Red Vienna: Experiment in Working-Class Culture, 1919-1934

278 Pages·1991·6.224 MB·English

by  Helmut Gruber

RED VIENNA:
Experiment in
Working-Class Culture
1919-1934
Helmut Gruber.
-
New York • Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1991
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gruber, Helmut, 1928-
Red Vienna : experiment in working-class <·uhure. 1919-1934 /
Helmut Gruber.
p. cm.
lndudes index.
ISBN 0-19-506914-5
I Vienna (Austria)-Social conditions. 2. Vienna (Austria)
Social policy. 3. Working dass-Austria-Vienna-Histnry-
20th ,·entury. 4. Vienna (Austria)-Popular culture--History-
20th century. 5. Austro-Marxist school-History-20th century.
6. Vienna (Austria)-History-1918- I. Title.
HN4l8.V5G78 1991
306'.09436'13-dc20 90-24065 CIP
r,
'I H 7 Ii ·I 3 2 I
I', 1111,·din 1lw United States of America
1 ,11 .11 111-l1't' <" paper
For Kiithe Leichter (1895-1942)
Sociologist, Socialist, Feminist,
and Courageous Human Being

Preface
In carrying out this study and critique of the Viennese socialists' at tempi lo
create a working-class culture, I have confronted the symbolic and my1hi1
aspects of the subject, which have distorted it. These stem in part from I he
public representations of socialist leaders at the time. They also have been
revived in recent decades by Austrian historians of the working class in shap
ing a heroic past to serve as a tradition usable by the postwar Socialist party
(SPO). In the process of demythologizing the cultural experiment, its Aus
tromarxist leadership has unavoidably lost its heroic sheen. However lim
ited the success of these leaders or contradictory their perception of both
workers and culture, their commitment to socialist ideals and dedication to
the class in whose name they claimed to speak cannot be challenged.
Although their daring vision overshadowed and distorted the actual accom
plishments of their experiment, "red Vienna" remains a model of cultural
experimentation in the socialist movement. In that guise it provides us with
fresh insights into the practices of all such experiments directed from
above, and the resistance of structures, customs, and actors they are hound
to encounter.
All books are collective efforts in the sense that authors depend on a group
of advisors and critics who constitute a miniature audience. I have been very
fortunate in receiving the supportive and challenging reading of versions
and sections of the developing manuscript. I am especially indebted lO
Anson Rabinbach, Geoffrey Field, and Adelheid von Saldern, who pointed
out exuberances and excesses that needed rethinking and modification and
who encouraged my attempt to view the Vienna experiment in a larger,
international context. Several draft chapters also had the benefit of crtitical
readings by Istvan Deak, Joan Scott, and Felix F. Strauss, for which I would
like to express my gratitude.
My perception of the book's orientation, sense of the myriad details, and
access to invaluable oral history collections were enhanced by contacts and
conversations over several years with the following younger historians of the
Austrian working class: Reinhard Sieder, Joseph Ehmer, Alfred Pfoser,
Theo Venus, Gottfried Pirhofer, Siegfried Matti, Friedrich Stadler, Ger-
Preface
VIII
hard Meis), Gerhard Steger, Karl Fallend, Hans Safrian, and Joseph Wei
denholzer. Although they may not agree with my critical perspective, they
nevertheless helped to shape it.
The friendly reception and personal assistance I received at various
Viennese archives and university institutes-which gave me unlimited
access to all of their material and allowed me to read theses and dissertations
before being catalogued, and whose directors offered helpful hints-were
indispensable to my work. My thanks for this high degree of scholarly coop
eration go to the following: Institute fi.ir Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte,
Institut fi.ir Zeitgeschichte, and Institut fi.ir Volkskunde-all of the Univer
sity of Vienna; Kammer fi.ir Arbeiter und Angestellte, Dr. Eckhart Fruh and
Dr. Karl Stubenvoll; Dokumentationsarchiv des Osterreichischen Wider
standes, Dr. Herbert Steiner and Dr. Wolfgang Neugebauer; Osterreich
isches Circus- und Clownmuseum, Mr. Berthold Lang; Bezirksmuseum
Rudolfsheim-Filnfhaus, Dr. Joseph Ehmer; Institut fi.ir Geschichte der
Medizin am Josefineum, Dr. Karl Sablik; Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv
des Osterreichischen Staatsarchiv, Dr. Isabelle Acker); Archiv der Stadt und
Land Wien; Archiv des Osterreichischen Gewerkschaftsbundes; Film
Laden, Dr. Franz Grafl; Archiv der Volksstimme; Institut fi.ir Wissenschaft
und Kunst.
The center of my research in Vienna for five summers was the Verein
fi.ir Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung. Its director, Dr. Wolfgang Mader
thaner, a colleague in every sense of the term, provided an atmosphere of
scholarly conviviality, served as a source of information and contacts to per
sons and places vital to my work, and supplied most of the photographs for
the book. I am most grateful for his generosity.
Discussions following the public presentation of portions of the work in
progress were both stimulating and useful. These included: the 17th Inter
national Conference of Labour Historians at Linz in 1981; the Harvard
University Center for European Studies at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in
1984; the Second UNESCO International Forum on the History of the
Working Class at Paris in 1985; and the University Seminar in the History
of the Working Class at Columbia University in New York City in 1986. At
Oxford University Press, Nancy Lane and David Roll's enthusiasm for my
book from the very beginning was translated into a caring guidance of the
manuscript in its various transformations.
The origins of this book are difficult to trace. No doubt the vivid memory
of eighteen months spent as a boy in Vienna in 1938-39 before I was forced
to emigrate-with the possibility, in those troubled times, of exploring the
city from end to end in the company of friends and without adult supervi
sion-was one of the impulses. I am certain that my wife, Fran~oise Jouven,
will appreciate that I have resisted bowing to the convention of reciting plat
it ll(ks of gratitude on her behalf.
/'11n1 II.(;
:\II}.! 111/ / l)IJ(J
Contents
1. Introduction 3
Obituary for Austrian Socialism 3
A Model of Proletarian Culture 5
2. Vienna as Socialist Laboratory 12
Vienna, 1919-1921: A Montage 13
Austromarxism: A Theory for Practice? 29
3. Municipal Socialism 45
Public Housing: Environment for "neue Menschen" 46
Public Health and Social Welfare: Shaping the "Orderly"
Worker Family 65
Public Education: Equality for Workers and Rising
Expectations 73
4. Socialist Party Culture 81
Elite Culture Rejected and Desired 83
Magical Powers of the Word 87
Enrichments of Taste: Music, Theater, and the Fine Arts 96
To Culture Through Action: Sports and Festivals as Symbols
of Power 102
5. Worker Leisure: Commercial and Mass Culture 114
Commercial Culture 116
Noncommercial Leisure-Time Activities 120
Popular Culture Corulemned 123
The Cinema: A l)r('am Fadory? 126
Radio: Pulpit of tht· P('opl('? I:\:,
Spl'<tator Sports: ( ;Lidiators of ( :apiLilis111? I ·I I
X Content.s
6. The Worker Family: Invasions of the Private Sphere 146
The "New Woman" and the "Triple Burden" 14 7
Sexuality: Repression and Expression 155
Population Politics 15 7
Youth: Ab.stinence, Discipline, and Sublimation 165
Puritanism and Sexual Realities 17 0
7. Conclusion 180
Political Limits 181
Cultural Limits 184
Notes 187
Index 257
RED VIENNA