With Herbert Bartik
February 2, 2000
Railworkers took the initiative in launching demonstrations against the entry of theextreme right wing Freedom Party of Haider into the new government on the third ofFebruary. Since that day, students and other young people have not stopped hitting thestreets of Vienna and other towns in Austria. This country has definitely broken with itssmooth and consensual past. Today class struggle in its different forms is again on theorder of the day. We spoke with Herbert Bartik, activist of the Vienna Socialist Youth andof the Marxist paper Der Funke about the sudden upheaval.
New Youth: Do we have to be afraid of Haider?
HB: Well, we have to be aware of the danger that Haider and hisFreedom Party represents. It is an extreme right wing party but it does not represent afascist movement as such. It represents a wing of Austrian capital which wants to bring anend to social partnership. It would be more accurate to compare the Freedom Party (FPÖ)to the old Bavarian CSU of Franz Josef Strauss. Its programme is one of social cuts andultra-liberal deregulation and "flexibility". But to gain popularity it makesuse of social demagogy. At the end of the 1940s when it was formed, the party definitelyhad fascist roots, basing its support on ex-Nazis. It still maintains this basis andHaider has to satisfy them, in words at least. That explains his positive comments on the"labour policy" of Hitler and on the concentration camps which were just"jails" in his eyes and on the "worthy" SS officers. Despite this wecannot say that the Freedom Party today is a fascist party. This does not mean we arecomplacent about them. Haider is an extreme right-wing reactionary with an anti-workingclass policy. With his racist and xenophobic demagogy, he can be a pacemaker for fascism,preparing the ground for even more vicious reactionary movements in the future.
New Youth: What does this coalition intend to do?
HB: They want to privatise state-owned industries (railways, the postoffice, etc), They want to cut pensions, to introduce tuition fees for students, andreduce the "social wage" of the workers (through cuts in social securitycontributions by the bosses). This is in reality the full programme of the Conservatives.The Freedom Party accepted every letter of it in an effort to prove it can be reliable,that it can be trusted, and that it is not a Nazi group. This will create frictions withits popular base.
New Youth: How does the Socialist Party respond to this?
HB: We must make clear that the 13 year-long coalition of theSocialist Party (SPÖ) with the Conservative Peoples Party (ÖVP) and its policy ofconstant cuts has prepared the rise of Haider. Also we must not forget that it was aSocial Democratic Minister of Interior who moved racist legislation, which was greatlyresponsible for cultivating a xenophobic mood. The SPÖ's election campaign centred aroundthe idea that Austria has become the seventh richest country of the OECD and thatAustrians "have never had it so good." Haider's party on the contrary argueddemagogically that "something was going wrong in the country," talked about theincrease of "stress in the workplace," and this connected with the experience ofquite a lot of people. Haider went even further and proposed more money for young mothersand better child care. Opinion polls show that the immigrant question was only in fourthplace as far as people's motivation towards voting for the Freedom Party. So this was notthe decisive factor.
It was especially non-unionised workers who voted for this party, which succeeded inwinning 40% of all working class votes. Workers have growing difficulties identifying withthe Socialist Party and its policies. The bulk of the Freedom Party's electorate comesfrom small shopkeepers out of their problems. The decision taken by the Socialist Partynot to form a new coalition with the Conservatives was a step in the right direction.Haider has tried in the past to recruit massively but he failed to do this. At best he has40,000 members, whilst the Socialist Party has 400,000 members. Even his "union"based on a split of the official unions never won more than 5,000 to 6,000 members (mostof them policemen). It failed to win further ground. Haider's support is largely passiveelectoral support. Looked at from this angle the Freedom Party is more like a movementthan a real mass party.
New Youth: Are you saying that the Socialist Party leaders havelearned the lesson from these events?
HB: Not at all. They have learned nothing. Viktor Klime, the chairmanof the SPÖ was determined to relaunch the coalition. For this he was ready to abandon allthe party's policies and embrace those of the Conservatives. He is a pupil of Schroederand Blair. But he failed thanks to the pressure of the rank and file of the unions ontheir leaders. The message from different union leaders was as follows: "if youaccept this program we will leave the party." After the party leaders realised thatany chance for a renewal of the coalition had disappeared, they even tried to ask for someco-operation with Haider himself. But he refused. These leaders are desperate over thepossible loss of their jobs and positions in the government and the state which they haveoccupied for 30 years. But now at the next congress of the party, two candidates willstand for the election of party chairperson. One of them is a kind of left reformist andformer Minister of Science.
New Youth: What is the alternative to Haider?
HB: The protests of the last few days are a step in the rightdirection. It is also the first time the rank and file of the unions did not accept theParty's policies and actively participated to pressurise their leaders to reject thepension reform, for instance. The SPÖ and the unions represent a very strong force inAustria. The party has still 65 members of parliament, and the unions organise some 1.5million workers. No government could rule against its will. After the elections, and whenthe coalition discussions were going on, we proposed that the SPÖ should form a minoritygovernment to put into practice a socialist policy, relying on the strength of the unions.Austria is being polarised as never before. It looks as if it is rising to the Europeanlevel of class struggle. It will reach new levels with the decision of the majority ofAustrian capital to break with the "social partnership". This is preparing a bigreaction on the part of the workers. New and positive opportunities are presentingthemselves for the ideas of Marxism. People are looking for a way out of the impasse ofreformism. First of all, the huge anti-racist demonstrations of young radicalised studentsand workers (not many people know that the first demonstrations against Haider's partyentering the government were organised by the railworkers union), and secondly theopposition of the unions against privatisation will provide fertile ground for the spreadof Marxist ideas.
Be sure to visit the Austrian Marxist magazine Der Funke, and the Austrian Marxists' anti-racism and anti-fascism website: Jungend Kaempft