Neue Freie Presse
- The Great Dangers to Democracy.
- Nationalism and Culture.
- Mass Arrests in Barcelona.
This Vienna issue led with a sharp editorial against Friedrich Adler. Writing in the socialist monthly Der Kampf, Adler had criticised the Austrian Social Democrats' draft programme as too mild and, according to the paper, demanded that "liberation of the working people" be replaced by "class rule of the proletariat". The paper mocked this as naive and treated it as a danger to democracy. A second piece printed a letter rejecting national conceit and hatred and any claim that one nation or race is superior, arguing that every national virtue brings a matching vice. A short dispatch from Barcelona reported fourteen arrests, including a doctor and a lawyer, over nightly fireworks disturbances during the stay of the King and Primo de Rivera, whose movements were kept under tight guard.
Translation
The Great Dangers to Democracy.
Friedrich Adler has published an article on the party programme in the monthly "Der Kampf". And again and again one is astonished at the naivety, bordering on clumsiness, with which these gentlemen so comfortably blurt out what they imagine as their ideal. Friedrich Adler finds the programme imperfect in several respects, and one of its most important faults is that it asserts: when the Social Democratic Workers' Party wins state power, the democratic republic will be transformed from an instrument of the class rule of the bourgeoisie into an instrument of the liberation of the working classes. To the radical this is far too woolly and rose-tinted, and one must take careful note that he expressly demands that the words "class rule of the proletariat" be put in place of the liberation of the working people.
Nationalism and Culture.
"With what you say about national conceit and national hatred I am in complete agreement. These qualities resemble true patriotism and just self-confidence about as much as the image thrown back by a distorting mirror resembles the beautiful original. In general it is absurd to speak of the superiority of any advanced cultured nation or race over another. Each has merits, which then immediately bring their disadvantages with them. Thus an imaginative nation will usually be mendacious, a brave one cruel, an honest one ponderous, and so on.
Mass Arrests in Barcelona.
On Tuesday morning fourteen persons were arrested, among them a doctor and a lawyer, who are said to have been the ringleaders of the organized disturbances during the stay of the King and Primo de Rivera. Every night large fireworks exploded at numerous points in the city, causing a great deal of noise. The King stayed mostly outside Barcelona and was guarded most strictly. When he paid a visit to the theatre, it was not announced beforehand.
Context
Friedrich Adler, the "radical" under attack
The editorial's target was one of the best-known figures of Austrian social democracy. Friedrich Adler was born in Vienna as the son of Victor Adler, founder of the Social Democratic Workers' Party. Before the First World War he edited the party's monthly Der Kampf, the very journal named in the article, and became a spokesman of the party's left wing. He was best known for assassinating Minister-President Karl von Stürgkh in 1916. By 1926 he worked mainly on the international stage: since the Labour and Socialist International was founded he had served as its secretary-general, a post he held until 1940. When the Neue Freie Presse calls him simply "the radical" and mocks "these gentlemen", it is aiming at one of the most prominent left-wing names the movement had.
The Linz Programme under debate
The article appeared in the last days of the debate over a new programme for the Social Democratic Workers' Party, which the party adopted in Linz on 3 November 1926, five days after this issue. The programme was drafted by Otto Bauer, Max Adler and Karl Renner; Max Adler is a different person from the Friedrich Adler criticised here. According to the House of Austrian History, the programme paired radical language with a reformist practice, insisting that the party's demands be achieved by democratic means, through elections and a majority in parliament. The sentence Friedrich Adler is reported to have attacked, promising that the democratic republic would become an instrument of the working classes' liberation once the party won state power, expressed exactly this combination of a socialist goal with a parliamentary route.
The dictatorship clause in the adopted text
According to the paper, Adler wanted the words "class rule of the proletariat" written into the programme. The text adopted in Linz contained a conditional formula on dictatorship instead: if the bourgeoisie resisted through the planned suppression of economic life, violent rebellion or conspiracy with foreign counter-revolutionary forces, the working class would be forced to break that resistance by means of dictatorship. The historian Helmut Konrad, writing for the House of Austrian History, notes that this sentence, although formulated as a defence, aggravated the domestic political climate of the First Republic. The headline "The Great Dangers to Democracy" shows the bourgeois press framing the programme debate in these terms even before the congress met.
Catalan opposition to the dictatorship before the royal visit
The Barcelona report came from a region where opposition to Primo de Rivera's regime had turned conspiratorial. Right after the coup of September 1923, the Catalan nationalist leader Francesc Macià took refuge in Perpignan, and the coup together with the dictator's anti-Catalanist policy reaffirmed his party Estat Català's commitment to the insurrectionary path. In 1925 clandestine groups from Estat Català and Acció Catalana organised the so-called Garraf plot, a failed attack on the king and queen off the Catalan coast. That precedent helps explain the measures the paper describes: the King staying mostly outside the city under strict guard and his theatre visits going unannounced. The paper itself presents the doctor and the lawyer as leaders of the disturbances only by allegation, saying they "are said to have been" the ringleaders.
The Prats de Molló plot a few days later
Within days of this report Catalan separatism attempted a far bolder action. On 30 October 1926 Macià gave the mobilisation order for an attempted military invasion of Catalonia from France, meant to win its independence. The French Gendarmerie aborted the operation with the help of Ricciotti Garibaldi Jr., and Macià was arrested on 4 November in the country house he was occupying. In Barcelona, meanwhile, the Spanish police, who were also aware of the operation, arrested the plotters inside Catalonia. Macià was sentenced to two months in jail and a 100-franc fine, yet the failure made him and his cause very popular in Catalonia. The arrests reported in this issue thus took place in the same weeks in which the Spanish police were tracking the conspiracy.
Original
Die großen Gefahren für die Demokratie.
Friedrich Adler veröffentlicht in der Monatsschrift " Der Kampf " einen Artikel über das Parteiprogramm. Und immer wieder staunt man über die an Ungeschicklichkeit grenzende Naivität, mit der diese Herren so gemütlich heraussagen, was sie sich als ihr Ideal vorstellen. Friedrich Adler findet das Programm in mancher Richtung unvollkommen, und einer der wichtigsten Fehler besteht darin, daß es versichert: Wenn die sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei die Staatsmacht erringt, wird die demokratische Republik aus einem Werkzeug der Klassenherrschaft der Bourgeoisie zu einem Werkzeug der Befreiung der arbeitenden Klassen. Das ist dem Radikalen viel zu verwaschen und rosenrot, und man muß es sich genau merken, daß er ausdrücklich verlangt, an Stelle der Befreiung des arbeitenden Volkes sollen die Worte gesetzt werden: Klassenherrschaft des Proletariats.
Nationalismus und Kultur.
" Mit dem, was Sie über den nationalen Dünkel und den nationalen Haß sagen, bin ich durchaus einstimmig. Dem wahren Patriotismus und gerechten Selbstbewußtsein sehen diese Eigenschaften so ähnlich wie das von einem Zerrspiegel zurückgeworfene Bild dem schönen Original. Ueberhaupt ist es unsinnig, von der Ueberlegenheit irgendeiner vorgeschrittenen Kulturnation oder Rasse über die andere zu sprechen. Eine jede hat Vorzüge, die denn auch gleich ihre Nachteile mit sich bringen. So wird eine phantasievolle Nation meist lügnerisch, eine tapfere grausam, eine ehrliche schwerfällig sein usw.
Massenverhaftungen in Barcelona.
Dienstag früh wurden vierzehn Personen verhaftet, darunter ein Arzt und ein Advokat, die die Anführer der organisierten Ruhestörungen während des Aufenthaltes des Königs und Primo de Riveras gewesen sein sollen. Allnächtlich explodierten große Feuerwerkskörper an zahlreichen Stellen der Stadt, die großen Lärm verursachten. Der König hielt sich meistens außerhalb Barcelonas auf und wurde auf das schärfste bewacht. Wenn er einen Theaterbesuch machte, wurde er vorher nicht angekündigt.