Politics and Pedagogy

In the half decade between the depression and the insurrection of February 1934 the Austrian Social Democratic Party faced a series of challenges to its until then almost uncontested political strategy and hegemony. Only recently has this often discordant and at times even explosive internal history of party begun to emerge.' Perhaps the most important episode in the development of a growing opposition within the party was the emergence of the Jungfront in 1931 and 1932, largely made up of unemployed adolescents too old for the organized youth movement and too young for the party's adult organization. This group was not a faction but an autonomous body, outside the existing party structure, a spontaneous expression of social and political discontent within the Social Democratic sphere of influence. The Jungfront challenge revealed a growing division between the party leadership and the social groups, particularly the unemployed, that it attempted to encompass in a period of serious economic crisis and growing political tension. Moreover, the episode points to the impact of wider social changes on the stability and cohesion of Social Democratic parties, as well as to the ability of these parties to deal with such challenges. Perhaps more important for the Austrian situation, the Jungfront was the precursor of a more widespread and better organized opposition movement which emerged from it and confronted the Social Democratic leadership, particularly Otto Bauer, at the extraordinary Party Congress of October 1933.2 The appearance of the Jungfront was the first sign of the rank and file opposition which developed within the party on the eve of the Austrian insurrection.