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A Consciously Un-Revolutionary 
Revolution 

Salzburg 1918 
 
 
Cole Ashkenazy 
McGill University 
 
 
Abstract  
As the Habsburg Monarchy ended in fall 1918, the Salzburg Social Democratic Workers’ 
Party almost never mentioned the word revolution in association with Austria or Salzburg. 
Yet in later years it would organize celebratory demonstrations for the anniversary of the 
revolution. This article examines this change in attitude and addresses the idea of a 
revolution in Salzburg. In addition to the specific Austrian, regional, and local Salzburg 
contexts, the article confronts the central power of the word revolution: its ability to both 
legitimize and delegitimize political and social change. The research is based primarily 
upon three Salzburg newspapers, which each corresponded to a major political party of the 
time, as well as the stenographic protocols of the local government. 
 
 
Article 
As the Habsburg Monarchy ended, the decision to use, or not use, the word revolution to 
describe unfolding events mattered greatly. The Kommunistische Partei Österreichs 
(Communist Party of Austria; KPÖ) offered one example of why revolution mattered to it in 
a fictional Tragikomödie (tragicomedy) in which an Austrian soldier returning home from 
Russia in mid-September 1918 meets with the leader of the Austrian Social Democrats. The 
soldier comments that a revolution is inevitable in Austria, but the leader cuts him off to 
say “Wir in Oesterreich brauchen solche dummen Sachen nicht. Wir brauchen keine 
Revolution” (We don’t need such stupid things in Austria. We don’t need a revolution), 
before finishing the conversation with a request that the soldier keep their discussion a 
secret. The Tragikomödie skips ahead to October 1919 where the Socialist leader is giving a 
speech before a massive crowd and proclaims to rousing applause that “In wenigen Tagen 
fährt sich der Tag unserer glorreichen Revolution” (In a few days it will be the day of our 
glorious revolution). The leader goes on to take credit for the revolution and accidently 
reveals that a coalition government, not the revolution, was his desire.1 
 
The accusations the KPÖ levels at the Socialist leader, of celebrating revolution after not 
supporting it, appear well-suited to the Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei (Social 
Democratic Party; SDAP) in Salzburg. Through Communist eyes, the SDAP appears to hate 

 
1 Die Rote Fahne, 2 November 1919. When English follows German, all translations are my own.  



 

 

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the idea of revolution in 1918, but in little more than a year, the Socialists are 
disingenuously commemorating the “glorious revolution” for political gain, without 
believing in what it stands for.  
 
Salzburg and Revolution  
In the fall of 1918, the socialist newspaper Salzburger Wacht (Salzburg Watch) almost 
never mentioned the word revolution in association with Austria, while in later years it 
would advertise and support demonstrations for the anniversary of the revolution. What 
explains this change in attitude? The Communist view of a cynical, self-serving SDAP does 
not entirely match the evidence in the case of Salzburg. To explore why this change 
occurred, it is necessary to establish an understanding of how Socialists, and others in 
Salzburg, used the word revolution and thought of the idea of revolution. The KPÖ’s short 
scene, while unfair to the SDAP, highlights an important feature of the perception of 
revolution which carries over into Salzburg. Revolution was polarizing; it was either 
“stupid” or “glorious,” with little middle ground. Often there was awareness that both these 
views existed, which is why the Socialist leader in the Tragikomödie asks the returnee to 
keep quiet about their talk: the Socialist leader would lose support if it came out that he 
opposed revolution. For those in Salzburg in 1918, the decision to use the term revolution 
was not purely based on whether a situation fit a definition but also whether the baggage 
connected to revolution should be invoked. This baggage, which comprised the various 
people, ideas, events, and feelings associated with revolution, as well as the power and 
influence of those who supported the view, could and did change over time. In 1918 
Salzburg, multiple revolutions dating back to the French in 1789 were connected to the 
term revolution, but the most prominent were the recent 1917 Russian revolutions.  
Recalling the Tragikomödie’s Socialist leader who began celebrating revolution when it 
suited him, if one can invoke revolution to reap the benefits associated with the word and 
idea, can one conversely choose not to invoke revolution and distance oneself from the 
concept to avoid any of the negative associations? In other words, how much are the “good” 
and “bad” associations of revolution tied to revolution as a label, versus the actual events 
and processes which earn the title? In the Salzburg SDAP’s case both physical and temporal 
distance from revolutionary events proved to be the keys to their willingness to invoke 
revolution. The decision to use, or not use, the word revolution mattered greatly in Salzburg 
in 1918.  
 
The present subject, the use of the term revolution in Salzburg and its change over time, 
emerged from the question: Was there a revolution in Salzburg in 1918? The diversity of 
definitions and conceptions of revolution on offer made answering this question feel both 
inadequate and unsatisfying. Applying the works on revolution of various scholars and 
theorists, including Austro-Marxists, Francis Carsten, and Charles Tilly to Salzburg, 
highlighted a factor that distanced the topic from the question of whether there was a 
revolution, to how revolution was portrayed and seen. An overview of these works and 
how they relate to Salzburg will follow in the next section, but a commonality is that they 
all deal with institutions and structures more than people. As important as studying 
institutions and structures is, the people who create, inhabit, and interact with them must 
not be ignored. The sources on which this paper is based, primarily newspapers, do not 



 

 

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provide a grassroots perspective of what people thought and experienced in the revolution; 
however, they do present how political parties portrayed revolution to the majority of the 
population. In Salzburg the newspapers were an intersection between the political parties 
and the people; they were meant for public consumption, and while they influenced people, 
the people also influenced them. I do not know how people responded to these 
newspapers, but newspapers at least present how groups of writers, editors, and 
politicians thought about and described revolution. In this article, the question of whether 
there was a revolution in Salzburg is subsidiary to whether Salzburgers believed there was 
a revolution. 
 
The specific context of Salzburg also allows for the question which follows naturally from 
looking at how revolution was used: Did how actors at the time, or others afterwards, 
portray revolution, affect whether there was indeed a revolution? Salzburg is an excellent 
place to consider the portrayal of revolution for three main reasons. First, there is little 
written about Salzburg specifically on the topic of revolution, and no dedicated works in 
English focus on Salzburg in this period.2 Second, Salzburg has an excellent and easily 
accessible source base for the question of portrayal because there were three politically 
distinct newspapers, as well as the full stenographic protocols of the local Salzburg 
government.3 Finally, the evidence in Salzburg not only points to different uses and views 
of revolution, but also a change over time in certain groups’ and peoples’ usage of 
revolution.  
 
Before exploring this evidence, a few notes about language. Firstly, Salzburg refers to both 
the Land of Salzburg, Salzburg as a province or state, and the city proper, which when in 
need of distinction shall be referred to as Stadt Salzburg. Secondly, Socialists refers to the 
SDAP and its members, not just anyone who held socialist beliefs. With these clarifications 
in mind, the first section of this paper focuses on whether there was a revolution in 
Salzburg. Following this is an examination of how the revolution in Salzburg was portrayed 
in the fall of 1918.  The third section focuses on how the revolution was remembered, 
assessed mainly through its portrayal during periods of commemoration from 1919 to 
1928. The subsequent section proposes various possible explanations for why Salzburgers 
did, or did not, use revolution the way they did. The conclusion then explains how the 
Salzburg Socialists were consciously un-revolutionary in 1918.  
 
Was There a Revolution in Salzburg?   
Many different theories of or works on revolution could be used to answer this question, 
but here I only address three: Austro-Marxist theory, Francis Carsten’s study of the 1918 
revolutions in Austria and Germany, and Charles Tilly’s study of European revolutions. It is 
natural to apply Austro-Marxist thought to Salzburg in 1918, because as an intellectual 

 
2 For good examples addressing Salzburg in the period, but not addressing the question of revolution, see 
Ingrid Bauer, Von der alten Solidarität zur neuen sozialen Frage. Ein Salzburger Bilderlesebuch (Vienna: 
Europaverlag, 1988); and Ernst Hanisch, “Die sozialdemokratische Fraktion im Salzburger Landtag, 1918-
1934,” in Bewegung und Klasse. Studien zur österreichischen Arbeitergeschichte, eds. Gerhard Botz, Hans 
Hautmann, Helmut Konrad, and Josef Weidenholzer (Vienna: Europaverlag, 1978), 247-268.  
3 Stenographische Protokolle contain transcripts as well as reports and appendices. 



 

 

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orientation, it was not only native to the Habsburg Monarchy and Austria, but it was also a 
school of thought contemporary to the revolution. Prominent socialists, mostly in Vienna, 
such as Otto Bauer, Karl Renner, and Max Adler, developed Austro-Marxist theory, which 
informed many of the SDAP’s actions. Slightly before the First World War, an American 
socialist created the label of “Austro-Marxism” to describe the school of thought. Austro-
Marxism can be thought of as a middle ground between Marxist-Leninist Communism and 
more reform-oriented Social Democratic parties.4 That is to say that Austro-Marxists were 
supporters of revolution, but one that was more gradual. In 1919, Otto Bauer wrote that if 
the workers were to “suddenly take possession of the factories by force, [and] expel the 
capitalists” it would result in “a bloody civil war.” The solution? To “construct socialist 
society gradually”—but Bauer notes that this is not reformism because it is a mistake to 
believe that socialism can be made without a revolution. The Austro-Marxist revolution 
was thus a two-part revolution: a gradual social revolution that required the proletariat 
seizing political power “and the proletariat could and can seize power only by 
revolutionary means.”5 Max Adler explains that the first, political revolution means the 
“destruction and dissolution” of the established power.6 The idea of a more gradual 
revolution was present prior to the fall of 1918; for example, the Socialist Linken program 
of January 1918 stated that “unter der sozialen Revolution verstehen wir einen Jahre, 
vielleicht Jahrzehnte dauernden Prozeß” (by social revolution, we understand a process 
which will last for a year, maybe decades).7 The Austro-Marxist view of revolution 
recognizes the difficulty of quickly and utterly transforming society. Applying this theory to 
1918 Austria, a political revolution took place where a republic replaced the established 
monarchy. This replacement also took place in Salzburg, with local leaders organizing 
independently and supporting the Republic. The theory would not apply to Austria or 
Salzburg if one considered that the old order was not entirely destroyed with the Republic. 
Many politicians and bureaucrats in Salzburg and throughout Austria maintained their 
positions and power from the monarchy in the Republic. Francis Carsten embraces this 
critique and offers a view contrary to the Austro-Marxists: that the political and social 
revolutions needed to have happened together.   
 
Carsten describes defeated revolutions in both Austria and Germany in 1918/19.8 In the 
Austrian case, failure is ascribed to, but blame not attributed to, the Soldiers’ and Workers’ 
Councils not doing enough to secure radical change and easily relinquishing their power. In 
the same vein, the SDAP is criticized for not fully supporting these new places of democracy 
and organization. While he does not offer an explicit definition or theory, it is clear that 
Carsten places democratizing political and social institutional changes as central to 

 
4 Tom Bottomore and Patrick Goode, eds. and trans., Austro-Marxism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 1.  
5 Otto Bauer, Der Weg zum Sozialismus (1919), in Austro-Marxism, eds. and trans. Tom Bottomore and Patrick 
Goode (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 149-150.  
6 Max Adler, “Zur Soziologie der Revolution,” Der Kampf 12 (1928), in Austro-Marxism, eds. and trans. Tom 
Bottomore and Patrick Goode (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 146. Adler is quoting Karl Marx here.  
7 “Das Nationalitätenprogramm der Linken” (1918), in Österreichische Parteiprogramme, 1868-1966, ed. Klaus 
Berchtold (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1967), 160.   
8 Francis L. Carsten, Revolution in Central Europe, 1918-1919 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), 
esp. pp. 325-335.  



 

 

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revolution.9 Salzburg fits the broader Austrian case, where in getting rid of the monarchy, 
revolution managed limited democratizing change, but the councils and Socialists, wishing 
to maintain order, did not push back against the old social forces that had never been 
driven out. There was a revolution in Salzburg, but it was a failure. Charles Tilly’s 
conception of revolution also allows for failure to be taken into account.  
 
Tilly’s flexible framework of revolution draws a distinction between revolutionary 
situations and revolutionary outcomes.10 Applying his three proximate conditions for 
revolutionary situations to 1918 Salzburg shows that there was indeed a revolutionary 
situation. There were multiple contenders for control of the state (i), with both 
monarchists and republicans who were supported by large numbers (ii), and the ruling 
Habsburgs were unable to suppress the republicans (iii). In Salzburg, the SDAP and many 
German Nationalists openly supported a republic at the end of October, almost two weeks 
prior to the declaration of the Republic. There was also a revolutionary outcome in 1918 
Salzburg. The mass desertions of the army and the establishment of Soldiers’ Councils fulfill 
two of the conditions: neutralizing the regime’s army and revolutionaries in control of an 
armed force. The Councils proved to be very peaceful, and some might consider this to 
mean that they were not revolutionary. But the Councils were initially independent organic 
structures separate from the state and possessed the possibility of using armed force. 
Another condition which occurred in Salzburg was the defection of polity members. Many 
politicians who served under the Habsburgs began to organize in November, independent 
of orders from the monarch, and also quickly transitioned to serving the Republic. The final 
condition, “control of the state apparatus by members of a revolutionary coalition,” also fits 
Salzburg if one considers supporting the Republic to be revolutionary. In 1918, Austria and 
Salzburg both had a revolutionary situation and outcome, making it a fully fledged 
revolution based on Tilly’s framework.  
 
The answers that Salzburgers themselves gave in 1918 and later in memory also varied. 
Prior to the creation of the Republic, none of the Salzburg newspapers or politicians in the 
assembly used the word revolution to describe what was occurring locally at the time. Some 
groups were openly hostile to the idea of revolution, others were more ambivalent, and 
others were supportive of it abroad and, in all but name, at home. In the 1920s the 
Socialists moved to openly celebrating a revolution and the Republic together, explicitly 
referring to 1918. Greater details and examples will be given in the following two sections, 
but it is clear that different groups perceived revolution differently and that, within a 
group, their views changed over time.  
 
In an earlier iteration of this article, my own case for why revolution is an appropriate label 
for Salzburg would also have then been made. However, this changed when the focus of the 
paper shifted from “was there a revolution” to the use of the term revolution in Salzburg. 
The decision to use revolution and thus invoke its baggage not only varies between people 
and places and over time but also changes depending on someone’s purpose. Using a rigid 

 
9 Carsten, Revolution in Central Europe, 335.  
10 Charles Tilly, European Revolutions, 1492-1992 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), esp. pp. 49-50. 



 

 

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definition or even adaptable theory like Tilly’s is not how most people decide whether or 
not something is a revolution. The decision to call, or not to call, the events in 1918 
Salzburg a revolution is a moral choice.11 The decision in this article to use revolution, as 
opposed to transition of power or another term, depended on how and what I gathered 
from the evidence, how I conceived of revolution, what I associated with revolution, and 
what I wanted to project about the events in Salzburg and the idea of revolution more 
generally. The SDAP and other Salzburgers also naturally had their own reasons behind 
their decisions to use or not use revolution.  On this note, let us now see what occurred and 
how revolution was used in 1918 Salzburg. The reasons why Salzburgers used, or did not 
use, revolution—why they made the moral choices they did—will follow later.  
 
Revolution in Salzburg 
In Salzburg the three major political groups were all associated with one of the local 
newspapers. The Christian Socialist Party had the Salzburger Chronik (Salzburg Chronicle), 
the Salzburger Volksblatt (Salzburg People’s Journal) was the domain of the various 
German nationalist parties, and the Socialists had the Salzburger Wacht. The Wacht was 
directly the organ of the Salzburg SDAP, and Robert Preußler was both the paper’s editor-
in-chief and the leader of Salzburg’s Socialists. Each of these papers had a clear target 
audience: those in Salzburg who fit into their respective political camp. Salzburg was a 
small, mountainous, and practically ethnically homogenous, which is to say German-
speaking, state. These three newspapers will be followed from mid-October to the end of 
December 1918. The period was not selected because the revolution ended nicely on the 
final day of the year, but because these weeks encapsulate a period of great change and 
potential, including the ends of the war and monarchy and establishment of the Republic. 
The rest of November and December following the declaration of the Republic are included 
because the survival of the Republic was not guaranteed. The focus of this section is how 
the three newspapers used revolution and depicted the events in 1918. Throughout this 
section, the Arbeiter Zeitung, a Socialist newspaper from Vienna, will be used as a 
comparison. There were differences between Salzburg and Vienna, including that the 
capital had a greater SDAP presence than Salzburg.12 A great deal of context could be 
provided with respect to Austria and Salzburg in the days, months, and years leading up to 
the revolution. Instead, a single episode of September 19th, 1918, is enough to set the 
stage.  
 
The people of Salzburg were hungry. Years of warfare and blockade had taken their toll. On 
September 19th, a Demonstrationstreik (demonstration strike) for more food occurred in 
Stadt Salzburg. Thousands of people participated, but the orderly demonstration broke into 
looting and Ausschreitungen (riots). In response, the government forbade assemblies in the 

 
11 James Krapfl, Revolution with a Human Face: Politics, Culture, and Community in Czechoslovakia, 1989-1992 
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013), ch. 2, esp. p. 34. The moral choice here is regarding which plot 
people, in this case Czechoslovaks, chose to employ to narrate the history of the 1989 revolution.  
12 Vienna receives a dominant amount of attention in scholarship not only on the topic of revolution in 1918, 
but for interwar Austria as a whole. The comparison here is to present a situation which is typically seen as 
more revolutionary than that of Salzburg, because in Vienna, there were more crowds in the street, and it was 
the seat of the national government.  



 

 

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streets and squares, heavily censored newspapers from telling the whole story, and called 
Hungarian soldiers into the city to keep order. Responses in the press varied; the German 
nationalist Volksblatt appeared sympathetic to the strike but was thoroughly in support of 
the reestablishment of order, even encouraging people to report to the police if they knew 
any details about rioters. The Christian Socialist Chronik largely agreed with the Volksblatt 
but was less sympathetic—this could have been censored—and more heavily emphasized 
the looting. The Socialist Wacht considered the demonstrations to be completely 
reasonable and supported them. After the riots, the SDAP stated it would work with Vienna 
to improve food supplies. Additionally, while there is reference to “Anarchie” (anarchy), the 
Wacht also points out the negative side of having Hungarian troops in the city as well as 
that at least fifty people were arrested.13 The fact the demonstration dissolved into 
disorder is something to keep in mind when reading of Salzburgers’ reactions and actions 
in late October and early November. After September 19th, it is not surprising that looting 
was a major concern of Salzburgers who experienced a demonstration turning into a riot. 
 
The last days of October had newspaper headlines dominated with war, peace, ceasefire, 
and the end of the monarchy. There was no consensus in Salzburg over what qualified as a 
revolution in 1918, as we can see the Chronik refer to an “Umsturz” (takeover) in Hungary, 
and the Volksblatt call it a “Revolution” on the 31st.14 All three newspapers used the word 
revolution to refer to a foreign event at least once, but none ever used it in relation to 
German-Austria. Revolution was in their vocabulary and was an option to describe events. 
Despite revolution not being explicitly invoked, the end of the monarchy and desire for a 
republic was a popular topic in late October. “Genug der Worter!” (Enough words!) The 
Wacht was clear on the 31st with this headline referring to the option of a republic; it 
wanted a democracy for German-Austria. The Czechs and South Slavs establishing their 
own states had shown the Wacht that “das Alte stirbt!” (the old dies!), which meant an 
opportunity for the new.15 Already on the 25th, workers in Salzburg began organizing 
themselves, including with advertisements in the Wacht.16 The German nationalist 
Volksblatt agreed with the Socialists—at least in the case of wanting democracy; on the 
29th, they declared that “jezt sind wir frei!” (now we are free!), referring both to freedom 
from monarchy as a form of government but also its multi-ethnic character.17 In Vienna, the 
SDAP called for a republic on October 21st in the new national Council, and later the 
prominent Socialist Max Adler would support a revolution to achieve democracy.18  Not all 
were pleased with the call for a republic. A demonstration for an Austrian Republic in 
Vienna earned the ire of the Christian Socialist Salzburger Chronik. Not only was it a 
“Putschversuch” (an attempted Putsch), but to rush the declaration of a republic was to 
“spiel mit Feuer” (play with fire).19 The worry here is that order would be upset. Another 

 
13 See the Salzburger Chronik (SCH); Salzburger Volksblatt (SVB); and Salzburger Wacht (SBW) for 19-24 
September 1918. 
14 SCH, 31 October 1918, 1; and SVB, 31 October 1918, 1.  
15 SBW, 31 October 1918, 1.  
16 SBW, 25 October 1918, 4. 
17 SVB, 29 October 1918, 1. They also mentioned the Czechoslovaks and South Slavs as an example.  
18 Arbeiter Zeitung (AZ), 29 October 1918, 2-3.  
19 SCH, 31 October 1918, 1. 



 

 

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theme of these early days in Salzburg was the idea of maintaining order, specifically in the 
phrase “Ruhe und Ordnung” (peace and order).20  
 
In the first days of November, prior to the official declaration of a Republic on the 12th, 
peace and order were a common topic in Salzburg. For example, a Volksblatt headline read 
“Ruhe, Ordnung, und Selbstzucht” (peace, order, and self-discipline).21 The power behind 
the idea of peace and order was not only that it promised relief from the current crises but 
also that these crises had been going on for many years of warfare and hardship. On the 
7th, the provisional Salzburg government, made up of all three parties with each having a 
position in the three-man presidency, met for the first time. These presidents echoed the 
message of peace and order with calls to stop looting and robbery. They also emphasized 
that this Austria was a new state and focused their immediate objectives on security and 
feeding the people.22 It is notable that the former Salzburg governor, Eduard Rambousek, 
was arrested for embezzling and using his position to sell food during the war. None of the 
newspapers used this as an opportunity to bring up the September 19th 
demonstration/riots. Perhaps the risk of the chaos recurring was seen as too great.23 The 
old army was also gone; in its place were the Salzburg Volkswehr (literally Peoples’ Guard), 
the new armed force of Austria, and Soldiers’ Councils. A pattern throughout the fall was 
these groups emphasizing that they were apolitical. This is likely because of how concerned 
the non-Socialists were of these organizations becoming dominated by Socialists.24 The 
Salzburg Soldiers’ Councils promoting peace and order, instead of attempting to radically 
alter society, recalls Francis Carsten’s criticism of the Austrian Soldiers’ and Workers’ 
Councils not establishing a strong enough power base separate from the republicans.25 The 
Volkswehr and Soldiers’ Councils both stated that they would maintain order and then 
acted accordingly. For example, the Wacht had a Volkswehr advertisement for many days 
emphasizing that the Volkswehr were able to secure “Demokratie, zum Schutze der 
Familien und unserer Heimat, Aufrechterhaltung der Ruhe und Ordnung” (democracy, 
defend families and our homeland, maintain peace and order).26 This was also in response 
to an actual need, for Salzburg was in some ways occupied. There were approximately 
10,000 foreign soldiers in the province, mostly returning to their native lands from the 
front, and looting was a major concern.27 In this period, none of the newspapers used the 
word revolution to refer to Austria, but other countries were a different matter. The 
Chronik and Volksblatt used revolution to describe events in Germany, but while very 

 
20 SVB, 31 October 1918, 3. 
21 SVB, 2 November 1918, 1. 
22 Verhandlungen der provisorischen Salzburger Landesversammlungen, vom 7. November 1918 bis 18. März 
1919 (Salzburg: Zaunrith’schen Buchdruckerei, 1919), 7-13. 
23 AZ, 8 November 1918, 3.  
24 Charlie Jeffery, Social Democracy in the Austrian Provinces, 1918-1934: Beyond Red Vienna (Leicester: 
Leicester University Press, 1995), 24. The SVB and SCH are concerned about this; for an example, see SCH, 8 
November 1918; and SCH, 9 November 1918.  
25 Carsten, Revolution in Central Europe, 325-335. 
26 SBW, 5-9 November 1918.  
27 Bauer, Von der alten Solidarität, 84. 



 

 

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supportive of the Republic in Germany, the Wacht did not yet use the word revolution. The 
Arbeiter Zeitung also used revolution to describe Germany.28    
 
A short article from the November 8th Arbeiter Zeitung reveals that there was talk of 
revolution regarding Austria in Vienna. Prior to the “Revolutionswoche” (Revolution week), 
Vienna was meant to have two sections of the Ringstraße renamed after the Kaiser and his 
wife. The replacement of the signs never occurred because revolution broke out. The article 
ends with a joke that perhaps the street signs were “das einzig Alte, das die Revolution 
verteidigt” (the only old things the revolution defends).29 To joke about revolution as it is 
happening is far from the silence seen in Salzburg. The Arbeiter Zeitung also used revolution 
heavily in its coverage of the November 12th declaration of a republic. They considered the 
German-Austrian revolution not only to have been “unblutige” (not bloody), but also that it 
was not over: “der Weltkriege ist beendet. Die soziale Revolution hat begonnen” (the World 
War is over. The social revolution has begun).30 
 
The word revolution, used in relation to Austria, was absent from the media in Salzburg on 
November 12th. The Volksblatt and Chronik both published an announcement from the 
three presidents calling for the unity of farmers, workers, and city-dwellers, and for “Ruhe 
und Ordnung.”  The end of the monarchy and the creation of a republic was the major story 
in all three Salzburg newspapers, but the Wacht also emphasized something else. The 
Socialists stated that they desired Austrian unity with Germany; in the same sentence the 
Wacht also congratulated Germany on the “siegreiche deutsche Revolution” (victorious 
German revolution).31 More so than even calling for a republic, this was the closest the 
SDAP in Salzburg got to using the word revolution in association with Austria. The Wacht 
noted that on the 14th there was a spontaneous demonstration in Salzburg to celebrate the 
Republic, with Robert Preußler and many soldiers in attendance, some of whom waved red 
flags.32 Prior to the Republic, and even after, there is no sign of the SDAP organizing any 
mass events, unlike what it would go on to do in later years.    
 
Following the proclamation of the Republic and until the end of the year, old patterns 
continued, but new ones also emerged. The provisional government continued to 
emphasize security, “Ruhe und Ordnung,” and feeding the population.33 The fears of 
Socialist domination of the Volkswehr also continued.  The SDAP was aware of these fears 
and tried to quell them, with Preußler declaring that the soldiers should read all three local 
newspapers.34 A threat which seemed newly invigorated was the fear of Communism, 
because of the attempted Red Guard coup in Vienna on November 12th. The Chronik and 
Volksblatt both attacked Communism—they wanted Austria to avoid Russian “Chaos”—but 

 
28 SCH, 11 November 1918,1; SVB, 9 November 1918, 1; SBW, 10 November 1918, 1; AZ, 9 November 1918, 1. 
The SBW also refers to a revolution in Bavaria.  
29 AZ, 5 November 1918, 8.  
30 AZ, 12 November 1918, 4.  
31 SCH; SVB; and SBW, 12 November 1918, 1.  
32 SBW, 15 November 1918, 3. 
33 Verhandlungen, see the 20 November 1918 session, esp. p. 73.  
34 SVB, 18 December 1918, 2-3. 



 

 

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the Chronik went further and attacked revolution.  A long article in the Chronik described 
the dangers that existed so long as the “rote Flagge der Revolution” (red flag of revolution) 
existed and that it was irresponsible to be constantly talking about the revolution.35 The 
Chronik and Volksblatt were also united in how pleased they were when foreign journalists 
observed that there were no troubles in the area, one even referring to “Revolution” in 
quotation marks, and another observing that the Vienna revolution was not at all red.36 The 
word revolution was also used in the Wacht more often than before. On November 20th, an 
article about the danger of reactionaries in Austria referred to the “Ereignissen der 
Revolution” (events of the revolution).37 Following this, when the Wacht used the term 
revolution in reference to Austria, it was most often qualified in some way. The most 
common qualifier was to emphasize that the revolution was already over. In general, the 
Socialists used the term revolution in positive contexts, such as to share what the SDAP had 
done to help women before the revolution.38 Already in 1918, a divide existed between the 
Chronik and the Wacht in how they used the word revolution, and in the following years it 
would become starker.  
 
Remembering the Revolution  
The pattern with which each political group remembered the events of fall 1918 in the 
years from 1919 to 1928 will be addressed separately. From 1919 to 1924, the Chronik 
does not indicate the existence of any Christian Socialist celebration to commemorate any 
of the events of 1918. There were occasionally articles on November 12th, marking the 
anniversary of the republic, such as in 1919 and 1922.39 Most often, the fall was an 
opportunity to attack the SDAP and the idea of revolution. In 1919, the Chronik declared 
that “die Treuen Katholiken haben die Revolution nicht gemacht” (true Catholics had not 
made revolution), and in 1921, they described how the Christian worker had outlasted 
both the war and the revolution.40 Revolution was also associated directly with the SDAP, 
and a particularly antisemitic example from 1920 is found in the Chronik’s report of the 
SDAP celebration the previous day: the SDAP not only celebrated the Staatsfeiertag (state 
holiday) as a day of revolution, but it was also interesting that the Chronik considered the 
attendance of a Vienna Jew to be particularly noteworthy.41 In the Chronik’s view, many 
negative associations were being made, between the SDAP, revolution, Jews, and Vienna. 
This same pattern of sporadic recognition and attacks against the SDAP carried over from 
1925 to 1928. The notable difference of this period was that in 1925 and 1928, there were 
military parades in Salzburg for 12th. The general sentiment from 1925 was that it was a 
show of strength for the Vaterland (Fatherland), but in 1928 it was mainly portrayed as a 
show of strength against the SDAP and its own demonstration.42  This opposition to the 
SDAP demonstration fits a broader Austrian pattern of non-Socialists finding the SDAP 

 
35 SVB, 13 November 1918, 1-4; and SCH, 10 December 1918, 1.  
36 The articles are found in each the SVB and SCH on 25 and 26 November 1918.  
37 SBW, 20 November 1918, 2. 
38 SBW, 5 December 1918, 1. 
39 SCH, 12 November 1919, 1; and 12 November 1922, 1. 
40 SCH, 29 October 1919, 1; and 22 October 1922, 1. 
41 SCH, 14 November 1920, 2. 
42 SCH, 13 November 1925, 3; and 10 November 1928, 7. 



 

 

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celebrations of May 1st and November 12th intimidating.43 Before turning to the SDAP, the 
Volksblatt will be addressed briefly.  
 
As with the Chronik, the Volksblatt noted the anniversary of the republic only sporadically 
and rarely reported on public celebrations. When the “Nationalfeiertag” or any anniversary 
was noted, the word revolution was often not used. The Nationalists also sporadically 
attacked the SDAP. While it is difficult to discern a pattern or trend, prior to 1923 more 
positivity was associated with fall 1918, such as comments on the end of the monarchy or 
lack of a Rätediktatur (council dictatorship) like in Hungary.44 Starting around 1924, ideas 
of revanchism or unhappiness became more common.45 An interesting case is a National 
Socialist ad in 1927, which stated: “Zum neunten Male jährt sich der Tag der Revolution. 
Was hat sie uns gebracht?” (It’s been nine years since the day of revolution. What has it 
brought us?).46 While the Nazis were not (yet) representative of the Volksblatt, this 
sentiment of “what has revolution brought us” was repeated, though not extensively.47 The 
lack of commemoration on the part of the Volksblatt and Chronik is manifest when 
compared to the Wacht.  
 
The SDAP in Salzburg regularly celebrated the revolution and the republic together. While I 
do not have access to the Wacht from fall 1919, from 1920 onward, the revolution was 
remembered every year, and from 1921 on, it was celebrated with special events. The 
SDAP explicitly and repeatedly used the word revolution to refer to fall 1918. A phrase 
consistently used during these years was the “Errungenschaften der Revolution” 
(achievements of the revolution). Some typical achievements that were celebrated, 
included the end of the monarchy, the avoidance of Bolshevism, and the republic itself. A 
typical example of a Wacht issue from this period is that of November 11th, 1922.48 An 
image of a worker holding a large flag, emblazoned with the name of the SDAP, stands 
before a massive crowd around the parliament in Vienna. This image creates an association 
between the party, revolution, workers, and republic. The picture is also noteworthy 
because images at this time in the Wacht were extremely rare; there might be political 
cartoons, but larger pieces of art were saved for special occasions. Art was used to 
celebrate the revolution multiple times in the decade following 1918. The accompanying 
article is also typical, because it associates the revolution and republic with then current 
events and struggles, in this case criticizing the power of the “Faszisten [sic]” (fascist) 
Heimwehr (literally home guard), which was a fascist paramilitary group.  The same 
pattern of associating revolution and republic, of large celebrations, of artwork, and of 
connecting the revolution to current struggles is seen in the Arbeiter Zeitung in Vienna.49 Is 
it possible that Salzburg was taking the lead from Vienna? Absolutely, though the Wacht’s 

 
43 Jeffery, Social Democracy, 26, 67. 
44 SVB, 7 November 1921, 1; and 29 October 1919, 1. 
45 For an example of revanchism see SVB, 12 November 1924. 
46 SVB, 11 November 1927, 13. 
47 SVB, 31 October 1927, 2. 
48 SBW, 11 November 1922. The run of the SBW that was not available digitally goes from March 31 to 
December 31, 1919.  
49 A typical issue is AZ, 11 November 1922.  



 

 

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articles and pieces of art differed. Additionally, the Salzburg SDAP already cautiously began 
using the word revolution in 1918, and there is no evidence that it received a message from 
Vienna to do so. Given that Vienna was largest bastion of Socialism in Austria, the Salzburg 
Socialists would have naturally looked to Vienna for inspiration, but the Salzburg SDAP 
recognized that its circumstances were different from Vienna’s and that what might work 
in the capital would not work there.50 The most striking aspect of the SDAP’s memory of 
1918 was not what it shared with the Vienna Socialists, it was the extreme difference from 
the Salzburg Socialists’ own silence on the topic of revolution in Austria in early November 
1918.  
 
Why Not Call a Revolution a Revolution? 
This question is directed specifically to the Salzburg SDAP in 1918, as it called for an end to 
the monarchy and supported a republic and yet only referred to this change as a revolution 
after the fact. An immediate concern with using the word revolution was the Russian 
Revolution. For most Austrians in the fall of 1918, the February Revolution alone would not 
have been a great cause of fear; after all many Austrians wanted an end to their own 
monarchy. The fear was with the Bolshevik October Revolution, which had become a major 
association with revolution and seemed like it could repeat in Austria. For example, in 
November 1918, the Volksblatt expressed concern over the risk of a second “russiches 
Chaos” (Russian chaos) in Salzburg.51 Even though there was no Bolshevik Revolution in 
Austria or Salzburg, this fear was not unfounded because there were multiple parallels 
between the revolutionary periods in Russia and Austria. A few similarities include a 
hungry population, mass desertions, the formation of Soldiers’ and Workers’ Councils, the 
desire to end the monarchy, and the challenges of creating a functional government, yet as 
Francis Carsten has outlined, there were major differences between Russia and Austria.52 
While the SDAP proved to be radical enough that Communists did not have any real 
strength in Austria, the term revolution still risked summoning images of Bolsheviks and 
violence. Already in November 1917, readers of the Wacht learned that “die Revolution der 
Bolshewiki sei ein Unglück für die Revolution [und] die russische Republik” (the revolution 
of the Bolsheviks is a disaster for the revolution [and] the Russian republic).53 A Bolshevik 
revolution advocated for all power to the soviets and was against the republic, thus one 
could take revolution and connect it to anti-republicanism. The Communists cemented that 

 
50 Jeffery, Social Democracy, 45-46 
51 SVB, 13 November 1918, 4.  
52 Francis Carsten identifies four crucial differences between 1917 Russia and 1918 Austria. First, in Russia, 
the peasant masses were actively revolutionary and sought to expropriate land, while the peasants in Austria 
were and did not. Second, Soldiers’ and Workers’ Councils maintained actual power and had better direction 
in Russia compared to Austria. Third, the First World War was still ongoing during the Russian revolution, 
which provided the Bolsheviks with a popular tool: the promise of peace. Peace was also popular in Austria, 
but there were no significant factions who wanted to keep fighting. Fourth and most general was that the 
Russian revolution had a radical phase, but Austria never had such a phase. Carsten, Revolution in Central 
Europe, 332-333.  
53 SBW, 20 November 1917, 2. 



 

 

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the word revolution did not merely encompass a political change but also a social one.54 
Even though the SDAP still believed in a different, pro-republic form of revolution, the 
associations between the word revolution and the Bolsheviks were too great for the SDAP 
to risk using in the fall of 1918 when an Austrian republic was in sight. Many Salzburg 
Socialists would also have been opposed to Bolshevism on an Austro-Marxist basis.         
 
Another partial explanation for why the SDAP did not use the word revolution in 1918 can 
be found in the Austro-Marxist school of thought. The Austro-Marxist idea of a staged 
revolution between changing political power and socializing the economy and society is 
adaptable to the context of Austria in 1918. The pressure from the Entente not to spiral 
towards Communism, as well as the power of the peasants in the countryside, made it so 
that a revolution aiming for a dictatorship of the proletariat would have been “suicide.”55 A 
brief political revolution in which the monarchy was ended was, however, possible. In the 
end, Austro-Marxists were more willing to compromise and cooperate with other parties 
than Communists, but they also went beyond reformists to demand the destruction of the 
old system. The historian Charles Gulick believes that the Austro-Marxists did not abandon 
the word revolution, despite their willingness to compromise and view that social and 
economic change would take a long time, because of “political convenience.”56 This idea 
will be revisited later, but for now it is worth noting the potential conflict between the idea 
of revolution and the process of gradual and systematic change. If a revolution will take 
years, then it makes sense that compromises would be made along the way, just as the 
SDAP did in 1918. This was the ideological atmosphere of the SDAP, and in Salzburg, 
Robert Preußler embraced the ability to compromise. As we have seen, he worked closely 
with the other parties and called for moderation, such as that the Volkswehr should be 
apolitical. Thus, a possible reason why the Wacht and Preußler left the term revolution 
unused was that it could upset the Entente or their coalition partners, which would then 
jeopardize the victory of the political revolution. However, this does not explain why the 
Socialist Arbeiter Zeitung in Vienna used the word revolution prior to, and on, November 
12th, 1918. Was the political, and thus the eventual social, revolution at risk or not? To 
understand this, we must turn to the different contexts of Salzburg and Vienna.  
 
In late October and early November 1918, compromise and cooperation were the norm in 
Salzburg. The other major political groups in Salzburg, the Christian Socialists and German 
Nationalists, were willing to work together and with the SDAP. The desire to work together 
is characterized by the idea that “wir sitzen alle in einem Boot” (we are all in the same 
boat).57 In Salzburg the consensus was that any danger, particularly the risk of starvation 
and Bolshevism, would hurt everyone in the small, mountainous state; neither the farmers, 

 
54 The beginning of the shift for revolution meaning both political and social change dates back to during the 
1789 French Revolution; see Ilan Rachum, “Revolution”: The Entrance of a New Word into Western Political 
Discourse (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1999), 244.  
55 Otto Bauer, Die österreichische Revolution (1923), in Austro-Marxism, eds. and trans. Tom Bottomore and 
Patrick Goode (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 158-162. 
56 Gulick, Austria from Habsburg to Hitler (Berkley: University of California Press, 1949), 49.  
57 Hanisch, “Die sozialdemokratische Fraktion,” 249.  



 

 

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city-dwellers, nor workers would be spared.58 An act of compromise was the selection of 
the 1911 mandate to determine the division of the provisional state council so no group 
was given an absolute majority. A sign of consensus and avoiding unnecessary conflict is 
seen in early November 1918 when the parties did not attack each other viciously in the 
press, as they later would.59 Additionally, the discussions in the provisional council were 
not hostile and point to the different parties genuinely wanting to find common solutions. 
The three presidents’ individual speeches all point to a common goal of peace and order—
though only Max Ott directly stated “Ruhe und Ordnung.”60 In Vienna, we also see the 
Socialists and other parties working together, but with less ease than in Salzburg, in part 
because of attempting to deal with federal issues as well. The historian C. A. Macartney 
described the government as walking on “a very slender tight-rope along which they had to 
dance, very high in the air and very insecurely fixed.”61 And walk along it they did, but we 
also see the SDAP in Vienna refer to revolution in Austria in early and mid-November 1918, 
while in Salzburg, the Socialists did not.  
 
A simple explanation for the difference between these cities is the relative strengths of the 
SDAP in Vienna compared to Salzburg. The 1919 local election in Vienna resulted in the 
SDAP receiving 54 percent of the vote, which translated to 100 of the 165 city council 
seats.62 In Salzburg, the Socialists had a respectable showing in the 1919 state elections, 
with 29.66 percent of the vote and twelve of the forty seats, with the Christian Socialists 
winning nineteen seats by comparison.63 Additionally, in Salzburg, many SDAP voters were 
highly concentrated, such as in the working-class Hallein and Bischofshofen districts. While 
concentration helped community strength, it was also isolating to have non-Socialists 
surround the community.64 With these differences in mind, it made sense for the Vienna 
Socialists to be less concerned about rocking the boat—they were the most numerous 
political group in the city.65 In Salzburg, the Socialists were not the most powerful party but 
were in a situation where parties had to work together and cooperate, with no single party 
having an absolute majority.  
 
Having established various reasons why compromise and consensus occurred in Salzburg, 
a question that remains is: Why would using the term revolution to refer to the situation in 

 
58 Hanisch, “Die sozialdemokratische Fraktion,” 249, 257-259.  
59 A milder attack can already be seen in the SBW, 15 December 1918. The election of 1919 made it clear that 
the gloves were off, and an example of this combative spirit is an ad in the SVB, 14 February 1919, which calls 
for people to not vote for the “Bolshevik” Socialists or the “monarchist” Christian Socialists.  
60 Preußler and Winkler both spoke of peace and the need to stop looting. Another example of consensus is 
that many proposals are adopted without anyone electing to speak against them; Verhandlungen, 7 November 
1918, 10-13, 17-19. Compare this to how Karl Renner was heckled repeatedly in Vienna; Stenographische 
Protokolle, 30 October 1918, 47-48. 
61 C. A. Macartney, The Social Revolution in Austria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1926), 123. 
62 Eve Blau, The Architecture of Red Vienna, 1919-1934 (Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press, 1999), 33. 
63 Hanisch, “Die sozialdemokratische Fraktion,” 253-354.  
64 Jeffery, Social Democracy, 62. 
65 The rhetoric of Austro-Marxism was also likely stronger in Vienna, given the concentration of key Austro-
Marxists. For examples, see AZ, 11 December 1918; and AZ, 12 November 1918. However, theory was not 
absent from Salzburg, such as talk of “der Revolution dem politischen Leben” (the revolution of political life), 
SBW, 5 December 1918. 



 

 

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Austria have jeopardized so much? Already the general fear of Bolshevism, which naturally 
had an association with revolution, has been touched on; however, listing all the 
associations with the term revolution is not constructive. Instead, revolution has at its core 
two main categories of association. We encountered them in a bastardized format in the 
KPÖ’s Tragikomödie: “stupid” and “glorious.” Stupid is a more vulgar stand in for chaos. 
How are revolution and chaos associated? The Chronik’s two-part report on the ten-year 
anniversary of the Russian Revolution began with the headline “Das Grabe der Menschheit” 
(the grave of mankind). The revolution caused the “Auflösung der Ordnung” (dissolution of 
order) and, referring to the Bolsheviks in October, destroyed the last remnant of 
democracy. The revolution brought “Terror,” “Gewalttaten” (acts of violence), “Morden” 
(murder), “Hungersnot” (famine), “Bürgerkrieg” (civil war), and “Chaos.”66 In some ways, 
Austro-Marxism can be interpreted as a direct response to the association between 
revolution and chaos because it favored incremental change involving cooperation—a 
decidedly unchaotic plan. And yet the Austro-Marxists still called for a forceful political 
revolution and used the word revolution to describe their plan of gradual social and 
economic change. Recall Charles Gulick’s accusation that the Austro-Marxists used the 
word revolution for political gain. He believed that the Socialist leaders continued to use the 
word just because it was “dear to large masses of their adherents.”67 Gulick is pointing out 
that many people were attracted to the term revolution. While he may be wrong about the 
SDAP using the term purely pragmatically, without any actual belief, this still points to the 
other main association with revolution that can be invoked by the word: glorious. Glorious, 
while an excellent descriptor for a revolution—as the English can attest to—is not an 
adequate explanation as to why the otherwise practical Austro-Marxists would stick to 
using the term, and while some support revolution for glory, it is rather patronizing to 
suggest that everyone does. At its core, revolution is about legitimacy. In November 1926, 
when Robert Preßler declared that “die Republik ist aus der Revolution geboren” (the 
republic was born from the revolution), he was drawing on revolution’s power to 
legitimize.68 It is worth pointing out that these two associations, chaos and legitimacy, can 
be seen on one spectrum from delegitimizing to legitimizing. The associations of legitimacy 
and chaos with revolution are not isolated to Salzburg, and it is worth briefly looking at two 
other cases.  
 
Revolution and legitimacy is not a concept unique to Salzburg; these ideas have a place in 
existing scholarship. The historian Ilan Rachum traced the change in the use and meaning 
of the word revolution from Renaissance Italy to the American Revolution. He suggests 
looking at revolution as “a word employed rhetorically to magnify the importance of a 
given or desired change.”69 In other words, it is a word used to legitimize. In the case of the 
American Revolution, the meaning of revolution shifted away from meaning a violent and 
chaotic change of government to instead mean a move towards “a worthier” form of 
government, which would help legitimize the new country.70 Rachum is not the only 

 
66 SCH, 4 and 5 November 1927, beginning on covers.  
67 Gulick, Austria from Habsburg, 49. 
68 SBW, 13 November 1926, 1.  
69 Rachum, “Revolution”: The Entrance of a New Word, 3. 
70 Rachum, “Revolution”: The Entrance of a New Word, 209-210.  



 

 

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scholar to make the connection between revolution and legitimacy. In a study on the 1989 
revolution in Czechoslovakia, the historian James Krapfl also establishes that, at its core, 
revolution is about legitimacy. Using narrative theory, he shows how the story of the 1989 
revolution can be told in multiple very different ways, such as in the form of a satire, which 
might be that the secret police orchestrated the “revolution” in a conspiracy.  Even if the 
definition of revolution changes between different narratives, all the storytellers are either 
legitimizing or, such as with the conspiratorial satire, delegitimizing the revolution. 71 The 
battle over the word revolution, while changing in particulars, took place in both 
eighteenth-century America and twentieth-century Czechoslovakia and Austria. Historical 
actors were often aware of revolution’s power to praise and condemn.  
 
Before continuing to look at revolution and legitimacy in Salzburg, we will expand on the 
topic of foreign revolutions and compare two of them, the American and 1917 Russian, 
with Salzburg, and specifically how the idea of revolution was portrayed at the times of 
occurrence. The immediate similarity between Salzburg’s and America’s revolutions is that 
revolution was not used in either case to describe the events as they unfolded. Only in 1783, 
after the fact, did references to the American Revolution really begin, and only around 1785 
was the term established as a “standard label.”72 For the colonial revolutionaries the word 
revolution was not used because it maintained a negative connotation from the 
seventeenth-century English context, and only after it shifted to mean not merely a political 
change but a change to a “worthier” political system, did “American Revolution” see 
widespread adoption.73 This is very similar to how Salzburgers in 1918 avoided the word 
because of its connotations with a specifically Bolshevik revolution, and the SDAP only 
used the term when the association with Communism was weaker. Another similarity is 
that even though the term was not used in either case as the revolutions unfolded, many 
ideas that deserved the term were expressed. For example, in Salzburg we saw calls for the 
end of the monarchy and simultaneous support for the revolution in Germany and for 
unification with Germany. In the American case, Ilan Rachum uses Thomas Paine’s Common 
Sense as an example of “revolutionary fervor” without using the word, because Paine not 
only wanted independence but also to go beyond that to forge a new world.74 An 
interesting difference between America and Salzburg is that the pursuit of independence 
acted as the descriptive shorthand for events in America for much of the time, but in 
Austria it was mostly other groups declaring independence from Austria (or rather the 
Habsburg Monarchy). In 1918, none of the parties in Salzburg had a consistent term that 
captured both what was occurring and their beliefs, other than the unifying “peace and 
order.” Unlike Salzburgers and Americans, many Russians were openly aware that they 
were in a revolution as it occurred.  
 
The Russian Revolution provides an interesting contrast to Salzburg in 1918 because the 
Russian Revolution is a standard example of what a revolution looks like. Unlike in 
Salzburg, during the Russian Revolution, people actively invoked the 1789 French 

 
71 Krapfl, Revolution with a Human Face, Chapter 2, esp. pp. 32-34. 
72 Rachum, “Revolution”: The Entrance of a New Word, 208. 
73 Rachum, “Revolution”: The Entrance of a New Word, 201 and 209. 
74 Rachum, “Revolution”: The Entrance of a New Word, 200. 



 

 

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Revolution. For example, the Marseillaise was a very popular song, groups were called—or 
called themselves—Jacobins and Girondins, and many labels, such as “committee of public 
safety,” were copied.75 This might add another reason to why Austrians in 1918 would 
have associated revolution first and foremost with Russia: The Russian Revolution had 
appropriated and absorbed many of the French Revolution’s symbols, including any which 
had legitimizing potential. A central theme of Orlando Figes and Boris Kolonitskii’s study of 
the symbols and language of the Russian Revolution is that whoever mastered and 
controlled the symbols of revolution or their meanings possessed the possibility of 
controlling the revolution or an aspect of it.76 This can be seen in how different groups 
struggled not only politically or physically but also over revolutionary symbols. In Salzburg 
we do not see any symbolic battles similar to that between the Marseillaise and the 
Internationale, but the point about controlling the meaning of symbols does still apply. As 
we have seen, the battle over the meaning of revolution was already lost—or at the very 
least would have looked like a losing battle—in 1918 Salzburg, because the word was 
already associated with chaos. Figes and Kolonitskii also describe the importance of 
creating enemies and defining them symbolically during the revolution. In 1917 Russia, 
many people experienced the revolution as it was defined in relation to their enemy, which 
is to say as the struggle of the revolution against something. These “dark forces” could 
include tsarists, the bourgeoisie, Jews, and more, but the definitions varied. A commonality 
was that there was little space to compromise with these enemies and that these images of 
the revolution’s foes took on a life of their own. Figes and Kolonitskii conclude that this 
deeply encoded “us versus them” mentality contributed to the violence of the revolution.77 
In Salzburg, the “enemies of the revolution” discourse did not evolve like in Russia. Instead, 
all three political factions united behind the republic and “peace and order” to push back 
against the common enemy of “chaos.” If a common code of communication allowed the 
Russians to create symbolic enemies of the revolution, then Salzburgers had a different 
code, one which established symbolic “enemies of peace.” Three of these enemies included 
Bolsheviks, roaming foreign soldiers, and the word revolution. 
 
In 1918 Salzburg, it was safe to mention revolution at a distance. All three Salzburg 
newspapers used the word revolution to refer to events in foreign places. All three agreed 
that there was a revolution in Holland, but when locations were closer to home, such as 
Bavaria, we see divergence. The difference was that Holland was far enough away that any 
potential (de)legitimatizing power of using revolution would not backfire on the writers—
chaos was unlikely to spread to Austria from the Netherlands. This was not the case for 
Bavaria in the Christian Socialist view, where there was an “Umsturz” (takeover), not a 
revolution. The Chronik article is matter of fact and not fear-mongering. Given that Munich 
is closer to Salzburg than Vienna, there was the real possibility of danger spreading over 
the border, a danger that was not worth legitimatizing with the term revolution. As for the 
Wacht, it used the word revolution only once in its article about Bavaria, but they were very 

 
75 Orlando Figes and Boris Kolonitskii, Interpreting the Russian Revolution: The Language and Symbols of 1917 
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 30, 40, and 188.  
76 Figes and Kolonitskii, Interpreting the Russian Revolution, 1.  
77 Figes and Kolonitskii, Interpreting the Russian Revolution, ch. 6 and 188-190.  



 

 

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supportive and also called for democracy in Austria.78 The potential negative associations 
of revolution were deemed acceptable because Bavaria was still not Austria, the focus on 
democracy mitigated the risk, and there was the benefit that if what Bavaria had was 
legitimate, then an Austrian republic could be, too. One could ask why the Salzburg SDAP 
did not refer to a revolution in Vienna, but there is a logical explanation. Vienna was still 
politically closer to Salzburg than Munich. A revolution in Vienna could upset Salzburg’s 
boat because Salzburg elected to stay united with an Austrian state in 1918. Geographic 
and political were not the only distances to affect the decision to use the word revolution.  
 
Temporal distance can explain why the SDAP referred to a revolution after the fact. In 
retrospect, the risks of revolution’s chaotic associations had passed. In celebrating the 
revolution on the anniversary every year, the Salzburg SDAP used its legitimizing potential. 
The SDAP made a connection between the revolution and themselves, the Republic, and the 
working class. Recall the cover page image of the SDAP flag bearer standing before a crowd 
in Vienna, depicting the revolution. For the SDAP, the legitimacy of revolution came from 
its association with democracy, both as it connected to the Republic and as a form of 
democracy in the streets, where the masses taking action (with the help of the SDAP) 
established a democracy. The Republic as something “unchaotic” supports revolution, and 
the revolution helps the republic with a sense of progress or radicalness. The idea of 
temporal distance also explains why the SDAP was able to start using revolution a few days 
after the Republic was declared. With the Republic established, the Volkswehr maintaining 
order, and no major new signs of danger, the legitimizing potential of revolution rose. Still, 
the Wacht often referred to a revolution that was completed and/or peaceful. In the 1920s, 
those opposed to revolution also used the word in relation to Austria now that imminent 
danger had passed, though with the intention to delegitimize. In a Christmas Eve 1918 
article about the status of Austria, the Chronik referred to a “revolution” in quotation marks 
and associated revolution with violence and obstructing peace.79 The clearest example of 
time affecting what Salzburgers called a revolution is present in the November 8, 1928 
Wacht. A cover story about Salzburg ten years previously opens with a description of the 
September 19th demonstration and subsequent looting, before turning to an overview of 
later October and early November, focusing on how order was maintained, quoting 
Preußler’s speech in the November 7, 1918 provisional state council. The piece ends with a 
call to resist bourgeois threats: “wir fürchten uns vor keiner Drohung, denn die Revolution 
ist für uns” (we are afraid of no threats because the revolution is for us).80 A legitimate 
demonstration that devolved into riots was a perfect encapsulation of why calling for 
revolution in 1918 seemed so unwise to the SDAP, and yet in its memory, it was part of the 
larger story of the revolution. This story continued into 1928, when the SDAP used the idea 
of revolution to inspire Socialist action. Thus, just as there were many reasons for the SDAP 
not to call a revolution a revolution, there would later be many reasons to use the word. All 
of this evidence points to the SDAP possessing revolutionary consciousness.  
 

 
78 For Holland see SVB and SBW on 14 November 1918, 1; and SCH, 15 November 1918, 2. For Bavaria, see 
SCH, 9 November 1918, 1-2, and SBW 10 November 1918, 1.     
79 SCH, 24 December 1918, 1.  
80 SBW, 8 November 1928, 1-2.  



 

 

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Conclusion  
Revolutionary consciousness is a topic curiously missing from literature on revolutions. 
Certainly, a Marxist view of revolutionary consciousness as related to class consciousness 
exists, but aside from that, I have not encountered any theories of revolutionary 
consciousness. The explanation I offer for this lacuna is rather simple: revolutionary 
consciousness is actually often examined in works on revolution, but it is merely unnamed. 
It is unnamed because revolutionary consciousness, at its core, is how people thought 
about revolution. Thus, one does not need to possess a specific idea of revolution to have 
revolutionary consciousness; every time revolution is thought about, there is revolutionary 
consciousness. Revolutionary consciousness being centered on people’s thoughts also 
means that someone opposed to revolution can be just as revolutionarily conscious as the 
ideal proletarian. Additionally, this broad definition includes the act of placing a revolution 
on the (de)legitimization spectrum.  
 
The Socialists of Salzburg were aware that sometimes revolution was its own worst enemy. 
In late October and early November 1918, they chose to work with other parties to call for 
“peace and order” and class cooperation. At a time after four and half years of exhausting 
war, many risks and dangers existed or appeared to exist: starvation, looting, foreign 
occupation, and Bolshevik revolution. Only a year earlier in Russia, the Bolshevik 
Revolution began transitioning a burgeoning democratic state—caught in a battle between 
council and republican power—into a Soviet state and civil war. For many Salzburgers, it 
looked like chaos. In addition, there were opportunities to establish a republic, to join with 
Germany, and to make peace. In this context, the SDAP in Salzburg made the decision not to 
use the term revolution in reference to Austria. All the while, they called for an Austrian 
republic and recognized and celebrated revolutions abroad, especially in neighboring 
Germany. Revolution’s association with chaos and violence outweighed its possible 
legitimizing power in Salzburg at this time, and the SDAP knew this. To call for peace and 
order was to call for precisely the opposite of the chaos with which many associated with 
revolution. The SDAP in Salzburg was consciously un-revolutionary.  
 
In some ways the KPÖ was correct; the Socialists used revolution when it suited them. 
However, the SDAP appeared to do what it thought was right and not act cynically. I am not 
claiming to know exactly what they were thinking, or that they broke revolution down into 
chaos and legitimacy as I have, or that the Salzburg Socialists operated under the Austro-
Marxist view that establishing a republic constituted a political revolution. What I am 
arguing is that the Socialists’ actions indicate that they were unwilling to jeopardize the 
possibility of a republic and that they knew using the word revolution would not help their 
case—on some level they were conscious of the advantages and disadvantages to using the 
term revolution. Before the declaration of the Republic and for a few days afterward, they 
did not use revolution, and then when they started using the term, they qualified it to 
dissociate it from potentially delegitimizing associations. With time, the Republic and 
revolution were celebrated together, often with mentions of the SDAP and the working 
class.  With the risks of fall 1918 gone, the SDAP was free to tap into the legitimizing 
potential of revolution and did not avoid that rhetoric. Of course, its rival parties also used 
revolution in how they remembered events, but they focused on its ability to delegitimize.  



 

 

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There is the potential to look at the consciously unrevolutionary Salzburg SDAP and label it 
as having conducted a self-limiting revolution. At the very least the SDAP self-limited 
revolution as a word in their speeches and newspapers. Given the high level of compromise 
and calls for order, as well as significant limits on what the revolution changed, the label is 
suitable. However, before calling the revolution in Salzburg a self-limiting one, we must ask 
why we want to give it that label? Returning to the Tragikomödie, will the addition of “self-
limiting” make the revolution less “stupid” because it sounds more planned and orderly? Or 
will “self-limiting” take too much away from the revolution’s “gloriousness”? Perhaps, it is 
easier to follow the SDAP’s lead and drop the label altogether because sometimes a 
revolution is best without revolution.  Deciding to not use the word revolution is an answer 
in itself. 
 


