People’s Guard

…was also descended from the People’s Guard of 1918, a Social Democratic weapon against the Communists; it considered as its main objective the protection of a social reform program hated by Austria’s conservative bourgeois parties.

The Volkswehr (People’s Guard) was organized and was twice effective (April 17 and June 15) against communist attempts at a putsch. Bauer and fellow socialist leader Friedrich Adler staked their popularity on defeating the communist agitation in the workers’ and soldiers’ councils, which had been set…