Rest in peace, our dear comrade; you live on in our struggles!: In Memory of Tibor Zenker

Tibor Zenker speaking in November, 2024 -- image via the PdA

Funeral speech by Otto Bruckner, Chairman of the Party of Labour of Austria (PdA), at the funeral of Chairman Tibor Zenker, who passed away on 16 April 2026, Vienna, 12 May 2026.

Dear mourners!

In these difficult hours our sincere condolences go out to Tibor’s partner Gabi, his son Simon, his daughter Judith, his stepson Jakob, his brother Jan, his mother, his sister and all other relatives, friends and comrades.

I was not supposed to stand by Tibor’s coffin and hold the funeral speech. Rather he was to stand by mine at some point, when the time has come. That is what we had agreed on. Now things have turned out differently. In a way that leaves us feeling both sad and angry. Immeasurably sad at Tibor’s far too early death, and angry at an incapable and overburdened healthcare system, without whose negligence Tibor might still be with us today.

So now it is my sad duty to say adieu on behalf of his comrades, on behalf of his party, which Tibor has led with prudence and great dedication as its chairman since 2019. It is also a final adieu from me personally.

For more than 20 years, Tibor was the most faithful and patient, the most loyal and intelligent political friend I have ever had. Since the night of 16 April, everything has changed.

The long late-night phone calls in which we, sometimes passionately and full of élan, sometimes pensive and verging on despair, sometimes cheerful and polemical, always weighed up and discussed everything that mattered regarding our shared baby, the Party of Labour. These calls usually ended with us taking decisive action. We divided up tasks and arranged meetings with comrades. Those days are gone.

The atmosphere of our friendship meant that we could also present half-baked ideas to one another, which were often discarded again.

But on one point Tibor was strict: no half-measures, no turning back. There is no such thing as half-baked Marxism-Leninism, as he once dryly observed in a dispute with Styrian comrades.

I would like to look back at the year 2013, the year in which the Party of Labour of Austria was founded. On 3 February of that year, the 8th and final General Assembly of the Communist Initiative (CI), the predecessor organisation of the Party of Labour, took place, and Tibor delivered a landmark speech entitled “From the Communist Initiative to the Party of Labour”. In the speech, he outlined that the process of uniting Marxist-Leninist forces in Austria – a task the CI had set itself – was to be regarded as complete. “But this is not something on which we can or should rest,” he said, “rather, it is an obligation that no one can, will or is willing to take off our shoulders. Namely, the obligation to develop towards becoming a party and then to move forward as a party. (…) Those who want an easier life can – like some of our very good friends – join the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) and, as an important branch chairman, serve mulled wine ‘against social indifference’ whilst railing against Faymann; or they can move to Styria and wait for a local KPÖ seat to fall to them at some point somewhere, whilst railing against Messner and the CI. – “But anyone who wants to fight for and with the working class across the whole country, without any ifs or buts, anyone who wants to work for the revolution and socialism, has come to the right place,” he concluded.

I would now like to quote a longer passage from Tibor’s speech, in which he succinctly summarised how we envisaged the Party of Labour – and – how it already is in many respects today.

“It must be built with courage – and with humility. With the necessary courage, because the class enemy and its instruments of rule will fight us, the more progress we make, the more they will fight; anyone who allows themselves to be overcome by timidity or even fear, because the enemy is so powerful and the tasks and goals so great, has already lost. With humility, because the revolutionary party of the working class will first have to earn this position through sincere participation in the struggles of the class. The creation of this party will also require a corresponding willingness to make sacrifices and professionalism: a willingness to make sacrifices, because active participation in the building and expansion of the party will cost a great deal of time and energy – at the expense of your free time, your private interests and, sometimes, even though we will try to prevent this, unfortunately also at the expense of your progress in education, vocational training or your career. Yet only this will enable a small party to operate with the necessary professionalism. Without it, it will not survive the long-term class struggle – botched work, fumbling and inertia will have no place in the future. The party will also be built on discipline and responsibility – with discipline within and towards the collective, as well as towards the democratic and binding decisions of the party’s institutions, and with personal responsibility for the tasks undertaken in accordance with each individual’s abilities. Last but not least, the party must be built on the basis of unity of will and action – it is a voluntary association: anyone within or outside it who is merely interested in spreading unrest and discontent, in defamation, incitement, subversion and division; whoever wishes to block development or even sabotage organisational goals; whoever promotes indiscipline and negligence; whoever does not commit to solidarity and comradeship; whoever repeatedly and deliberately causes harm to us and our cause, or even merely accepts it, and shows no insight, capacity for criticism or self-criticism – such people may leave at any time. We do not need such people. The CI does not need them, nor do the Marxist-Leninist Party or the working class do not need them. Finally, the revolutionary party must be built – with joy, because there is no more honourable, rewarding or important task than to fight in an organised manner for the overthrow of capitalism, for the creation of a socialist society and for the realisation of a classless society.”

Tibor took these demands very seriously, perhaps too seriously. He served in every role within the party with dedication and discipline, and in doing so he did not spare himself, which perhaps he should have done.

Tibor could certainly have taken the easier path. With his intellectual abilities, his erudition and his talent for writing, he could surely have gone far as a mainstream Social Democrat, perhaps even alongside the current Vice-Chancellor and former comrade Andreas Babler.

But Tibor took the other path. He was a communist with every fibre of his being. He acquired his vast range of knowledge through his own efforts, but communism was, so to speak, in his blood from birth. His father, Helmut Zenker, who also left us far too soon, was the creative force behind the Kottan, a novelist and screenwriter, and deeply committed to the cause of communism. His grandfather, Karl Zenker, was the Lower Austrian regional secretary of the KPÖ and, as a member of the Central Committee in the late 1960s, a vehement advocate of a Marxist-Leninist orientation for the KPÖ; Tibor’s grandmother was also an active communist.

Tibor Zenker has left us a great treasure in the form of articles, speeches and books, which will remain with us forever as his political legacy. Numerous messages of condolence from communist and workers’ parties to our party and his family demonstrate just how widely Tibor’s work was recognised internationally. As a special gesture of appreciation, the Communist Party of Greece has today sent its MEP, Comrade Lefteris Nikolau-Alavanos, to pay his respects to Tibor.

We, his comrades in the Party of Labour and the Youth Front, stand here – still in a state of shock – by our chairman’s coffin. Here and now, we vow that we will continue to build the party in Tibor’s spirit and further develop its unity and fighting strength. We will carry on the red flag of the PdA, of which Tibor was so proud, and our descendants will do so until the just cause of the working class has triumphed. – And then, of course, all the more so!

Rest in peace, our dear comrade; you live on in our struggles!