Federalism in Central and Eastern Europe by Rudolf Schlesinger

Author:Rudolf Schlesinger [Schlesinger, Rudolf]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780415605311
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2010-10-18T00:00:00+00:00

(d) THE CHARACTER OF AUSTRIAN FEDERALISM

When discussing the theoretical problems involved in Austrian republican federalism, we must keep in mind the fact that the divisions it had to overcome were of a purely sectional character. There were no differences in historical experience between the Austrian Provinces2 of which anyone could still be conscious, nor any differences in national or religious tradition; although some divisions were caused by the fact that the Church had been the organiser of the Conservative party.3 If Austria had broken up, in 1919 or 1921,4 it would have been over purely sectional, political issues, with traditional or religious arguments used as mere pretexts for the conservative peasantry’s antagonism to “Red Vienna”. It has never been decisively proved that federalism was able to keep the diverse sections together, for it was not federalism that prevented the dissolution of Austria, but the Allies’ fear of a piecemeal Anschluss as the most likely consequence of any further breaking up of German Austria.

It ought further to be remarked that no essential decision in the life of the Republic was accomplished by the working of federalism. It was the international situation that, in 1919, caused the Socialists to abandon all plans for nationalisation of industry, and that also decided the issues of 1922, when the Geneva loan agreement stabilised bourgeois rule in Austria, those of 1929, when Italian-supported fascism was successful within limits drawn by the British Labour government, and those of 1933–4, when German fascism brought about the definite victory of its Austrian counterpart. It is very difficult to credit Austrian federalism with the responsibility for decisions that were essentially forced upon Austria regardless of her wishes.

Austrian federalism was built upon an equilibrium between the main sectional groups, and could function only so long as this equilibrium survived. A proletarian revolution in Vienna would have been as portentous for it as the definite control of Christian Social policies by Big Business proved to be. Under this equilibrium federalism enabled each sectional group to pursue its own ideals within the limits of reasonable compromise. It was a condition essential for the success of Austrian federalism that the relation of power between the partners to the compromise should vary amongst the distinct federal units. Had the federation been formed merely of Vienna and the Tyrol, or of two groups of units similar in kind to these, there would have been no alternatives but civil war or peaceful separation. Therefore, in spite of the fact that, for the reasons discussed above,1 it was in Vienna that the most outstanding successes of Austrian federalism were achieved, it would be incorrect to regard the question of municipal autonomy as the most essential one. The results would have been rather better if, say, the industrial South-East of Lower Austria and the North of Styria had also formed separate member-states of the federation.2 It was the failure to agree about municipal self-government within the Provinces that prevented the completion of Provincial autonomy.3

Whether this autonomy, even in the

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