\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn brief, the \n\u201cSchreckenstage\u201d (\u201cdays of horror\u201d or \u201cdays of terror\u201d), as they were \ncalled by newspapers at the time, were pivotal for the future of \nAustria. They were a major setback for the Social Democratic Party, \nwhich had done well in the April 1927 national elections, narrowly \nlosing to the Christian Socialist Party and its allies. Worse, they \nenabled the fascist Heimwehr to attract new members and increase its \nthreat to Austria\u2019s democracy.
\n\nThe riots began as a \nmassive protest against a court decision that had freed three men who \nhad, admittedly, shot and killed two people (an invalid war veteran and \nhis eight-year-old nephew) in a peaceful Social Democratic march in the \ncity of Schattendorf. The court decision was rendered during the evening\n of July 14, 1927. From most contemporaneous accounts, the protest on \nJuly 15th arose spontaneously, catching both the police and Social \nDemocratic leaders by surprise.
\n\nHuge crowds of workers \nand other supporters of the Social Democrats assembled on the Vienna \nRing near the University, City Hall, and the Parliament Building. \nReportedly, the workers planned to march from the working districts of \nthe city to the parliament and ministry of justice (located across a \nplaza from the parliament building), then return to their work places \nand homes. The crowd numbered, at its peak, about 200,000 people or \nmore.
\n\nAt about 10:00 a.m., the\n flow of the crowd was blocked at the plaza in front of the Palace of \nJustice building. This building was guarded by a small number of lightly\n armed security forces. For some reason, a small Calvary unit rode into the large crowd on\n horses, with sabers drawn, apparently to try to drive it back toward \nthe Ring. Shortly after that, police security officers fired their \npistols into the crowd from the steps of the Palace of Justice.
\n\nEnraged, some members of\n the crowd armed themselves with bricks, tools, boards, and other \nmaterials they obtained from a nearby building site. They successfully \nstormed the Palace of Justice, forcing the police to retreat to higher \nfloors of the building. Shortly thereafter, the building was set on \nfire. When the fire department came to fight the fire, its trucks were \nstopped by the crowd which refused them access to the burning building.
\n\nThe violence escalated \nin the afternoon when large numbers of police officers came to the \nPalace of Justice area, and other parts of town, armed with heavy \nrifles, and began to shoot at groups of people on the street.
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\nThe leaders of the \nSocial Democratic Party, belatedly, sent members of its militia, the \nRepublican Guard, to the streets to help calm the crowd. It exhorted \nParty members to return home. Also, it called a national strike of \ntransportation and communication workers to protest the shooting. At the\n same time, it refused to provide protesting workers with weapons from \nits huge arsenal, which included rifles and machine guns.
\nThe clashes between \nprotesters and police continued into the night of Friday, July 15th. By \nJuly 16th, the violence had greatly declined, though skirmishes \ncontinued. On July 17th, encountering strong resistence in the country\u2019s\n provinces to its strike, and hearing of plans by the Heimwehr to \nassemble an army to march into Vienna, the Social Democrats called off \nthe strike.
\nDuring the three days, \nabout 85 marchers and bystanders were killed, as were four police \nofficers. About 600 police officers were wounded, 120 of them badly. \nBetween 300 and 500 civilians wounded. Over 1,500 people were arrested.This is the prelude to the Austrian civil war 5 years later when democracy ends in Austria
\nI think if we\u2019re talking Austrian precedent it would be Red Vienna to the Blue cities - if the leftist movement has the dominant cities but the rightists have the country, they can extract resources from landlords through taxation to build their glorious utopia\u2026 until the landlords in the countryside they\u2019ve been leaving alone raise troops there and crush them. America\u2019s not a one-city state like Austria though, where if you hold the countryside and you siege one city you have everything.
\nDidn\u2019t think Red Vienna could ever extract money from the countryside, while the social democrats held a lock on the gov of Vienna I don\u2019t think they ever got leadership of the country. Stories on Red Vienna invariably mention the local progressive and luxury taxes, although I admit they generally don\u2019t include budget numbers.
\nBut yeah this whole story is basically about Vienna, it\u2019s where this uprising happened and it\u2019s where the fighting in the later civil war happened.
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A typical pattern in European capital cities that developed under feudalism is that various significant nobles - whose seat of domain was not in the capital - would own large tracts that they developed, plotted, and built all at once and leased directly. In this way, they made the transition from a funding stream built on the rural agrarian to one built on the urban industrial economy.
\u00a0A tax on Vienna housing was therefore a draw on the coffers of outlying Austria (and the dead Empire)\u2019s nobles even as they were not formally disposessed.