While the provisional government had declared the Austrian state to be a constituent state of the German republic, the treaty barred Austria from joining Germany without the consent of the League of Nations and insisted that the new state call itself the Republic of Austria rather than the German Austrian Republic. The Treaty of St. Germain was then signed on September 10, 1919. The new Austrian state was sometimes referred to as the First Republic (Solsten).
The SDAP faced an Austria suffering extreme economic dislocation and tensions with the ruling Christian Social Party (CSP). Otto Bauer was then the leader of the SDAP, and Ignaz Seipel the leader of the CSP and at times chancellor. Seipel remained the key public figure in Austrian national politics throughout the 1920s. Vienna was given the status of a province under the 1920 constitution and was the SDAP stronghold. Vienna had a city government of Social Democrats which purposely sought to make health and housing programs and the socialist inspired "workers' culture" of "Red Vienna" into a model for the rest of Austria (Solsten).
Engelbert Dollfuss became chancellor in 1932 and sought to maintain power by moving to authoritarian rule. He did not have the majority he needed to rule, so he issued a proclamation that effectively ended parli
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