The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-05-08
On the
World Front
"0ur Aim the Same"
Austrian Heirs
A Last Refuge
BY HARRY CANNES

DaNCL 4oICob al LlCib b1ld1l
that given it in the May 5th
issue of the American Social
ist organ, "The New Leader" "
"Our aim is the same, though
our methods may change" The aim
Of the Austrian social democratic
leaders has been, by whatever
method. to keep the Austrian work.
erS chained to capitalist rule,
When the Austrian workers last
February took to the barbados
while Otto Bauer was licking the
boots of Dollfuss, offering him
two-year fascist dictatorship and
complete disarming of the Austrian
Schutzbund, the workers armed de.
Tense corps. the Social Democratic
leaders realized the old methods
we're dead, New methods of treach-
cry had to be devised.
The Austrian workers who fol.
lowed the path Of the Communist
International in action on the bar
ricades are not following that path
in thought and organization.
Proof of this is given in the recent
statement of G. E. r. Gedye, New
York Times Vienna correspondent:
Many of the Socialists, how
ever, feel that DIR. Bauer and DIR.
Deutsch, by pursuing a pacific
policy Overlong, despite Fascist
threats, and by muddling the prep
aratiOns for final resistance, have
forfeited the workers confidence
and that even DIR. Bauer's beIated
conversion to the theory that a
Socialist revolt must be followed
by a Socialist dictatorship before
the reinstituting of democracy,
cannot restore it.
These, ernbOdying the bulk Of
the former Republican Defense
Corps members, have Joined with
the NeO-Communists in a new
born Red front with more radi-
cal and revolutionary aims"
OUCH conditions require, not a
v change Of aim of the BauerS and
Deutschs, but change of methods.
As an experienced political conf
dence man, Herr Bauer now talks
about the revolutionary DICTATOR
ship of the proletariat."
This dictatorship" he writes,
"can be conquired by no means
other than revolution
But the Schutzbunders, the great
of the social democratic
workers who paid by deaths, impris-
onment, torture and the Dollfuss
dictatorship, because of Bauer's I'M
changing aim, remember once be-
fore when Bauer spoke about pro-
letarian dictatorship"
In 1918. the Austrian toiling
masses we're fighting for the prole-
tartan dictatorship. They were
armed, and ready to establish it.
Otto Bauer tells all about this occa-
sion in his book; THE Austrian
Revolution of 1913" from which we
quote the following:
There was deep ferment in the
barracks of the peoples army. The
peoples army felt that it was the
bearer of the revolution, the van
guard of the proletariat.. Tho
soldiers, with arms in hand, hoped
for victory of the proIetariat =.
Dictatorship of the proIetariat!'
-. All power to the Soviets.' was
all that could be heard in the
streets.
mo bourgeois government could
have COPIED with such a task. 1t
could have been disarmed by the
distrust and contempt of the
masses. 1t would have been over
thrown in a week by a street up
rising and disarmed by its own
soldiers.
only the Social Democrats
could have safely handled such an
unprecedentedly difficult situa-
ton, because they enjoyed the
confidence of the working masses.
Only the Social Democrats
could have guided the peoples
army and curbed the revolution
airy adventures of the working
masses. =. The profound shake
up of the bourgeois social order
was expressed in that a bourgeois
government, government with
out participation of the Social
Democrats, had simply become
unthinkable."
When the masses of Austria werN
ready to establish the proletarian
dictatorship, wanted "all power tt
the Soviets!" DR.. Bauer and com.
pany, in the interest of preserving
the capitalist dictatorship, won this
confidence of the masses and
steered capitalist rule to the safety
from which it could establish iti
fascist dictatorship!
THE aim has not changed, but this
methods must change. This
iAIdooCO al 1lOW luOF1llS dlOllS Glle
path of Soviet power, and the Shiny
Bauer who in 1918 sided with thu
borgeoisie, against the proletarian
dictatorship, now becomes the ad-
vocate, in words, of the proletariar
dictatorship-with plenty of lawyer.
like conditions.
We says Otto Bauer, who dis
armed the Viennese proletariat and
ordered the Linz workers to submit
to disarming on the very day that
the Dollfuss Heimwehr we're shoot
ing them down, ARE the heirs OF
Weissel, Wallisch and Munrichter,
The banner of Social Democracy
which fell from their lifeless hands
is taken up and carried on by U.s."
The barricade fighters of Austria
and the 300 members of the Schultz
bund who chose to go to the land
of the victorious proletarian dicta-
torship are the heirs of the Austrian
,.xr horNac rTLo proat