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170฀฀฀฀฀฀฀◆฀฀฀฀฀฀฀CHAPTER฀฀6 170 C H A P T ER ฀ 6 The฀Decline฀of฀Liberal฀฀ Society,฀1897–1914 The development of Austrian society and politics entered a new phase in the 1890s as the masses began to find their own voice in public affairs. Together, mass politics, advancing industrialization, and the consolidation of great modern urban centers transformed public life. Willingly or not, the lower middle classes and workers had previously deferred to the power and influence of landowners , clergy, big businessmen, professionals, and bureaucrats. In the 1880s even radical nationalists had brought the masses into the political arena only in crisis situations. Now the masses became a potent political force. The urban lower middle classes and laborers continued to increase with economic development although the population in many of the older industrial centers grew more slowly than previously.1 In the Habsburg Monarchy, as in Western Europe, advancing technology and economic development resulted in an increasing differentiation of group social and economic interests at all levels of society. At the same time, a new political culture arose which insisted on the direct representation of those competing interests in the political arena.2 Throughout Austria new political formations worked to mobilize the populace . A host of occupational pressure groups developed to lobby bureaucrats and legislators, while political parties which addressed the needs of mass constituencies , the Social Democrats, Christian socials, agrarians, and radical nationalists, grew rapidly after the mid-1890s. The addition to the Austrian Reichsrat in 1897 of a new curia based on universal manhood suffrage and the adoption of direct and equal manhood suffrage in 1907 for the whole Chamber of Deputies consolidated the changes in political life. Yet the articulation of the new mass interests in society and popular demands for direct representation of those interests actually preceded the suffrage reforms and underlay the whole transformation. Social conflict intensified in Austrian public life with the advent of mass politics.As political discussion passed from aristocratic estates, elite urban clubs, and legislative chambers to the streets, the contentiousness of street politics passed back into the legislative and administrative bodies. The transformation of political The฀Decline฀of฀Liberal฀Society,฀1897–1914฀฀฀฀฀฀฀◆฀฀฀฀฀฀฀171 values and structures caused the liberal parties of middle-class notables to disintegrate . As already seen, the United German Left broke apart in 1895; thereafter its successors, the German Progressives and Free German Union, competed with various nationalist, Pan-German, agrarian, and socialist parties for German voter support. The Old Czechs shrank as a parliamentary force after the Reichsrat elections of 1891, and the Young Czechs in turn steadily lost ground after 1897 to the Czech Agrarians, Social Democrats, National Socialists, clerical groups, and various radical nationalist factions. The naked conflict of mass-based social and economic interests supplanted the old contest between clerical-conservatism and liberal individualism as the principal counterpoint to the nationality questions in Austrian politics. Whether the parties and pressure groups now spoke for particular occupational groups, social classes, or whole nationalities, they pressed ever more strongly the specific demands of their constituencies as against the rest of society. For a strongly middle-class minority such as the Prague Germans, the new social and political relations presented critical challenges. New Czech nationalist formations raised more radical demands for Czech political and economic primacy in the Bohemian Lands than had their national liberal predecessors, and now radical German nationalists in the Bohemian borderlands were eager to abandon German interests in Prague if they stood in the way of partitioning Bohemia on national lines. The Prague Germans’ declining numbers made it increasingly difficult to counter German as well as Czech radical nationalists, and the rise of mass politics generated increasing frictions within the Germanspeaking minority itself. The transformation of Austrian public life after the mid-1890s forced German leaders in Prague to find new means to meet group needs and to defend the German minority’s presence.As before, the evolution of German group life in the city and the efforts to defend German group interests were contingent on the general course ofAustrian social and political development. The liberal associational network which had previously met German needs for ethnic defense could assume additional responsibilities, but the associations presumed a deferential community order which, in fact, was now declining. As will be seen, many individuals from the middle and lower middle classes who were formerly loyal to the liberals began to develop occupational interests that impinged on their commitment to...

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