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Victor Adler (1852-1918). The Reader's Biographical Encyclopaedia. 1922

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Victor Adler (1852-1918). The Reader's Biographical Encyclopaedia. 1922 Dictionary Biographies Literary Criticism Welcome Terms of Service ⧏ Previous Next ⧐ Contents Bibliographic Record Hugh Chisholm, et al., eds.  The Reader’s Biographical Encyclopædia.  1922.
17,000 Articles from the Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th & 12th eds. Victor Adler (1852–1918) Austrian politician, born at Prague on the 24th of June 1852, the son of a well-to-do businessman, who moved with his family to Vienna when the son was three years old. Here he studied at the Schotten-gymnasium, where he gathered round him a circle of fellow-students who thus early began to occupy themselves with political and social questions, their interest having been aroused by the works of Lassalle and by the events of 1866 and 1870. It was at this time, too, that the Social Democratic Labour movement first began to affect Austria. On the basis of the new law respecting combinations, passed during the era of Liberal-bourgeois reform, arose the first proletarian organizations, and the battles between the adherents of state assistance (Lassalle) and of self-help (Schulze-Delitzsch) were being publicly fought out. At the university Adler entered the German national students’ association, “Arminia,” became a member of the committee of the German Reading Union, and belonged to the national and democratic group of intellectuals who, since the middle of the ’seventies, had grouped themselves around the deputy Schönerer, and had formulated the so-called Linz programme (see also Pernerstorfer). He studied medicine, attaching himself especially to the psychiatrist Meynert, and in addition to his medical practice occupied himself with industrial hygiene. In his later career he continued to take special interest in public health questions. Intending to adopt factory inspection as a career, he went in 1883 to study in Switzerland and in London, where he came into close touch with Engels. On his return to Vienna, however, he turned entirely to politics. The Workmen’s party, weakened by the general economic depression, by internal dissensions and by police prosecutions, had sunk into political insignificance. In the ’eighties the “Radicals” (Most, Peukert) and the “Moderates” were at daggers drawn. The Government of Count Taaffe, on the other hand, supporting itself on the lower middle classes, which held the balance of votes in Austria and especially in Vienna, introduced legislation for the organization of industry on the guild system. It attempted, indeed, to conciliate the working classes by social-political legislation on the German model, but at the same time used the excuse given by the methods of violence advocated by the Radicals to suspend the ordinary law in Vienna and certain other districts, as a preliminary to anti-Socialist and anti-Anarchist legislation. The ground being thus prepared by the Government, Adler undertook to restore unity in the ranks of Labour. In 1886 appeared his paper Gleichheit (Equality), eventually succeeded by the Arbeiterzeitung, the principal organ of the Social Democratic party, which Adler continued to conduct till his death. His object was to organize the workmen as a political party, and the best methods seemed to him to be those of public propaganda and open political warfare. The united Labour party (Arbeiterpartei) was to keep the socialistic ideal constantly in view, but was not to despise small gains. By his sound judgment, and his exceedingly clever handling of men, he succeeded, in spite of difficulties within and without the party, in reaching the first stage in the path he had marked out by carrying the whole party with him, in the last days of the year 1888, on the basis of a carefully weighed programme at the party meeting held at Hainfeld, Lower Austria. He was able to appear in July 1889 at the first congress of the Second International (of which he was from that time an official) as the representative of the united Austrian party; and the first May Day celebration (1890), the first of those imposing demonstrations by which he sought to give a striking proof of the will and the power of the working classes, showed that a new epoch had dawned for Austrian Social Democracy. Adler, who was repeatedly involved in legal proceedings and condemned to terms of several months’ imprisonment for political offences, was from that time the acknowledged leader of the party.

1   In consequence of the ever-increasing extension of its industrial and political organization, in which Adler took an energetic part, the party obtained an increasing influence in public life, which was further increased by the division of the bourgeois parties on the nationality question. Adler understood how to make the best of these conditions. He regarded it as his first task to secure for the workmen representation in Parliament. After the three years’ struggle for electoral reform (1893–6), which followed the proposals for the modification of the franchise put forward by the prime minister, Count Taaffe, some measure of electoral reform was secured. But it was insufficient, and it was only when the Government had decided that an extension of the franchise was the sole means by which the monarchy could be protected against the centrifugal forces of nationality, that Adler was able to use the impression made by the confusions in Hungary and the Russian revolution of 1905 to interpose with all his weight and help to secure the triumph of universal and equal suffrage (1907).

2   The Social Democratic party increased their representation from 11 deputies to 87. Adler himself entered the Diet of Lower Austria in 1902, and in 1905 was elected to the Reichsrat, where until his death he played an important part as chairman of the committee of the Social Democratic party and of the Social Democratic Deputies’ Club, taking part in all important debates.

3   New dangers, due to the nature of the Austrian State with its rival nationalities, more than once threatened the unity of the party. Adler had always been a Pan-German, but regarded the disruption of Austria and the union of German Austria with Germany as a distant goal which had no place in the practical politics of the moment. He aimed therefore at establishing a friendly relation between the nations on the basis of democracy. When the Austrian Germans were threatened by the language ordinance of Count Badeni, and Parliament itself by a coup d’état, Adler made an alliance with the German parties, rallied the working classes, and overthrew the Polish prime minister (1897). At the party congresses, Adler tried to accommodate the conflicting national standpoints on the basis of the principles laid down in the Brünn programme (equal rights and national autonomy). But the unified organization of the trade unions and the union of the Social Democratic parties were destroyed in consequence of these differences, more especially by the intransigeance of the Czechs. No general party congress of the different Austrian nationalities has taken place since 1905.

4   In the congresses and in the secretariat of the International Adler, with Jaurès and Bebel, played the most prominent part, whether as leader, adviser, or mediator. He took part in the great peace demonstration of the International at Basel, and in the meeting of the secretariat in Brussels immediately before the outbreak of the World War. In spite of bad health, which for many years in succession had compelled him to spend much time on the Riviera and at Nauheim, he travelled in the spring of 1917, immediately after the trial of his son Friedrich, to Stockholm to the proposed Socialist congress. After the collapse of Austria in 1918, at the constituent session of the provisional German-Austrian National Assembly, which was formed by the meeting of all the German deputies, he read the declaration of the Social Democrats, in which they expressed their willingness, in association with the other German-Austrian parties, to build the new State on the basis of democracy and the self-determination of their own and other nationalities, without prejudice to a possible association with the German Empire.

5   In his opening words Adler said: “You will permit an old man to say that at last we see the accomplishment of what we have longed for since our youth.” He did not long survive that day. He held for a few days the office of Foreign Minister, entrusted to him by the new State Council (Staatsrat), but in spite of his iron determination he was not able to bear the strain. He broke down on November 11th and died on the 12th, 1918, the day on which the State Council had decided to proclaim German Austria a democratic republic and an integral part of the German Reich.

6   His works include articles scattered in various newspapers, in the Neue Zeit, Kampf, Deutsche Worte, in addition to those in the Arbeiterzeitung; pamphlets, among which are Die Fabrikinspektion, insbesondere in England und der Schweiz (1884); Die Arbeiterkammer und die Arbeiter (1886); Das allgemeine, gleiche und direkte Wahlrecht und das Wahlunrecht in Oesterreich; Alcoholismus und Gewerkschaft (many editions). See also Die Gleichheit vor dem Ausnahmegericht (1889); Schwurgerichtsprozess gegen Doktor Viktor Adler wegen Verbrechens der Störung der öffentlichen Ruhe (1894).

7   His son, Friedrich Adler (1879–1960), Austrian politician, born at Vienna on the 9th of July 1879. He was educated at the Realgymnasium in Vienna, and studied philosophy at the university of Zürich. He was privatdozent (lecturer by diploma) in physics at the university of Zürich from 1907 to 1911, editor of the Social Democratic daily Volksrecht from 1910 to 1911, and from 1911 to 1916 secretary of the Austrian Social Democratic party and editor of the monthly Kampf. During the World War he was in sympathy with the conclusions reached at the conferences of the Socialists of the Left at Zimmerwald and Kienthal. In despair over the break-up of the International, he shot (Oct. 21 1916) the Austrian prime minister, Count Stürgkh, in the expectation that the deed would be a signal for the rising of the proletariat against the war. After a speech in his own defence which aroused much attention he was, on May 19, 1917, condemned by a special tribunal to death, a sentence commuted to eighteen years’ imprisonment. During the chaos of the autumn of 1918 he was amnestied (Nov. 1). In 1919 he was elected to the National Assembly, and became vice-president of the committee of the Social Democratic party and of the Union of the Social Democratic deputies. As president of the Austrian National Workmen’s Council and of the Vienna District Workmen’s Council he exercised great influence in the party. On his initiative was founded the International Labour Association of Socialist Parties, of which the first meeting was held in Vienna in February 1921. He made the opening statement, and became secretary of the Association.

8   His works are the following: Die Erneuerung der Internationale (1918); Ernst Mach’s Ueberwindung des mechanischen Materialismus (1918); Ortszeit, Systemszeit, Zonenzeit und das ausgezeichnete Bezugssystem der Electrodynamik, eine Untersuchung über die Lorentzische und die Einstein’sche Kinematik (1920). See also Friedrich Adler vor dem Ausnahmegericht (1919).

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