AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
Russian Czarism undoubtedly represents a cruder and more barbarian form
of state organization than does the feebler absolutism of
Austria-Hungary, which has been mitigated by the weakness of old age.
But Russian Czarism and the Russian state are by no means identical.
The destruction of Czarism does not mean the disintegration of the
state. On the contrary it means its liberation and its strengthening.
All such assertions, as that it is necessary to push Russia back into
Asia, which found an echo even in certain Social Democratic organs, are
based on a poor knowledge of geography and ethnography. Whatever may be
the fate of various parts of present Russia--Russian Poland, Finland,
the Ukraine or Bessarabia--European Russia will not cease to exist as
the national territory of a many-millioned race that has made notable
conquests along the line of cultural development during the last quarter
century.
Quite different is the case of Austria-Hungary. As a state organization
it is identical with the Hapsburg Monarchy. It stands or falls with the
Hapsburgs, just as European Turkey was identical with the
feudal-military Ottoman caste and fell when that caste fell. A
conglomerate of racial fragments centrifugal in tendency, yet forced by
a dynasty to stick together, Austria-Hungary presents the most
reactionary picture in the very heart of Europe. Its continuation after
the present European catastrophe would not only delay the development of
the Danube and Balkan peoples for more decades to come and make a
repetition of the present War a practical certainty, but it would also
strengthen Czarism politically by preserving its main source of
spiritual nourishment.
If the German Social Democracy reconciles itself to the ruin of France
by regarding it as punishment for France's alliance with Czarism, then
we must ask that the same criterion be applied to the German-Austrian
alliance. And if the alliance of the two Western democracies with a
despotic Czarism gives the lie to the French and English press when they
represent the War as one of liberation, then is it not equally arrogant,
if not more so, for the German Social Democracy to spread the banner of
liberty over the Hohenzollern army, the army that is fighting not only
_against_ Czarism and its allies but also _for_ the entrenchment of the
Hapsburg Monarchy?
Austria-Hungary is indispensable to Germany, to the ruling class in
Germany as we know it. When the ruling Junker class threw France into
the arms of Czarism by the forceful annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, and
systematically embittered the relations with England by rapidly
increasing naval armaments; when it repulsed all attempts at an
understanding with the Western democracies because such an understanding
would have implied the democratization of Germany--then this ruling
class saw itself compelled to seek support from the Austro-Hungarian
Monarchy as a reserve source of military strength against the enemies in
the East and the West.
According to the German point of view the mission of the Dual Monarchy
was to place Hungarian, Polish, Roumanian, Czech, Ruthenian, Servian and
Italian auxiliaries in the service of the German military and Junker
policy. The ruling class in Germany had easily reconciled itself to the
expatriation of ten to twelve millions of Germans, for these twelve
millions formed the kernel around which the Hapsburgs united a
non-German population of more than forty million. A democratic
federation of independent Danube nations would have made these peoples
useless as allies of German militarism. Only a monarchy, in
Austria-Hungary, a monarchy enforced by militarism, would make that
country of any value as an ally to Junker Germany. The indispensable
condition for this alliance, sanctified by the Nibelungen troth of
dynasties, was the military preparedness of Austria-Hungary, a condition
to be achieved in no other way than by the mechanical suppression of the
centrifugal national tendencies.
Since Austria-Hungary is surrounded on all sides by states composed of
the same races as are within its own borders, its foreign policy is
necessarily intimately connected with its internal policy. To keep
seven million Serbs and South Slavs within the frame of its own military
state, Austria-Hungary is compelled to extinguish the hearthfire that
kindles their political leanings--the independent kingdom of Servia.
Austria's ultimatum to Servia was the decisive step in this direction.
"Austria-Hungary took this step under the pressure of necessity," wrote
Eduard Bernstein in _Die Sozialistische Monatshefte_ (No. 16). To be
sure it was, if political events are considered from the viewpoint of
_dynastic_ necessity.
To defend the Hapsburg policy on the ground of the low moral standard of
the Belgrade rulers is to close one's eyes to the fact that the
Hapsburgs did make friends with Servia, but only when Servia was under
the most despicable government that the history of the unfortunate
Balkan Peninsula has known, that is, when it had at its head an Austrian
agent, Milan. The reckoning with Servia came so late because the
efforts made at self-preservation were too weak in the enfeebled
organism of the Dual Monarchy. But after the death of the Archduke, the
support and hope of the Austrian military party--and of
Berlin--Austria's ally gave her a sharp dig in the ribs, insisting upon
a demonstration of firmness and strength. Not only was Austria's
ultimatum to Servia approved of in advance by the rulers of Germany,
but, according to all information, it was actually inspired from that
quarter. The evidence is plainly set forth in the very same White Book
which professional and amateur diplomats offer as a document of the
Hohenzollern love of peace.
After defining the aims of Greater Servian propaganda and the
machinations of Czarism in the Balkans, the White Book states:
"Under such conditions Austria was forced to the realization
that it was not compatible with the dignity or the
self-preservation of the Monarchy to look on at the doings
across the border and remain passive. The Imperial Government
informed us of this view and asked for our opinion. We could
sincerely tell our ally that we agreed with his estimate of the
situation and could assure him that any action he might find
necessary to put an end to the movement in Servia against the
Austrian Monarchy would meet with our approval. In doing so, we
were well aware of the fact that eventual war operations on the
part of Austria-Hungary might bring Russia into the field and
might, according to the terms of our alliance, involve us in a
war.
"But in view of the vital interests of Austria-Hungary that were
at stake, we could not advise our ally to show a leniency
incompatible with his dignity, or refuse him our support in a
moment of such grave portent. We were the less able to do so
because our own interests also were vitally threatened by the
persistent agitation in Servia. If the Serbs, aided by Russia
and France, had been allowed to go on endangering the stability
of our neighboring Monarchy, this would have led to the gradual
breakdown of Austria and to the subjection of all the Slavic
races to the Russian rule. And this in turn would have made the
position of the Germanic race in Central Europe quite
precarious. An Austria morally weakened, breaking down before
the advance of Russian Pan-Slavism, would not be an ally with
whom we could reckon and on whom we could depend, as we are
obliged to depend, in the face of the increasingly threatening
attitude of our neighbors to the East and the West. We
therefore left Austria a free hand in its action against
Servia."
The relation of the ruling class in Germany to the Austro-Servian
conflict is here fully and clearly defined. It is not merely that
Germany was informed by the Austrian Government of the latter's
intentions, not merely that she approved them, and not merely that she
accepted the consequences of fidelity to an ally. No, Germany looked on
Austria's aggression as unavoidable, as a saving act for herself, and
actually made it _a condition of the continuance of the alliance_.
Otherwise, "Austria would not be an ally with whom we could reckon."
The German Marxists were fully aware of this state of affairs and of the
dangers lurking in it. On June 29th, a day after the murder of the
Austrian Archduke, the _Vorwaerts_ wrote as follows:
"The fate of our nation has been all too closely knit with that
of Austria as a result of a bungling foreign policy. Our rulers
have made the alliance with Austria the basis of our entire
foreign policy. Yet it becomes clearer every day that this
alliance is a source of weakness rather than of strength. The
_problem of Austria_ threatens more and more to become a _menace
to the peace of Europe_."
A month later, when the menace was about to culminate in the dread
actuality of war, on July 28th, the chief organ of the German Social
Democracy wrote in equally definite terms. "How shall the German
proletariat act in the face of such a senseless paroxysm?" it asked; and
then gave the answer: "_The German proletariat is not in the least
interested in the preservation of the Austrian national chaos_."
Quite the contrary. Democratic Germany is far more interested in the
disruption than in the preservation of Austria-Hungary. A disrupted
Austria-Hungary would mean a gain to Germany of an educated population
of twelve million and a capital city of the first rank, Vienna. Italy
would achieve national completion, and would cease to play the role of
the incalculable factor that she always has been in the Triple Alliance.
An independent Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, and a Balkan Federation
including a Roumania of ten million inhabitants on the Russian frontier,
would be a mighty bulwark against Czarism. And most important of all, a
democratic Germany with a population of 75,000,000 Germans could easily,
without the Hohenzollerns and the ruling Junkers, come to an agreement
with France and England and could isolate Czarism and condemn its
foreign and internal policies to complete impotence. A policy directed
towards this goal would indeed be a policy of liberation for the people
of Russia as well as of Austria-Hungary. But such a policy requires an
essential preliminary condition, namely, that the German people, instead
of entrusting the Hohenzollerns with the liberation of other nations,
should set about liberating themselves from the Hohenzollerns.
The attitude of the German and Austro-Hungarian Social Democracy in this
war is in blatant contradiction to such aims. At the present moment it
seems convinced of the necessity of preserving and strengthening the
Hapsburg Monarchy in the interests of Germany or of the German nation.
And it is absolutely from this anti-democratic viewpoint--which drives
the blush of shame to the cheek of every internationally minded
Socialist--that the _Wiener Arbeiter-Zeitung_ formulates the historical
meaning of the present War, when it declares "it is primarily a war [of
the Allies] against the German spirit."
"Whether diplomacy has acted wisely, whether this has had to come, time
alone can decide. Now the fate of the German nation is at stake! And
there can be no hesitation, no wavering! The German people are one in
the inflexible iron determination not to bend to the yoke, and neither
death nor devil can succeed"--and so forth and so on. (_Wiener
Arbeiter-Zeitung_, August 5th.) We will not offend the political and
literary taste of the reader by continuing this quotation. Nothing is
said here about the mission of liberating other nations. Here the object
of the war is to preserve and secure "German humanity."
The defense of _German_ culture, _German_ soil, _German_ humanity seems
to be the mission not only of the German army but of the
Austro-Hungarian army as well. Serb must fight against Serb, Pole
against Pole, Ukranian against Ukranian, for the sake of "_German_
humanity." The forty million non-German nationalities of
Austria-Hungary are considered as simply historical manure for the field
of German culture. That this is not the standpoint of international
Socialism, it is not necessary to point out. It is not even pure
national democracy in its most elementary form. The Austro-Hungarian
General Staff explains this "humanity" in its communique of September
18th: "All peoples of our revered monarchy, as our military oath says,
'against any enemy no matter whom,' must stand together as one, vying
with one another in courage."
The _Wiener Arbeiter-Zeitung_ accepts in its entirety this
Hapsburg-Hohenzollern viewpoint of the Austro-Hungarian problem as an
unnational military reservoir. It is the same attitude as the
militarists of France have toward the Senegalese and the Moroccans, and
the English have toward the Hindus. And when we consider that such
opinions are not a new phenomenon among the German Socialists of
Austria, we have found the main reason why the Austrian Social Democracy
broke up so miserably into national groups, and thus reduced its
political importance to a minimum.
The disintegration of the Austrian Social Democracy into national parts
fighting among themselves, is one expression of the inadequacy of
Austria as a state organization. At the same time the attitude of the
German-Austrian Social Democracy proved that it was itself the sorry
victim of this inadequacy, to which it capitulated spiritually. When it
proved itself impotent to unite the many-raced Austrian proletariat
under the principles of Internationalism, and finally gave up this task
altogether, the Austro-German Social Democracy subordinated all
Austria-Hungary and even its own policies to the "Idea" of Prussian
Junker Nationalism. This utter denial of principles speaks to us in an
unprecedented manner from the pages of the _Wiener Arbeiter-Zeitung_.
But if we listen more carefully to the tones of this hysterical
nationalism we cannot fail to hear a graver voice, the voice of history
telling us that the path of political progress for Central and
Southeastern Europe leads over the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian
Monarchy.