the draft of the peace treaty, which revealed that the victors would not permit Austria to unite with Germany. Since his policy of unification was considered to have failed, Bauer resigned from the government on 26 July 1919, and Chancellor Renner took over the Foreign Office. Bauer nevertheless remained a proponent of unification until 1933, stating later that "it was clear to every Social Democrat and every worker in Austria that we wanted unification with the German Republic, not Hitler's penal colony." Early party work From March to October 1919 Bauer served with Ignaz Seipel of the Christian Socialists on the socialization commission appointed by Parliament. Its most important result was the draft of the Works Councils Act passed by the National Assembly on 15 May 1919. The move towards socializing private enterprises, however, was quickly halted due to the divergent views of the coalition partners. Bauer and the leaders of the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils, Julius Deutsch and Friedrich Adler (the assassin of Karl von Stürgkh had been released from custody by the Emperor in the last days of the war) succeeded in keeping the workers in line with the party and stopping the communist putsch attempts of 12 November 1918 and 14 June 1919. His successes were also due to the fact that in the course of the post-war economic boom that lasted for about two years, the revolutionary fervor of the working class had diminished considerably. It was a period during which workers could find employment, earn a decent wage, pay hardly any rent, and in what had become known as "Red Vienna", were entitled to the first social benefits offered under its SDAP mayor Jakob Reumann. SDAP in opposition The postwar economic boom, which was based primarily on inflationary speculation, began to slow in 1920. Many working people and retirees fell into poverty due to the effects of high inflation. The dissatisfaction over living standards and the renewed solidarity among conservatives were reflected in the election results of 17 October 1920. The SDAP lost its relative majority, with the Christian Socialists 6 percentage points ahead (42% to 36%). The SDAP, at Bauer's insistence, left the coalition with the Christian Socialists. One result of this was that Secretary of the Army Julius Deutsch had to relinquish control of the Austrian Armed Forces, which 14 years later was to play a decisive role in the suppression of social