Austrian Communists - First Republic and National Socialism

First Republic and National Socialism

During the First Republic, the KPÖ had little influence and failed to gain a single mandate in parliament, in part because of the ability of the Social Democratic Party SPÖ| ability to unite the workers as an opposition movement. In parallel with the ascent of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union at the end of the 1920s, the KPÖ was also refashioned in an authoritarian direction.

In 1933 the KPÖ was banned by an emergency decree of the Austrofascist government of Engelbert Dollfuß but continued to work underground. According to its own sources, the KPÖ had been prepared for this situation since the end of the 1920s. After the Social Democratic Party was also forbidden, many former SPÖ supporters and functionaries, such as Ernst Fischer and Christian Broda, worked underground with the KPÖ.

The KPÖ took part in the workers rebellion of February 12, 1934, which was sparked by the militia Republikanischer Schutzbund. It marked the last attempt to save the democracy from fascism, but was ill fated.

Because the KPÖ had disagreed with Stalin’s branding of social democracy as a form of "social fascism" since the 1920s, the Austrian communists were the avantgarde in their dissent. Their refusal to condemn the Social Democrats reflected aspects of the 7th World Congress of the Comintern in 1935. The Austrian communists' tolerant stance opened their party to an influx of more disappointed Social Democrats.

After the crushing of the February 1934 uprising by the federal army and the Heimwehr, the KPÖ grew rapidly from 4,000 to 16,000 members.

The KPÖ also took an independent stance from the mainstream in its views about nationhood and an Austrian identity separate from Germany:

"The view that the Austrian people are a part of the German nation is theoretically unfounded. A union of the German nation, in which also the Austrians are included, never existed and does not exist today either. The Austrian people have lived under different economic and political conditions than the remaining Germans in the "Reich", and have therefore chosen another national development. How far this process of a national development is, and/or how close the connections from the common descent and common language are, only a concrete investigation of its history can answer that." (Note: free translation)

Original: "Die Auffassung, daß das österreichische Volk ein Teil der deutschen Nation ist, ist theoretisch unbegründet. Eine Einheit der deutschen Nation, in der auch die Österreicher miteinbezogen sind, hat es bisher nie gegeben und gibt es auch heute nicht. Das österreichische Volk hat unter anderen wirtschaftlichen und politischen Lebensbedingungen gelebt als die übrigen Deutschen im Reich und daher eine andere nationale Entwicklung genommen. Wie weit bei ihm der Prozeß der Herausbildung zu einer besonderen Nation fortgeschritten ist bzw. Wie eng noch die nationalen Bindungen aus der gemeinsamen Abstammung und gemeinsamen Sprache sind, kann nur eine konkrete Untersuchung seiner Geschichte ergeben." (Alfred Klahr, also known as "Rudolf"): Zur nationalen Frage in Österreich; in: Weg und Ziel, 2. Jahrgang (1937), Nr. 3. These comments were written by the leading communist intellectual Alfred Klahr (under his pseudonym "Rudolf"), after being asked in 1936 by the communist leadership in exile in Prague if the theoretical notion of an independent Austrian nation separate from Germany existed. In contrast, many Austrian Social Democrats regarded the affiliation to the German nation as natural and even desirable. Echoing the thoughts of Klahr, the KPÖ expressed its firm conviction in an independent Austria when the country was annexed to Nazi Germany in March 1938. In their historical call "An das österreichische Volk" ("To the Austrian People"), the party denounced Adolf Hitler’s dictatorship and called on all people to fight together for an independent Austria.

As a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, a number of Austrian communists-in-exile, such as KPÖ founder member Franz Koritschoner, were deported from the Soviet Union and handed over to the Nazis. After war broke out between Germany and the Soviet Union, the Soviets quickly reverted their stance and tried to support the Austrian Communists against their former allies.

During the Third Reich, the communists played an important role in the Austrian resistance, fighting side-by-side with former political enemies such as Christian socialists, Catholics, Monarchists, and farmers against the regime of Hitler. Thus the KPÖ took seriously the order of the Allied Powers in the Moscow Declaration from October 1943, which called for Austria's "own contribution" to its liberation from fascism as a condition for the resurrection of their own state. Over 2,000 communists lost their lives during the course of the resistance. There was also an Austrian communist resistance network in Belgium, the Österreichische Freiheitsfront.

There is some disagreement amongst historians if the Austrian communists fought the Nazis out of pure patriotism or if they followed the pattern of the fight of communism against fascism in general. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. The Austrian communists wanted their country free from German occupation as much as they wanted it to become communist.