Kommunismus in Österreich, 1918 - 1938

The study presents the results of the research carried out within the scope of the FWF-Project "Austria and the Communist International 1918 - 1938" It is divided into two main sections. In section one Hannes Leidinger and Verena Moritz examined the years 1918 - 1927, specifically the establishment of diplomatic relations between Austria and the Soviet Union and the tensions which emerged between Soviet diplomats and emissaries of the Communist International who operated from Austria. Vienna as a basis for the monitoring of the Communist Parties in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, or for activities of the Soviet secret services, was also analysed, from the vantage point of policy-makers in Moscow and as seen by the Viennese police, especially under its President Johann Schober. His role in combating the "Bolshevik menaceis also examined. The existence of a Comintern Bureau in Vienna, or of representatives of CPs illegal in their countries (esp. Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Rumania) and the political refugee problem in Austria were also treated. The description of the political in-fighting in these parties, which was due to differences in the Comintern leadership and the tensions between the leading cadres working in the underground, is potrayed against the general strategy of Moscow in promoting nationalist and agrarian movements in the Balkans. In covering the years 1927 - 1938, Barry McLoughlin was dealing with fundamentally changed political parameters: the increasingly authoritarian course of Austrian internal politics after July 1927 and the establishment of the Stalinist dictatorship in the USSR. As regards the KPÖ, the party went into steep decline until 1930 and was managed by KPD emissaries in 1930 - 31 and again in 1934 - 35. The fear that the KPD would be driven underground in Germany motivated the Comintern in 1930 to establish a clandestine radio station in Vienna in order to maintain links with the Communist underground of the neighbouring countries, and to channel funds to them. Espionage operations were no longer directed by Soviet Embassy staff but by "illegal" agents with false identities who recruited members from the KPÖ, which by now had established its own "illegal apparat". This collaboration could be reconstructed as follows: illegal passport procurement, supporting the Vienna offices of foreign Comintern sections, espionage operations and the murder of "defectors". Following the Austrian Civil War of February 1934 the KPÖ (banned by Dollfuss in May 1933) grew in strength. Within the Comintern the KPÖ was accorded more influence in the hope that it would regain legal status in the face of the dangers posed to Austrian independence by Hitlers aggressive foreign policy after 1935 - 36. For their study the authors have collected important and impressive documents from archives in Austria, Russia, Great Britain, Germany and Hungary. The account they have written thus closes a gap in contemporary studies of Communism.