vienna, the CPA was conspicuous by its absence. Obviously today’s CPA finally discharged proletarian internationalism, which was accentuated even by the pre-bolshevist CPA and which is definitely one of the highest goods of the international communist movement. The political rating, the value, of proletarian internationalism and anti-imperialist solidarity within a certain party is a very precise indicator for the character of this party – and concerning today’s CPA its lacking international solidarity is not quite the best reference for this party.
The members of the EU-"Left Party" replaced the practical internationalism and solidarity by a structure in accordance with the imperialist laws of the EU. Several important and politically successful European communist parties do not participate in the EU-"Left Party" – and it can be assumed that they have serious and very good reasons for that. And the Communist Initiative of Austria does not want to fail to mention that even within the CPA the mainly predominant wrong positions and orientations are not homogenously accepted. It is a fact that the only regional party structure of the CPA, which is successful in elections, the regional organization of the CP of Styria, rejects the positions of the CPA’s leader-board. The CP of Styria, which can be regarded as the Marxist and antirevisionist part of the CPA, continues rejecting the Austrian membership in the European Union and also rejects the membership of the CPA in the EU-"Left Party". But the CP of Styria has got no representatives in the federal leader-board of the CPA and does not recognize and accept the last federal congress of the CPA, in which the CP of Styria did not take part. The Communist Initiative takes the view that it is not pure chance that just the CP of Styria, the only part of the CPA that preserves antirevisionist Marxism, is at the same time the only regional organization of the CPA, that was elected into a regional parliament and that got more than 20% of the votes in the communal elections in the Styrian capital Graz, while the rest of the CPA is far away from similar successes. Obviously there is a positive causal relation between Marxist and anti-imperialist positions and a successful political work within and with the working people. – The Communist Initiative of Austria shares and supports the correct and important positions of the CP of Styria, especially the rejection of the EU as an imperialist alliance and the rejection of the so-called "European Left Party". The Communist Initiative takes the view that it is the task of the antirevisionist and Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations in Europe and worldwide to oppose the attempt of the formation of a reformist-revisionist and partly anti-Marxist EU-"Left Party". The antirevisionist and Marxist-Leninist parties must confront this attempt with a class-conscious, internationalist, anti-imperialist and fraternal cooperation of the international communist movement, a cooperation, which represents the best traditions of the 1st International, of the earlier years of the 2nd International and of the Communist International.
The precondition for an efficient and powerful international communist movement is the global building and organizing of revolutionary workers’ parties, which stand on the firm ground of Marxism-Leninism. In Austria the Communist Initiative sets itself the task to work for the building of such a party. The Communist Initiative contributes to this task in solidarity and in willingness to cooperate with Marxists, communists and revolutionary socialists, who are members of another organization or stay unorganized for the moment. But it will be more and essentially important in Austria to persuade, to mobilize and to organize those masses of politically mainly indifferent workers, who were so far and will be in future disappointed by the Social-Democratic Party and the bureaucratic trade unions. – Such a mobilization and revolutionary organization of relevant parts of the Austrian working class is a difficult task, which the Austrian communist movement already tries to achieve for almost 90 years and which displayed successes as well as failures. The Communist Initiative comprehends its tasks in the best traditions of the Austrian revolutionary workers’ movement, of the communist movement. The Communist Initiative makes every effort to combine the communist struggle to win the working masses and to achieve the cultural hegemony in society with a clear Marxist-Leninist ideology. The Marxist-Leninist ideology is absolutely necessary for the communist movement during every stage of its development. In these connections the Communist Initiative relies to Johann Koplenig, one of the best sons and leaders of the Austrian working class – at the 14th congress of the CPA in 1948 Johann Koplenig expressed in clear words, what is until today a guide to action for the Communist Initiative: "In every decisive moment in Austria’s development it was our party, and solely our party, which could point out the right direction, because only our party has got the indispensable compass of the workers’ movement, Marxism-Leninism. (…) The ideological strengthening is … inseparably connected with the struggle to win the masses and today, in view of the perspectives of intensified class conflicts, we must not forget the ideological work, it is more important than ever to direct our attention to the political education, we must be on the alert to prevent that the ideology of the enemies of the working class infiltrates our circles. Our ideology, our theory of Marxism-Leninism is the best weapon of the working class in its struggle for liberation. This theory is invincible because it is the truth."
Tibor Zenker
Communist Initiative of Austria