By Kurt Lhotzky
VIENNA — The general elections in October brought a dramatic change to traditional politics in Austria. Support for the Social Democrats (SPOe), who polled 38.1% of the vote in 1995, dropped to 33.15%. The conservative bourgeois People's Party (OeVP) dropped 1.5% to 26.91%. The party that gained most was the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), led by Jorg Haider, its vote increasing to 26.91% to become the second-strongest party in parliament.
Initially, federal president Thomas Klestil from the People's Party played his own game. He ordered the chairperson of the SPOe, former chancellor Viktor Klima, as the leader of the largest parliamentary party, not to form a new government. Klestil obviously preferred a renewed "red-black" (SPOe/OeVP) coalition but used his powers to humble the Social Democrat leader, who has often disagreed with the president.
The Social Democrats and People's Party came to an agreement in the last week of January. However, Wolfgang Schussel, leader of the OeVP, was fired up by his zeal to force the Social Democrats to adopt the whole neo-liberal program that the capitalist class wants to push through. The demand to increase the age at which workers can retire and claim the pension, and the privatisation of all state-owned enterprises, met heavy resistance from Social Democratic trade unionists.
Even though Klima had already signed the coalition agreement with the People's Party, his comrades in the trade unions rejected the deal. As Klima tried to convince Klestil of the viability of a Social Democratic minority government, the People's Party and the Freedom Party started their own negotiations, which led to the "black-blue" coalition now in power.
A Nazi party?
It was no secret to Schüssel, who was for several years minister of foreign affairs, that having the Freedom Party in government would provoke heavy resistance at home and abroad. The FPOe is an unashamedly far-right party.
It has its origins in the so-called Federation of Independents, formed in the early 1950s to provide a political platform for ex-members of the Nazi party. The FPOe was founded in 1956 as a national (that is, pro-German) party with a tiny and marginalised right-liberal wing.
For a short period in the mid-1980s, the liberals gained a stronger influence and the FPOe even participated for a short period in a coalition with the Social Democrats. But, in September 1986, the liberal wing was wiped out at a party convention when Haider organised a "coup d'etat". The government coalition cracked due to the refusal of the SPOe leadership to collaborate with a party under Haider's leadership.
Haider introduced a new right-wing aggressiveness into Austrian politics that was not restricted to provoking his adversaries with highly disturbing remarks about the past. His verbal attacks against privileges and the "bureaucrats", and his appeals to "honest and hard-working" Austrians attracted many voters who wanted to protest against the political status quo.
In 1990, Haider's march to power began when he was elected governor of the western province of Carinthia. However, in 1991 he was forced to resign after he declared in a session of the regional parliament: "The employment policy of the Third Reich was orderly". [Haider is again governor of Carinthia. He agreed to remain in that post rather than join the central coalition government.]
But statements like this — as well as his infamous description of Hitler's concentration camps as "National Socialist punishment camps" and his 1995 complimentary address to former Nazi Waffen-SS members in which he said, "There are still decent people in this world, people who have character and who remain true to their beliefs ... to this day" — do not make Haider a genuine fascist, nor the FPOe a fascist party.
The FPOe does not intend to destroy the workers' organisations by physical means, nor to abolish the system of bourgeois parliamentarism. While Haider's pro-Nazi remarks were well calculated to attract the former Nazi generation, he always knew that he could not come to power based on the old kameraden. Therefore, over the last few years, he made a turn to the workers.
Extreme right populism
When factories closed down, it was Haider who was there; in parliament, he defended the "honest workers" against the "Social Democratic and trade unionist parasites who do nothing for the people". He has even described himself as the "guardian angel of the workers".
The SPOe, which went further and further to the right and was involved in a coalition with the People's Party, did everything to please the capitalists. Austerity measures were applied, the SPOe favoured the integration of Austria into the European Union and taxes were increased.
Between 1970 (the first year of Social Democratic government) and 1995, the income of working people (including top managers) rose 200%, but, in the same period, income from shares rose 1500%!
While big capitalist firms pay less than 10% tax on profits, the average worker has to pay about 33% of their income in tax. Around 2500 people own 70% of Austria's wealth.
Because of the lack of a left alternative to the Social Democrats, Haider and the FPOe could benefit from workers' dissatisfaction. He "stole" some of the left's issues (such as criticising the privileged and high taxes on working people) and provided wrong, but easy to understand, answers: immigrant workers are responsible for unemployment, not the capitalists who lay off the workers; the Social Democrats who enrich themselves are responsible for high taxes, not the capitalist system which uses every means to exploit working people.
Austria's bourgeois newspapers wrote in the aftermath of the October election that the FPOe is the "genuine workers' party". What nonsense! The greatest part of the working class does not vote at all because they distrust the SPOe and are disgusted at the FPOe.
Of course, it is easy and nice for petty-bourgeois journalists to portray the working class as a silly and reactionary mass which will follow a right populist. But even winning a considerable number of votes in working-class districts does not turn a party into a workers' party. The FPOe does nor appeal to any form of class consciousness, but exploits racist, petty-bourgeois moods in certain layers of the working class.
Hypocrisy in Europe
The European Union's reaction to the FPOe's inclusion in the government — the diplomatic isolation of Austria — is highly hypocritical. In fact, Haider's xenophobic policy fits neatly within the framework of the anti-immigrant "fortress Europe" that the EU wants to construct.
Europe's governments distrust an Austrian government that includes the FPOe because, as a far-right populist party, the FPOe is considered unreliable. But by playing the "anti-fascist card", the EU did a lot to misdirect the first protests against the "black-blue" capitalist government.
From the first days of February, an increasing number of people — young people, women, immigrants — protested against the coalition government. Demonstrations of 10,000 or more occurred day after day, even though they are illegal.
From the beginning, the groups of the Austrian far left, trade unionists, members of the Stalinist Communist Party and unorganised leftists took an active role in the movement. Due to the left's political experience and a clearer program, the protests shifted to the left.
In the first demonstrations, there was a lot of "patriotic" opposition to the damage Haider was doing to the image of poor old Austria. Now, the slogans have changed. The movement is criticising the anti-social, anti-working class, anti-women, anti-youth policies of the government. Protesters are attacking the new government's plans to replace collective wage contracts with enterprise negotiations, to cut pensions, increase taxes and to lead Austria into the imperialist NATO military bloc.
Since the coordinators of the protests have been elected — strongly dominated by members of left organisations — the actions have changed. Every night, as many as 5000 people gather in Vienna and march to the working-class districts. The protests get stronger as young immigrant workers join the marches and new layers enter the struggle.
However, such militant protests alone will not bring down the government. This will only be done by class-struggle actions in the workplaces; the trade unions will play a crucial role in forthcoming developments. It will also depend on the capacity of the Austrian left to propose correct slogans that can push the resistance forward.
In the end, there is just one way to oust this anti-social "black-blue" government: the same means that was used by the Italian workers to oust the regime of Berlusconi-Fini (Fini was leader of the neo-fascist National Alliance) — mass strikes.
[Kurt Lhotzky is a member of Arbeitsgruppe Marxismus/Marxism Working Group.]