Parties for the Hapsburgs...

[miketr]

Below is a list of real and a few fake parties I made for a game I played in once.  Thought our resident player could make use of them.

Michael

Hungarian Parties
Romanian National Party (Partidul Na?ional Român PNR) (Rumanian)
--Since its creation in 1881 by the union of two older parties dating from 1869 this party has called for an end to centralism by Budapest and Magyarization policies of Hungary. Like other ethnic centered parties the PNR has called for reform, new administrative divisions and power sharing in the Monarchy. Unlike some other Political Parties the PNR has been noted for favoring a federal solution to bring change to Austria-Hungary. Because of its strong organization the PNR has been able to keep the number of splinter groups to a minimum.

Hungarian Socialist Party (Magyar Szocialista Párt MSZP) (Hungarian: Liberal/Socialist)
--One of the two former coalition parties in the old Hungarian parliament. The MSZP drew most of its support for Hungarian middle class and some intellectuals.

Christian Democratic Party (Keresztény Demokrata Párt KDP) (Hungarian: Christian)
--The second former coalition party of the old Hungarian parliament. Centered in the upper house where Catholic Bishops and archbishops sat the KDP had a minor but strong following of catholic and some other Christian groups in the Lower House.

Hungarian Civic Union (Magyar Polgári Szövetség MPS) (Hungarian: Conservative)
--The MPS was the ruling party in the former Parliament with its two allies. While no ware near as radical as the now banned Hungarian Independence Party the MPS clearly stood for Magyar Rights, Magyar Control and Magyarization.

Slovak National Party (Slovenská národná strana SNS) (Slovak)
--The SNS was first founded in 1871 and was based off a Slovak Autonomy Movement that dated in its current form from 1861. The SNS was also the first Slovak Political party to gain large-scale acknowledgement if not any real political power. Between 1874 and 1892 the SNS followed a rather passive policy of trying to support individuals in an effort to gain some following but at the same time not to anger the ruling Magyars. The result was basically failure and more than a little bit of ridicule. Following martial law the SNS was able to reorganize itself somewhat and when it became clear that open elections were to be held the SNS was able to act as an umbrella for a number of other splinter groups like the Slovak People's Party (Slovenská ?udová strana S?S).

Social Democratic Party of Hungaria (Sozialdemokratische Partei Ungarn SPU) (German)
--The Hungarian Wing of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs, SPÖ) the SPU has ties to one of the oldest political parties in the Monarchy. The Austrian Branch recently ran on platform of more rights for workers including their right to vote. In the Socialists have also demanded that the Austro-Hungarian Empire be reformed into a democratic, federal state. While both the SPU and SPO have strong ties to the Second International and each other the SPU has more ethnic German overtones than the SPO.

Ruthenian National Party (Rusyny Narodnyi Partiya RNP) (Ukrainian)
--The RNP is in many ways a radical party of reform and some say revolution. The RNP has strong ties to a like named party in Galacia and calls for political autonomy, ethnic freedom and union with the Ruthenians of Galacia to create a new ethnic state separate from both Austria or Hungary.

Servians National Party (Srpska Narodno Stranka SS) (Serbian)
--The SS is a less radical Serbian version of the RNP. The party's primary platform has been an end to Magyarization efforts, autonomy and since 1886 union with Bosnian Serbs into a new Serbian Ethnic political unit. There have been some ties to radical Serbian Political Parties in the Kingdom of Serbia but they have been minor so far .

Key Parties of Austria
Christian Social Party (Christliche SozialPartei CSP)
Formed from two Christian social movements this new party has a strong base in clergy, the country side and the nobility. The party is very conservative over all and its leader Karl Lueger is an out spoken critic of the Monarchy's police of tolerance towards Jews.

The Social Democratic Labor Party of Austria (Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei Österreichs SDAPÖ)
Created from socialist worker movements, unions and associations dating from the mid 1800's. The first political action took place in 1874 but the party at once split into moderate and anarchist wings. In 1889 Dr. Victor Adler was able to bring unity back to the party with his "Declaration of Principles" and the creation of the Arbeiter-Zeitung "Labor Times" news paper brought increased membership. Dr. Adler has been a noted supporter of Socialist and Marxist with his writing and the party has strong connections to the Second International. The party has also been central in the battle to bring about Universal Suffrage.

Czech National Socialist Workers Party (?eská strana národn? sociální d?lníci CSNSD)
Another new party formed by Václav Jaroslav Klofá?. Klofá? a noted Czech nationalist broke with the Young Czech Socialist party because of what he viewed as its weakness following Home Rule for Bohemia. The CSNSD seeks total independence for Czechs and is notedly anti-clerical. The nationalist tone aside the party has also been a strong supporter of the Suffrage movement. It remains to be scene what type of following the new party will achieve. But there has been a great deal of dissatisfaction by some Czech Nationalist following the destruction of František Rieger "Old Czech Party" after the 1890 elections that more has not been achieved.

Czechoslovakian Social Democratic Workers' Party (?eskoslovanská sociáln? demokratická stranu d?lnická CSDSD)
It has been 4 years since Rieger's party was defeated and Home Rule for Bohemia. The CSDSD once stood for "international revolution" to bring all of Bohemia and Moravia into a ethnic Czech fold and displace the political dominance of the Ethnic Germans. As such the Party was viewed as being the revolutionary party even if it was willing to work in the system. Since 1890 the party has absorbed many of the Czech old guard from the 1867 party and while much of its goal has been achieved the party leadership sees no realistic hope to achieve headway in the ethnic German Lands at this point. As such since about 1892 the party has been trying to remake itself by focusing on purely socialist issues within Czech controlled Bohemia and Moravia and to leave the Ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland, Silesia, and big city enclaves like Brünn, Iglau, and Olmütz to their own devices. This has angered some and the splintering away of the SDNSD was the result.

Croatian Party of Rights (Hrvatska Stranka Prava, HSP)
--A minor party based along the Dalmatian coast with ties to a like named party in Hungary. The HSP has stood for Croatian rights and the reunion of the Kingdom of Croatia-Dalmatia-Slavonia, which was separated following the compromise of 1867-68. Since the parties creation in 1861 the parties goal has been autonomy and self rule for Croatians within the frame work of the monarchy. In 1871 a faction broke from the party and attempted to create a armed revolt in cooperation with Serbs. As a result the Party has not always been trusted by the authorities since.

Ruthenian National Party (Rusyny Narodnyi Partiya RNP)
--The RNP is in many ways a radical party of reform and some say revolution. The party's base is in Eastern Galacia and calls for political autonomy, ethnic freedom and union with all Ruthenians to create a new ethnic state separate from both Austria or Hungary. In addition the party has a noted anti Roman Catholic and Polish stance.

Polish Farmer Party (Polskie Gospodarz Pracy PGP)
--The PGP is the in control of the diet for Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria and at the same time Austrian Prime Minister Graf Kasimir Felix von Badeni is the leader of this party. The Party has been a strong supporter of the Hapsburg Monarchy from its beginning, the contrast of rule to the Russians or even Germans over ethnic Poles is so marked and played a key role in this attitude. The parties platform is agrarian in focus so it has strong connections to the Aristocracy and Clergy because of this rural focus. As a result the mandate for Universal Suffrage from Franz Joseph was not very popular with party rank and file. Still the chance to be the ruling party of Austria was too much to pass up and the party swallowed its dislike of what many call a Marxist or even Anarchist mandate.

[Borys]

Ahoj!
Very nice. I'll try to work something of that in. Even though the framework is bit different - dual monarchy dates from 1905, there is univeral suferage (one man = at least one vote; and some women too), etc.
Borys

[miketr]

You might find this interesting...  Two news posts for later in the game, after the Magyars were put down and Dualism replaced with Federalism.

Michael

Election Day!

The results are in and the latest election has scene yet more first for politics in the Monarchy. Most political analyst had predicted a very chaotic campaign and election but what occurred was even more so. By Election Day over 50 parties appeared on ballets across the monarchy. Some of the parties had formed, gotten on the ballet in a few districts or even an entire lander and then splintered. Election laws between the old Austrian and Hungarian halves of the monarchy had not been harmonized and so some parties were unable to get on to ballets in various distracts.

Besides the registration chaos party alliances also changed in some cases on a daily basis. Nationalist and Conservative parties along with Socialist and Christian parties entered into new combinations quickly.

In the end the most unified party collation was the Christian Imperial Alliance. An umbrella for the Christian Social Party (Christliche SozialPartei CSP), Polish Farmer Party (Polskie Gospodarz Pracy PGP), Christian Democratic Party (Keresztény Demokrata Párt KDP) and a number splinter parties of various size, following and locations. The Christian Imperial Alliance boldly and ruthlessly used the Catholic Church for organization, political meets with Priests and Bishops telling parishioners to vote for the alliance. The clear message and strong organization paid huge gains with the Alliance receiving over double the vote of its next closest competitor.

The Socialist were unable to resolve their differences and remained split into Western and Eastern Factions largely along the dividing line of the old Austria Hungary split. Gheorghe Pop de B?se?ti of the Grand Alliance of Hungary out side of the various defections is in control of the Eastern Socialists. Unlike his various Western brethren B?se?ti not only was able to largely maintain the Grand Alliance but was able to unify it into a single party, the Imperial Workers Party.

The different nationalist parties by focusing on Lander elections they in effect basically took themselves out of the picture for the national election. This had the effect of weakening Conservatives, strongly tied to nationalist parties in many cases, initially but fear in some circles of a massive socialist win caused the remainder to unify into a coalition by Election Day, the Black Union.

Election Results

Christian Imperial Alliance 26%
Imperial Workers Party (Eastern) 12%
Black Union 9%
Social Democratic Labor Party (German) 8%
Social Democratic Workers' Party (Czech) 6%
Ruthenian National Party 4%
Croatian Party of Rights 4%
Servian National Party 3%
The remaining various parties (none more than 1%) 28%

Christian Imperial Alliance to attempt to form Government!

With the elections over the next issue to resolve is the formation of a government to led the Empire till the next elections in 1900. The Alliance leadership has stated that it will reach out to the 3 socialist parties to try form a Christian – Socialist Government (Center Left). As part of this it is expected that exact form of the new social welfare system will also be decided upon. The Alliance wished for a decentralized approach where tax money collected would be used to support local welfare organizations. The socialist parties of course favored the formation a big central government agency to control the new welfare system. The Black Union favored a similar system as the Christian Imperial Alliance, the difference being for control to be in the hands of the Lander.

Government Formed, Surprise Makeup!

After several days of heated negotiations the leadership of the Christian Imperial Alliance informed the Emperor that they had secured the support of enough votes to have a simple majority in the Lower House of the new parliament. Graf Kasimir Felix von Badeni leader of the Alliance leadership committee was not comfortable with the idea of a coalition made up so strongly of socialist. This attitude of Badeni's is no surprise with his power base in the Polish Farmer Party a strongly conservative party. When the Social Democratic Labor Party and Social Democratic Workers' Party began to make increasing demands as the price for their participation in government; in particular the nature of the new Welfare System Badeni sought other allies. There are also rumors that the Emperor expressed his concern about the diction things were headed.

The Conservative Black Union was the only realistic choice. The Union agreed to participate in government in exchange for the decentralized welfare system and to be given the foreign office. Gheorghe Pop de B?se?ti learned of the change in direct of the political winds and quickly abandoned his western socialist allies and pledged his parties support. Bishop Strossmayer the Ban of Croatia-Dalmatia-Slavonia used his influence to bring the Croatian Party of Rights into the government. The result was to freeze totally the Western German and Czech Socialist out of government.

Minister President: Graf Kasimir Felix von Badeni (Christian Imperial Alliance)
Minister for Foreign Affairs: Freiherr Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal (Black Union)
Minister of War: Freiherr Karl von Astor (Christian Imperial Alliance)
--Army Minister: Feldzeugmeister Friedrich von Beck-Rzikowsky
--Naval Minister: Vizeadmiral Johann von Hinke
Minister of the Interior: Otto Busek (Christian Imperial Alliance)
Ministry of Treasury and Commerce: Heinz Grasser (Imperial Workers Party)
Minister of Education: Bishop Joseph Strossmayer (Croatian Party of Rights)
Minister of Public Works: Erhard Fischer (Imperial Workers Party)