Politics on the streets: popular political culture in the Austrian First Republic

This paper considers the incidence of mass politics in the First Austrian Republic on the basis of police reports in the Austrian archives, and with particular reference to the forms taken by public meetings, marches and outdoor demonstrations. It reveals that there was a very active mass politics in the Austrian First Republic, often characterised by real or potential violence. The civil war episodes of 1927 and 1934 should be seen in a much broader continuum of politics on the streets, in Vienna and beyond. The article also concludes that policing of such activities was often politically biased for most of the Republic's history, and particularly after 1931, and that this response by the authorities contributed to an increased readiness to depart from democratic norms well before the advent of the Dollfuss era and the formal end of Austrian democracy in 1933.