This article examines a shift in Czech socialist workers’ political
rhetoric in the first decade of the twentieth century from the sense that workers were excluded outsiders from the ethnic nation to the idea that they would rightfully redefine and lead the ethnic nation. Social Democracy’s preoccupation from 1907 on with national concerns led directly to the splitting of Austrian Social Democracy along ethno-national lines several years before the outbreak of World War One. Because this rhetorical and social-psychological shift coincided with a major extension of voting rights in Habsburg Austria (in which Social Democratic mobilizations played a key role), this paper argues that democratization played an important, unappreciated, role in the rise of nationalism in the east central European workers’ movement. It also highlights the role of Czech socialist leader, František Soukup, in facilitating and articulating Czech workers’ new stance. and Článek zahrnuje poznámkový aparát pod čarou