Culture and Political Crisis in Vienna: Christian Socialism in Power, 1897-1918 by John W. Boyer

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS121 Moreau's prize. But then personal piety is not,and should not be,bound by academic criteria. Marvin R. O'Connell University ofNotre Dame Culture and Political Crisis in Vienna: Christian Socialism in Power, 1897-1918. ByJohnW Boyer. (Chicago: University ofChicago Press. 1995. Pp. xvi, 702. $37.50.) Like its predecessor, this second and final volume ofJohn Boyer's history of the Christian Social Party in Habsburg Austria can be described as detailed, exhaustive , and definitive. In terms of its scholarship alone, Culture and Political Crisis in Vienna verges on the monumental, and when viewed in tandem with the earlier Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, it provides the conclusion for what collectively is now the standard work on the subject. That having been said, however, it must also be pointed out that this volume is more interpretively ambitious than the first and, therefore, contains more points for potential disagreement and debate. Boyer argues that the period from 1897 to 1918 is one of dramatic social, political , and cultural transition in which the Christian Socials played a significant and sometimes determinant part. Central to this process is die Christian Social Party's own transformation from an urban to a provincial political movement and its ultimate adoption of a more clerical and conservative character such that after 1918 it would no longer be recognizable as the party of Karl Lueger. This change was linked to Albert Gessmann and his vision of a Christian Social Reichspartei that would go beyond controlling Vienna and Lower Austria to encompass all of the German Crownlands. Such a party could more effectively defend the supranational character of the state, combat the revolutionary threat represented by social democracy, and push for parliamentary-based ministerial government. AU these goals were partiaUy realized, but at the ultimate cost of compromising Christian Socialism's urban and moderate Hberal origins in favor of a provincial and CathoUc conservative character. After the party's loss of its Viennese parliamentary constituency to the Social Democrats in 1911 its provincial character became more pronounced and its control of Vienna less important until it was completely eroded by the war and lost to the socialists in 1919. WhUe Boyer's main argument is convincing, his handling of related issues is more uneven. Central among these is that of state reform. Aside from the inconclusive results of universal manhood suffrage and Franz Ferdinand's problematic plans for change by fiat, Boyer lays heavy responsibiUty for the faUure to solve the Monarchy's political and nationality problems on the state administration , i.e., the ministers and bureaucrats. Given the opportunity to become more 122BOOK REVIEWS effective through reforms recommended by a pariiamentary commission in 191I-I913 it balked, and seemed ever too willing to resist party government and too anxious to play ethnically based interest poUtics. Perhaps, but in this analysis the possibUity of the state acting on its own initiative to solve its problems , as in the Ausgleiche for Moravia, Bukovina, and Galicia, is given Uttle credibiUty . FranzJoseph also has practicaUy no role in this scenario. Despite Boyer's introductory statements to the contrary, he comes close to making a Sonderweg argument about the coUapse ofthe Empire in which a somewhat compUcit Christian Socialism nevertheless tends to be on the side ofthe normative angels against a benighted state. More successful is Boyer's contention that the relationship between the Christian Socials and the Social Democrats became that of" opposing world views of conservative CathoUc versus revolutionary anticlerical. This resulted in a Kulturkampf that brought into being the CathoUc inteUectual leadership under Ignaz Seipel that would dominate the Christian Social Party in the First RepubUc. Indeed, the conclusion to the book emphasizes the pre-1918 origins of subsequent conflicts,yet that connected with die Christian Social heritage of anti-Semitism is given Uttle emphasis. For the time up to 1914, Boyer handles the issue of anti-Semitism weU, arguing its containment within the bounds of the Rechtsstaat and the party's essential insincerity on the issue. He declines, however, to say what the party's revival of anti-Semitism during the war and its incorporation into Seipel's program indicates about Christian Social responsibiUty for...