Seite - 142 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

142 chapter 4 threemillionUkrainians, andonemillion Italians.44 Itwas a state that com- prisedterritoriesofvarying levelsofeconomicdevelopment. Industrialisation was accomplishedparticularly inLowerAustria, Styria, Silesia, Bohemia and Moravia. In the other parts of the country, especially Hungary and Galicia, industrial developmentwas low– above all, large-scale land ownershipwas animpendingfactor, takingupsome45percentof the landsurface.Asmono- poliesformed,smallandmedium-sizedbusinessescouldnotcompetewithbig Germanenterprises.Thesecountriesprovidedabasis for rawmaterialsanda supplyofcheaplabour.Particularly inBohemia,MoraviaandGalicia,wherea strongbourgeoisie emerged in the 1880s, thedependencyonGermancapital wasviewednotonly fromaneconomic,butalso fromanationalperspective. Inallcountriesruledbythecrown, increasingexploitationwenthandinhand with political subjugation: an anti-democratic systemof governmentwhose political,military and administrative postswere staffedmainly byGermans, alongsidediscriminationineducationandagainstnational languagesandcul- tures.Anothersourceofconflictbetweenthepeopleswassocio-economicdif- ferencesbetweenrulingandsubordinatedcountries.Theyaffectedtheworking classfirstandforemost–therelativelygoodconditionsenjoyedbyCzechwork- ers employed inGerman-speaking territorieswere an exception to the rule. TheGerman-Austrianworkers formedthe ‘labouraristocracy’of theempire– which, incidentally, significantly influenced thenationalpoliciesof thesdap leadership.Their incomewasa fifthhigher thanthe incomeofworkers in the other countries, they were better educated, and they had better developed organisational structures in the tradeunions.45 Furthermore, theywere very receptive to petty-bourgeois ideology, part of which was German national- ism.Opposingeconomicinterests,competitionbetweenGermanworkersand thoseofothernationalities, andrampantnationalismmadeanemergenceof classconsciousnessandaunitedstruggleof theAustro-Hungarianproletariat impossible; the effect was that differences within the class concurred with nationaldifferences.At theendof thenineteenthcentury, anti-Semitismand conflictsbetweencompetinglocalnationalisms,skilfullyfosteredbytheChris- tianSocialParty, threatenedthepeacebetweenthepeoplesof themonarchy. There ismuch to suggest that national conflicts were indeed among the mainreasons for the longstandingdivisionwithintheAustrianworkers’party from1866–89.Bothfactions–themoderatesundertheleadershipofHeinrich 44 Kreisler 1970.Rauscherdepicts the rootsofnational conflictsunder theHabsburgmon- archyinaninterestingfashion–seeRauscher1995,pp.45–6. 45 CompareMommsen1963,p.88.