Communist Party of Austria
The Communist Party of Austria is a communist party in Austria. Established in 1918 as the Communist Party of German-Austria, it is one of the world's oldest communist parties. The KPÖ was banned between 1933 and 1945 under both the Austrofascist regime and the Nazi German administration of Austria after the 1938 Anschluss.
The party currently holds two seats in the Styrian and four seats in the Salzburg Landtag, but has not had representation in the National Council since 1959. In the legislative election held on 29 September 2019, it won only 0.7% of the votes, well below the 4% minimum to obtain seats in the National Council. The party's vote share increased markedly to 2.4% in 2024, although still falling below the threshold. At the local level, the KPÖ has held the mayorship of Graz, Austria's second largest city, since 2021, and holds over 130 seats on district and municipal councils across the country.
It is part of the Party of the European Left.
The Party has slowly moved towards Eurocommunism since the 1970s, however, it denies being a merely more radical version of the Greens or Social Democrats, asserting that they are fundementally different.
History
Background and establishment
The KPÖ was officially established on 3 November 1918. Due to the Allies' sea blockade during the First World War, there was a supply shortage in Austria, resulting in workers protests. Such actions included strikes such as the 1918 "Jännerstreik". In 1917, concurrent with the Russian October Revolution, the left wing of the workers' movement established the KPÖ. Ruth Fischer, Karl Steinhardt, Franz Koritschoner, and Lucien Laurat were among the co-founders.Attempts to establish a Soviet republic in Austria resulted in developments different from those in Germany or Russia, as the Räte were only able to establish themselves in isolated, high-population density areas such as Vienna and the industrial areas of Upper Austria. However, a "Red Guard" was formed and soon integrated with the Volkswehr. On 12 November 1918, the party attempted a coup d'état, which was not professionally organised. Within hours, the attempt at revolution was defeated.
First Republic, Second World War, and resistance to Nazism
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 to unite the workers as an opposition movement. The party was also seriously weakened by internal factional struggles. In parallel with the ascent of Joseph Stalin to General Secretary in the Soviet Union in the early 1920s, the KPÖ was also refashioned in accordance with the principles of democratic centralism, and party discipline was more strictly enforced. Due to these reforms, the party was able to overcome its factional struggles by the late-1920s.In 1933 the KPÖ was banned by an emergency decree of the Austrofascist government of Engelbert Dollfuss but continued to operate underground. According to internal sources, the KPÖ had been prepared for this situation since the mid-1920s.
The KPÖ took part in the failed workers rebellion on 12 February 1934, which was sparked by the militia Republikanischer Schutzbund. It marked a last attempt to save Austrian democracy from fascism, but was ill-fated.
The KPÖ held a line which was often in disagreement with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, such as disagreeing with Stalin's branding of social democracy as a form of "social fascism" in the late 1920s. The Austrian communists dissent was avant-garde, with their refusal to condemn Social Democracy reflecting 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, with leading communist intellectual Alfred Klahr writing that the view that the Austrian people were a part of Germany was theoretically unfounded. 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 belief in an independent Austria when the country was annexed to Nazi Germany in March 1938. In their historic call An das österreichische Volk, 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 Nazi Germany.
During Nazi rule, the KPÖ 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 Hitler's regime. 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 precondition for the resurrection of their own state. More than 4,000 communists were imprisoned or sent to concentration camps and more than 2,000 lost their lives during the resistance, including 13 members of the KPÖ's central committee. There was also an Austrian communist resistance network in Belgium, the Österreichische Freiheitsfront.
There is some disagreement amongst historians if the KPÖ fought the Nazis out of patriotism, or followed the pattern of the ideological fight of communism against fascism in general. Internal party documents show the truth as somewhere in the middle; the KPÖ wanted their country free from German occupation as much as they wanted it to become communist.
Second Republic
After Austria regained its independence from Germany, the KPÖ reached national importance, as it was, for the most part, able to count on the support of the occupying Soviet authorities. In the first provisional government under Karl Renner, the KPÖ was represented by seven members, along with ten socialists, and nine Christian socialists. Party chairman Johann Koplenig became vice-chancellor, while fellow communists Franz Honner and Ernst Fischer were made ministers responsible for home affairs and education respectively. However, Renner outflanked the Communists by having two powerful undersecretaries in each ministry, to which were appointed anticommunists. During the years of national reconstruction, the KPÖ vehemently criticised the "capitalistic reconstruction at the expense of the working class" and totally rejected the Marshall Plan.The KPÖ assured the Soviets that they could win as much as 30% of the vote in the first National Council elections in 1945. However, the KPÖ won only 5.4% of the votes and was thus represented with only 4 members in the Austrian parliament. Nevertheless, chancellor Leopold Figl offered the party a ministerial position in the government, and communist Karl Altmann was made Minister for Energy. With the beginning of the Cold War, and the continuing arguments over the Marshall Plan, Altmann resigned from his office in 1947 and the KPÖ became an opposition party.
General strikes of 1950
Post-war, the national economy was in ruins, and the ÖVP-led government instituted a severe austerity programme. The planned measures included substantial price increases but minor wage increases, and large-scale strike movements formed in protest from 26 September to 6 October 1950. This, the largest strike action in the post-war history of Austria, started in the Steyr and Voest factories and the nitrogen plants in the American zone of occupation, and by 10:00 a.m. the number of strikers reached 15,000. Over 120,000 workers participated in the first day of the strike. However, the interruption of the strike to legitimize it with a conference of all Austrian work councils took the momentum out of the movement and in the second phase the concentration of strikes shifted to the Soviet zone of occupation.In the morning of Wednesday 27 September, thousands of pro-communist strike workers took control over ÖGB regional headquarters in Linz and Graz with their communication infrastructure. Again, the police stayed aside but the Socialists in Vienna scrambled all their resources to weaken the communist influence. By the end of the day police and paramilitary units forced the Communists out of ÖGB buildings in British and American zones. On 28 September, the communists raised seventy volunteers to storm the national ÖGB office in Vienna, and were routed by the police. By 7 p.m. on 27 September, even the Soviets agreed that the strike failed and their radio program instructed Austrian workers to return to work. The ÖGB rejected the strike. The KPÖ took a prominent role in this strike, leading politicians of the incumbent grand coalition to fear a coup d'état, with the goal of the installation of a people's republic. The KPÖ denied these allegations.
A second series of strikes began the following week, in Vienna and Lower Austria, and involved approximately 19% of industrial workforce. The strikers made the impact worse by disrupting railroad traffic. They stormed the Stadlau station in Donaustadt three times, were forced away three times, and then blocked the tracks until the evening. On 5 October, they resumed the blockade of Stadlau from 5 a.m., took control of the Nordbahnhof and threatened the Südbahnhof. With the police disabled, railroads were defended by their employees and the volunteers of the "Olah battalion". They were armed with clubs, operated in small teams, and engaged the Communists in hand-to-hand fighting at first opportunity. There were reports that the Soviets provided trucks to move communist crews around, but this was as far as the Soviets went in supporting the strike.
On 5 October, the chairman of the Building and Wood workers Trade Union, Franz Olah, succeeded in negotiating the dissolution of the October strikes. Olah organised workers who supported the SPÖ into clashes with the communists, where they were able to outnumber and defeat them. This caused great friction between the KPÖ and many SPÖ members. The fact that the Soviet Red Army did not interfere also brought the strikes to an end.