Russian Sources on Soviet occupation in Austria 1945-1955

Until today, insufficient research has been carried out into the Soviet occupation in Austria, 1945-1955. Whereas the American, British and French allies are subject of a vast quantity of scientific literature based on primary sources, the background of their Russian counterpart is still widely unknown. The reason for this deficit is lacking access to Soviet documents on the subject. In order to make them accessible to research and comparative studies, the project intends to edit, translate and publish selected original sources from the Russian State Archive for Social and Political History (RGASPI). As a former archive of the Central Committee of the CPSU, RGASPI contains the holdings of the Foreign policy and Propaganda departments of the Central Committee who received reports of Soviet occupation officials in Austria on their own and their allies` political and propaganda activities and on their perception of the political and economic situation there. Furthermore, the archive stores parts of the correspondence between the leaders of the Austrian Communist Party and the inner leading circle of the CPSU. The planned edition of documents shall improve our understanding of how the Russians perceived the situation in Austria, how the occupation policy was formed and what role the Austrians played in it. The project shall be carried out in co-operation between Austrian, American and Russian scientists at university institutes in Vienna, Stanford and Moscow.

The impact of ideology on the Soviet perception of Austrian politics in 1945-55 was higher than historians had expected. From the defeat of the Austrian Communist Party (CPA) in the elections of 25 November 1945 until 1953/54, the Soviet occupation authorities in Austria continuously developed-and partially implemented-measures to strengthen the "democratic forces", i.e. the communists, and to discredit and undermine the ruling conservatives and social-democrats. Their plans were ranging from attempts to split the non-communist parties to the foundation of procommunist party alliances, e.g. the "Leftist Bloc" in 1949 or the Austrian "Popular Opposition" which in 1952 was founded by order of the Soviet Politburo. A proposal made by the Soviet High Commissioner in Austria to the Soviet Central Committee in 1953 to weaken the ruling parties by expelling their representatives from the Soviet zone of occupation was not implemented. A partition of the country along the border of the Soviet zone, as it became reality in Germany, was suggested by the leaders of the CPA to the Soviet leadership but refused. These are some of the most important results of the research project "Russian Sources on Soviet occupation in Austria 1945-55". Its aim was to make accessible to a wider range of researchers Russian archival documents ("sources") on Soviet policy in Austria. The focus was laid on the Soviet perception of the political development of Austria, the political planning and measures of the Soviet occupation authorities and the role of the CPA in influencing them. The documents selected for publication are orders by Stalin, Politburo decrees, reviews of the political situation in Austria, reports of action of the Soviet authorities there, protocols and letters of the CPA leadership to Stalin. Most of them are from two Moscow archives, RGASPI and RGANI, storing the documents of the Soviet party leadership and offering, on the one hand, the best accessibility, and on the other, the material needed. Further documents were discovered in AVPRF and GARF archives, both in Moscow. The book "Sowjetische Politik in Österreich/Sovetskaja Politika v Avstrii" published in 2005 contains 101 documents from the years 1945-55 in the original Russian version and in German translation. In the preface and the introduction, the editors describe the archival origins of the selected documents and the selection criteria, and also give an overview over Soviet policy in Austria. Furthermore, the reader finds an introduction into the specifics of the language of the documents and the principles of the translation. The main chapter containing the documents in chronological order makes up more than 900 pages. Commentaries give an insight into the tradition of the documents (when was the document written / sent / read / annotated by whom) and an index provides short biographical data on all names mentioned in the documents. All parts of the volume are both in Russian and in German.