CONTENTS - ouroboros ponderosa

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of C()L11l (kss works is V it; nlla 's sl r:lIIg(" ;lI lIlo. ... phl" 1(· t)' · · .... Ollll·' hi II}'. ("nrll i II
visihly tll an nd ." Hofsthmallllthal's I'Jl'klra nil·s . .. ( 'an (Jill' Iir'cay Ii . ..
a rotten corpse'!" His slriking play of the ,alll lIam is thl ' perkl'l
artifact of imperial Vienna, in its vision of disaste r. III fact, the drama is
an extremely apt allcgory of Europe at large, portraying the obsessiVl'
need for a bloodletting out of a terror of death.
As Norman Stonc put it, "Official circles in Austria-Hungary calculated
general conflict in Europe was their only alternative to civil war. , ," Thus
the ultimatum served on Serbia, following the death by Serbians of Franz
Ferdinand, was merely a pretext for war with Russia and that general
conflict. War was declared on Scrbia, with the corresponding involvemcnt
of Russia, despite the acceptance of the ultimatum; Serbia's capitulation,
widely hailed as Austria's "hrilliant diplomatic coup," therefore meant
nothing. The immense significance of Austria's internal problems
dcmanded war and a more complete reliance on its perennial school of
civic virtues, the Hapsburg army.
Very critical to the Success of this tactic was the organizational
hegemony of the Marxian mass party over the working classes. The
Austrian Social Democratic Party, most degenerate of the Euro p ean left,
was actually committed to the maintenance of the monarchy and its
federative reorganization."
When war came, it was billed as an unavoidable defense against the
menacing eastern behemoth, Russia. The left, of course , cast its
parliamentary votes in favor of war and immediately instituted war
measures against work stoppages and other forms of insubordination.
Although some Czechs threw down their arms upon being ordered
against Russia, hostilities were initiated without serious resistancc." But,
in the worlds of Arthur May, "Disaffection and discontent among the
rank and file" took only months before thc prosecution of the war was
"seriously affected.""
Food riots were common by 1915 and had spread to the heart of
Vienna by late 1916. Professor Josef Redlich's journal recorded that the
popUlation seemed pleased when Prime Minister Strugkh was shot to
death by a renegadc Socialist in October 1916. The Social Democratic
Party was completely dedicated, meanwhile, to the "cooperation of all
classes," and it organized Scores of peace meetings-not of an antiwar
variety, but to restrain the masses from breaches of the "domestic
pcace. "18
With people wearied, bled dry by fo ur years of apocalypse, rule was
preserved following the collapse of the dynasty by the remaining servants
of power. The Social Democrats continued their basic role with the
,
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I '.I I· MI'N"'\ ( 'I · RI · J· ( IS.-\I I ,I')
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('q(l:olly ;(llli-rl'vIlI(lllllll"ry , ll lStl,1Il '. I) ·moerats· and were to govern
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, (lst , I :I 1 m I .' e ye,1 .. rs " parallelong on many e ways that postwar prelude to
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1 ;('J'I11"1I NatIonal SoCla ' r ,sm, the We,mar R epu bll'c . In Hunoary 0 ' SIX
.
,
"" >I1ths ot SOCial ' 0 emocr at'c " rule was C .0 II owe ' d by the bureaucratlc-
. .
'"Ialltanan e t'f' orts 0 f B e la Kun s H unganan . SovI'et Republic (with Lukacs
:0' Commissar of Culture); four mon th of this Leninist failure were
(,Ilough to usher in the Horthy regIme, w at was to be a quarter-century
.. I' reaction.
.
.
f R I War, 10 th e casc 0 ussla , d'd not prevent a revolution from occur-
.
nng, ' b ut I 't s mam . moth ravages d' IC t a t e d the instant deformation 01 . t h at
. .
revolution-the VictOry 01 the Bolshcvik . project. The class structure 0 f
.
Romanov society was t 00 bankrupt to avol 'd deml'se' , Z . A . B . Zeman
"amazin ease of the dynastic collapse in
w rote,
o
RUSSia. But the II 'n p !r:I:let1 destrction and suffering of the milli
ns
: examplc
of combatants (and non-com b atan t s ). 111 1 'tself . rendered a whole, breathlllg rcvolution impossible.
.
.
H garian declaratIon a ,
The Austro- un
enabled a barely sufficien: respo:
arms; Pan-Slavlsm, not Czansm' :e
f war on small Slavic Serbia
t h Krcmlin's consequent call to
I:st pro-war chord that could be
d . Russia's war with Japan had
successfully struck by a doomc , rcg l m rfer m ent i n to calmer, patriotic
been a clear attempt to dl r n: ution. In 1914, only a victorious
channels; defeat sct off the
war could conceivably offer hope for the status quo. Barring war, "within
a short time, . " as G erm any's Pnnce von B u low wrote , "revolution would
. .
have broken out in Russia, where It was np e since the death of Alexan-
der III in 1894,"w
From 1909, vanous mtcrna . t' to n I incidents and crises, mainly in North
WI
th
Africa and the Balkans, arose r e g ularity to try to divert popular
attention in Europe f rom the gathenng socia ' I cnSIS. " Throughout the
West, authonty was deep l y on the defensive in this final period, and
. .
RUSSia IS no t an exceplion. .
' smce at I ea, 'st 1 "09 7 state weakness was a
. . .
glanng constant. B y then the memones . 0 f' post -1
905 repression were
.
f· a d' lIlg and
"the tcmpcr 0 f thc factory workers was turning revolutIonary
. 21
A d d' ontcnt was rising even faster d ue
again," accordmg to Taylor. r? IC the regime following Stolypin's
to the more reactionary po lles 0
assassination in 1 911 . : h n
k of the Lena gold fields were
l l : : attackcd by troops i of s
111
avagery not only failed to
p
cow the oppressed, but n f i; aroused workers all over Russia to a
, ;n act
I new wave of challeng·
e two ears before the war, the curve of
social disorder stea dI
y m u ed , maning that another year of peace
.
would surely have secn ncw and even more senous . u pheavals .