“We’re Not Just Grateful for Red Vienna — We Need to Fight for It”
Austria’s capital city is famous for its model public housing and social services, the legacy of municipal socialism in the 1920s. But it’s been decades since the Social Democrats have done anything to build on this record. Now a new leftist party is working to turn Vienna red again.
Viktor-Adler-Hof, a residential complex in Austria, Vienna. (Wikimedia Commons)
On October 11, voters in Vienna will elect a new city council. The Austrian capital, home to almost a quarter of the country’s population, has long been run by the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ). Mostly remembered in the English-speaking world for its prewar history as a mass working-class party that built “Red Vienna,” the SPÖ has moved steadily toward the center since 1945 and especially since the 1980s.
This year, organizers on the Left formed a new party called LINKS. Some of these activists have been instrumental in revitalizing the “Thursday demonstrations” against Austria’s right-wing government, which began in 2000. Now, they hope to reclaim the mantle of Red Vienna.
As Vienna LINKS’s head candidate Anna Svec said, “Red Vienna left us with certain things that are fairer and better than in other large cities. I’m glad about that. But those who fought these struggles would not want us to be grateful. They would want us to keep fighting.”
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