Social Democratic Party of Austria

…workers’ guards by the Austrian Social Democratic Party, of which the Schutzbund remained an adjunct. It 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…

…responsible for founding the united Social Democratic Party of Austria (December 1888–January 1889), in which he remained a leading figure, and he made it into a multinational party advocating federalism and autonomy for the peoples of Austria-Hungary. He was elected to the Lower Austrian Landtag (Diet) in 1905 and quickly…

…competing Marxist groups into the Social Democratic Party (see Marxism).

…imperial interest and popular pressure—the Social Democrats had organized mass rallies to support the bill—combined to overcome parliamentary opposition. After Gautsch resigned in March 1906 and his successor, Conrad, Fürst (prince) von Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, failed to master the situation, Max Wladimir, Freiherr (baron) von Beck (Austrian prime minister from June 1906),…

Even the Social Democratic Party could not overcome nationalist antagonism. In 1899, at the party congress at Brünn (now Brno, Czech Republic), the Social Democrats had presented a national reform program based on democratic federalism, which would have granted the right of national decisions to territorial units…

The Austrian Social Democrats were determined to resist bolshevism with their own forces without making an alliance (as the German Social Democrats did) with the old order. The Volkswehr (People’s Guard) was organized and was twice effective (April 17 and June 15) against communist attempts at…

…was the leader of the Social Democratic Party of Austria and chancellor of Austria (1970–83).