Austro-Soviet relations

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Austro-Soviet relations began after the defeat and military collapse of Austria-Hungary at the end of the First World War in October 1918 and the establishment of Soviet Russia shortly before.

First contacts until 1924

The first contact between the government of Soviet Russia and German Austria arose from the question of the exchange of prisoners of war, although this question was postponed with the civil war in Russia and the collapse of Austria-Hungary . In 1919 the Austrian representatives were interned in Russia, and in return the prisoner-of-war welfare organization was expelled from Vienna for providing aid in " attempted communist coups". So contact was not possible for a few years.

The question of recognition of both governments plays an important role in the later relationship. The Soviets viewed German Austria as the successor to Austria-Hungary , which the Austrian government denied. The Soviets also claimed that since Brest-Litovsk, both governments recognized each other. But the question of whether Austria was the legal successor to the monarchy or not played an important role in later economic relations.

Russia tried to use the prisoners of war as a means of political pressure against the republic. However, this had no influence on Austria, as it was not in control of its foreign policy . The Western powers controlled and blocked relations with the RSFSR (Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic). Austria was not allowed by the Western powers ( Great Britain , USA , France ) to have any contact with communist Soviet Russia. In 1919 Austria got caught between the East-West Front, as it had good relations with the Soviet Republic of Hungary . These are, however, disapproved by the Western powers. When the Hungarian Soviet Republic came to an end on August 1, 1919 , Bela Kun and other communists fled to Austria. They were held in Karlstein Castle and later in Steinhof . Bela Kun nevertheless remained politically active. France wanted strict control of the Hungarian communists from Austria. The RSFSR intervened and announced that the safety of Austrian prisoners depended on Bela Kun's well-being.

On January 16, 1920, the blockade against the RSFSR was lifted and the possibility of trading with Soviet Russia was open to all European countries. In Copenhagen , Foreign Commissioner Litvinov began to negotiate the exchange of prisoners with Austria. A Soviet courier traveled to Vienna to get in touch with the Hungarian communists. In 1920 the Soviet information office was set up in Vienna and in return Otto Pohl traveled to Moscow as a representative of the press department of the Austrian Foreign Office. On February 2, after the Estonian-Russian peace, the return of prisoners of war via Estonia was initiated. On September 3, 1920, Čičerin Renner announced that the RSFSR was ready to accept the Hungarian communists and that Austria should allow them to retreat freely. Čičerin had asked London because of Austria's dependence on the Western powers. The British did not want to interfere. In May 1920, the Western powers agreed, provided that their prisoners were released. When Austria requested a statement from the USA, they did not respond. Thereupon Austria began to negotiate directly with the Soviets. But with the Polish-Russian war , relations deteriorated. Poland began its offensive in April 1920 and captured Kiev in early May . At the end of May the Russian-Ukrainian Soviet Republic protested against Austria. Austria supposedly delivered armaments to Poland. Renner called for Austria's neutrality policy in the Polish-Russian war. He sent Paul Richter, Vice President of the State Commission on Prisoner of War Issues, to Copenhagen. This should conclude an agreement with Foreign Commissioner Litvinov. Since the government would be replaced in Austria, the Soviet power decided to bring about an agreement within three days. It was called the Copenhagen Agreement .

Copenhagen Agreement

• § 1: Both governments undertook to repatriate prisoners of war and civilian prisoners.
• § 2: For the purpose of representing the interests of the prisoners, representations of the contracting governments should be set up at the headquarters of the central governments, with the status of extraterritoriality and the right to encrypted radio communication.
• § 3: Austria undertakes to remain neutral in the Polish-Russian war, to an absolute ban on all arms and war material deliveries through its territory.
• § 4: The People's Commissars of the former Hungarian Soviet Republic should enjoy freedom of movement.
• § 5: In order to restore economic relations, special representatives should be assigned to the above-mentioned representatives.

The agreement served to clean up prisoner-of-war policy, and from that point on, unofficial diplomatic relations began, which were not officially recognized until four years later.

The Western powers initially responded with satisfaction to the agreement and maintained trade relations with Russia as long as Poland was successful. When the Russians launched a counter-offensive and achieved success, the Western powers intervened on the Polish side. The agreement now stood in the way of the Western powers to draw Austria into the Polish-Russian war. The Western powers accused Austria of taking sides with Russia. The neutrality paragraph 3 and the planned resumption of trade relations with the Soviet power disturbed the Western powers. The Reparations Commission , headed by Sir William Goode, suspended loans to force Austria into a new treaty, but also to prevent further agreements with Russia.

Economic and diplomatic relations

Austria stood between the fronts again and on July 15, 1920 the Hungarian communists were secretly deported to Russia together with Russian prisoners of war via German territory. This was not discussed with Berlin, but the German authorities did not intervene. Bela Kun arrived in Petrograd ( Saint Petersburg ) on August 11th .

On July 29, the loans were suspended and Austria agreed to annul all points of the Copenhagen Agreement that contradicted the Treaty of Saint-Germain , except for paragraph 3, the point of neutrality. On August 23, 1920, the Reparations Commission announced that the ban was lifted and that they were satisfied with the change. The Soviets were assured that they would maintain neutrality. All parties agreed that Austria had to comply with the neutrality policy.

Since the situation of the Social Democratic Party deteriorated after the end of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, Renner tried to form a neutral bloc between the Soviets and the Western powers in Central Europe. However, France prevented a hegemonic policy with its eastern neighbors. Renner wanted to prevent the Central European states from falling into the communist camp. The prerequisites were not bad, since Germany (July 20, 1920) and Czechoslovakia (August 7, 1920) declared themselves neutral in the Polish-Russian war. Austria had no weight as a loser and therefore asked Italy to try to establish the neutrality alliance. Italy saw no possibility of such an alliance and dropped Renner's plan.

The Copenhagen Agreement played an important role in the economic relations between Soviet Russia ( RSFSR ) and Austria. After the blockade was relaxed, trade relations were established immediately. The biggest problem was that they didn't know what the position of the RSFSR was. A different message came from each point. Austria received information from Otto Pohl directly from Moscow. The government encouraged companies to establish business contacts, but did not want to intervene because Austria did not want to come into conflict with the Western powers. Nevertheless, business had to be done through the government. Russia wanted the trade agency to be referred to as a study commission so that the Western powers would have peace of mind. Austria did not want to agree without the Reparations Commission. The TREUGA (AG for processing traffic and fiduciary goods processing) tried to break the torn economic relations, but it failed. In May 1921 new negotiations were started by both governments. The reason for this was the introduction of the NEP ( New Economic Policy / Novaja ėkonomičeskaja politika) in the RSFSR. On December 7, 1921, a supplementary agreement was concluded that specifically regulated the transport of prisoners of war and included a temporary economic agreement. Article 14 of the agreement obliged the representations to refrain from any agitation or propaganda against the governments or state institutions of the country in which they were located.

In January 1923 relations were developed and the question of "de jure recognition" became important. Litwinow and Pohl agreed an economic contract for the Austro-Russian companies that would later emerge. The USSR (since the end of 1922) was one of the most important trading partners between 1924 and 1929. Čičerin gave a lecture on the Austrian situation in March before the Central Executive Committee in Tbilisi. It says that the Danube Federation was an English plan for the economic unification of the former Habsburg territories, which France wanted to know under the leadership of Czechoslovakia. In August 1924 the first real relationships could take place without any hindrance from abroad. The cultural, economic and humanitarian relationships could now develop.

Normalized relationships

Austria and the USSR established diplomatic relations in 1924. In March 1924, Soviet and Romanian delegates negotiated the Bessarabia problem in Vienna . An article in the Austrian Reichspost suggested that Romania renounce part of Bessarabia. This sparked Romanian protests, and Austria was accused of a Russophile attitude. In the Balkans, the suspicion arose that Austrian foreign policy, which was devoted to the USSR, was based on a secret agreement with Moscow to revolutionize south-eastern Europe from Vienna. Vienna was therefore caught in the crossfire of criticism for encouraging communist agitation in the Balkans and for being a Moscow branch. The states of the Little Entente demanded the elimination of all Bolshevik centers in Austria as conditions for negotiations on Austria's economic cooperation . Foreign Minister Heinrich Mataja reacted in 1925 with a sharp speech against communism, which led to protests by the Soviet government. The conflict was settled in July after Mataja revoked his statement that the Soviet mission in Vienna was conducting Bolshevik propaganda. In the interests of exporting to the Soviet Union, the Austrian government endeavored to resolve the conflict with that government. In any case, representatives of business and the opposition feared repercussions of Mataja's speech on trade.

The next few years would show that the Soviet government forced to give in to every disagreement. For example, at the beginning of 1926: the Viennese jury court acquitted two Russians in exile who had planned an assassination attempt on the authorized representative of the USSR. The court justified the acquittal on the grounds that the assassination plan had been drawn up in Bulgaria . The actions of the defendants on Austrian territory did not constitute a crime. The Soviet government protested and demanded the expulsion of all Russians in exile from Austria. The Austrian government had to promise to control the Russians in exile more closely in the future and expelled the two acquitted. There were also upsets because in 1925 the federal government allowed a total of 55 military aircraft to be transported from France via Austria to Poland. But there was also reason for distrust on the Austrian side when a spy ring was unearthed in April 1927, which was in the service of the Soviet mission in Vienna.

Tense relationship 1927–1934

Relations with the Soviet Union were weakened by domestic political events in Austria in 1927 (July uprising). As a result of the July uprising, house searches were carried out in the Vienna offices for RATAO (Austrian-Russian Society for Business with Russia) and RUSAVSTORG (Soviet Information Office). Two Soviet sales representatives were temporarily arrested. They were suspected of having prepared communist actions, which turned out to be unfounded suspicions. The dispute was settled through a press release. In the following years it was mainly the trade turnover that increased; foreign relations stood still. This can be attributed to the fact that the Soviet-friendly Otto Pohl was dismissed from his post in 1927 and his successors Robert Egon Hein (1927–30) and Heinrich Pacher von Theinburg (1930–38) had a rather opposite attitude towards the Soviet Union.

• Pohl, Otto works as a representative of the press department of the Austrian Foreign Office in Moscow. He stayed in Moscow and made his services available to the Foreign Commissariat as editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Moskauer Rundschau". In it he attacked Austrian domestic and foreign policy.

Tensions intensified. In 1928, the Soviet Union criticized the transit of Italian weapons through Austria to Hungary because they suspected that the weapons were intended for Poland. Shortly afterwards, the Soviet newspaper "Izvestia" railed against the trips of Chancellor Schober to Rome, Paris and London under the headline: The Austrian fascists offer their services in the fight on the anti-Soviet front. Čičerin feared fascist tendencies in Austria and the reference to Italy. This should come from the Austrian side. There were initially economic problems in the SU. In 1929 the volume of export trade decreased and between 1930 and 1933 it decreased by 90%. According to USSR statistics, however, imports peaked in 1928/9 and Austria in 1931. Due to the Soviet timber dumping price, the Association of Forest and Land Owners demanded that the government issue an international resolution. The Austrian government envisaged severing all relations with the USSR. This happened because the Austrian industry was dependent on foreign markets and the USSR was no longer sustainable as a sales market. In April there is a ban on the import of agricultural products from the USSR because of their own production within the state. Austrian industry is delighted with the action taken by the Minister of Agriculture, Ender, as trade relations could suffer and successful machine exports could come to naught. Only around 1932–34 did imports drop by 84%. Since the beginning of the global economic crisis, distrust had increased on both sides. In Moscow one thought of an anti-Soviet bloc formation in Europe. The Soviet government had the impression that Austria was joining the front against the USSR. At the same time, Austria feared the danger of a communist overthrow instigated by the Soviet Union. As a result, complaints about the treatment of Soviet citizens by the Austrian police increased. It was almost a rule that Soviet citizens were visited by the police during their stay in Austria and questioned about the purpose and duration of their trip. Diplomatic relations between Moscow and Vienna deteriorated more and more, especially when Dollfuss became Federal Chancellor in 1932. As Minister of Agriculture, he had already opposed cooperation with the Soviet Union. In 1933/34, Austrian-Soviet relations reached their all-time low. In February 1934, Izvestia published a series of articles about the fighting in Austria, and verbally abused the Austrian government. They also settled accounts with the Social Democrats for having betrayed the true communist teaching. From 1934 onwards, the bilateral relations between Austria and the USSR completely lost their importance. The policy of the USSR towards Austria in the 1930s, with the exception of foreign trade, did not revolve around interstate problems, but rather the connection question and the possible role of Austria in the system of collective security.

Position of the Soviet Union on the follow-up question

Union-friendly period of the 1920s

After a brief episode in 1918/19, when the Soviets showed sympathy for a Danube federation in order to be able to revolutionize all of Southeast Europe at the same time, they were benevolent towards the Anschluss from 1920 onwards. Throughout the interwar period, the Soviets' attitude to the Anschluss problem depended on their relationship with Germany. These were namely part of the Soviet European policy. It was in the interests of the Soviets to support those who suffered the Paris peace order. The Rapallo Treaty was the most obvious expression of this policy. In this sense, the Foreign Commissioner Cicerin assured the Austrian envoy that the Soviet Union insists on the standpoint of the follow-up issue that ethnic units must be granted the right to political association. At the end of the 1920s, German-Soviet relations cooled off when a compromise between Germany and the Western powers was emerging. The Soviet representative in Austria, Yurenew , assessed the situation and concluded that the French had always called for Austria's independence to be maintained in order to isolate Austria from Germany. The economic catastrophe is proof that Austria has to lean on someone. The Tardieu Plan , however, would mean economic and financial control by France or at least the League of Nations for Austria . For the Soviet Union there would be disadvantages in trade with Austria. The Soviet press railed against the French plan because they saw intentions to strategically and economically weaken the Soviet Union and finally expressed satisfaction at the failure of the project.

Change of attitude in the 1930s

Relations between France, the Soviet Union and Germany were about to be fundamentally transformed. Since the Locarno Treaties (November 28, 1925) and Germany's entry into the League of Nations, Germany's relations with the Soviet Union had cooled. Maxim Litvinov, who replaced Cicerin as foreign commissioner in 1930, pursued a reorientation towards rapprochement with the Western powers. The new direction is confirmed by the signing of the non-aggression pact between France and the USSR on November 29, 1932. Moscow nevertheless pursued a bilateral course, even after Hitler came to power in 1933. The USSR did not want to break off relations prematurely; it was clear that Austria was not viable in its current situation. However, the USSR believed that this problem could not be solved within the framework of the capitalist order. The annexation to the German Reich , the French and the Italian projects were to be rejected in the opinion of the Soviet Union. The Soviet-French plan wanted Germany to be part of a system of collective security. It failed because of the Polish-German non-aggression pact (January 26, 1934) and the rejection of Germany and Poland. When Engelbert Dollfuss came to power in Austria, the Soviet Union made no distinction between “brown and black fascism” and was thus against the Dollfuss government. The Soviet Union thus began to incorporate the negative attitude towards the follow-up question into foreign policy against Austria. Soviet policy changed dramatically from 1934 onwards, because the follow-up question was the most important question of foreign policy.

Austria and the Eastern Pact

The decision of the Central Committee of December 12, 1933 proclaimed the principle of the "indivisibility" of peace and its "collective defense". The Soviet Union agreed to join the League of Nations and spoke out in favor of a regional pact in Eastern Europe, in which France should also participate. The affected states should provide assistance in the event of an attack. In 1933, after Germany left the League of Nations, France proposed an assistance pact to the Soviet Union in addition to the 1932 non-aggression pact. On December 28, 1933, the Soviet representative in Paris presented the French Foreign Minister with a draft regional pact. The participants should be:

• Soviet Union,
• France,
• Belgium,
• Czechoslovakia,
• Poland,
• the Baltic States and
• Finland.

Germany should be included in the pact. However, the Eastern Pact did not foresee Austria's participation from the outset. The Austrian government was critical or hostile to the proposals for this system. On September 18, 1934, the Soviet Union became a member of the League of Nations and was given a permanent seat on the Council of the League of Nations.

Foreign trade

Trade fell a little in 1929, the second phase came in 1932 and the third in 1935. At first everything was still well represented. In 1932 the textile industry products decline. Other devices, agricultural machines or vehicles are not exported from Austria. In 1935 only precision devices, metal, metal goods and special machines are exported. With the fulfillment of the first five-year plan, the USSR was able to produce most of the goods itself and is no longer dependent on foreign countries.

Causes of the decline in trade

The first heavy blow came with the Great Depression, which hit Austria particularly hard. The successor states stuck to the policy of protectionism. Agriculture and industry are calling on the government to set up protective tariffs as well. Austria not only had this problem, because it slowly became insolvent. In the 1920s, government or private credit had balanced the trade balance. With the collapse of Creditanstalt (CA), the financial situation worsened. The government began to cut imports, thus ending the country's total bankruptcy. In 1932 there were import bans for certain products. Between 1932 and 1936 there were 22 import ban regulations. In April 1930 Schober tried to get new bonds in Paris and London. This provoked violent protests from the Soviet Union, which saw this as an anti-Soviet measure.

Austrian trade statistics in millions of schillings:

year	import	export	EGG
1928	3239	2208	−1031
1929	3263	2189	−1074
1930	2699	1851	−848
1931	2161	1291	−870
1932	1384	764	−620
1933	1149	773	−376
1934	1153	857	−296
1935	1206	895	−311
1936	1249	951	−298
1937	1454	1217	−237

In 1932 agriculture was able to increase purchasing power and the trade in services managed to generate surpluses. This led to its own repayment of the negative trade balance. Foreign loans were no longer necessary.

At the end of 1931 Austria tried to form a customs union with Hungary, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Romania. This was called the Tardieu Plan. This plan failed at the 1932 conference in Stresa. However, Austria and Hungary tried to build a small customs union with Italy. On July 3, 1933, the USSR, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Poland, Persia, Afghanistan and Turkey signed the Briand-Kollegg Pact, which was supposed to prevent these states from attacking each other (Pact of the Little Entente). The admission of the USSR to the League of Nations was hotly debated in the following months of March and April. In all European press organs one could read of an imminent accession. In October, Hitler's Germany left the League of Nations in protest of the participating states. In the course of the next few months, anti-German statements and a confrontation course between Germany and the Soviet power emerged in the Soviet Union. With this political turnaround against the Reich, the German journalists have to leave the country immediately. At the end of 1933, Rome and Moscow tried to consolidate diplomatic relations; Roma hoped that Moscow and Berlin would improve their relations. After the talks, Rome lost the illusion of understanding between the two states. On July 20, 1934, the admission of the USSR is discussed and the Soviet Union demands a pact in which all of Germany's neighbors would be united with Germany.

On March 17, 1934, this goal was achieved in Rome. Economic and political cooperation began among these states. Further individual agreements were signed with France (1934), Poland (1933) and Czechoslovakia (1936). But the impact was too small compared to the Roman Pact states. Between 1934 and 1937 25% of the total export was delivered to the Roman Pact states.

Roman Protocol States

Trade with Italy

year	import	export	EGG
1929	120.6	196.5	75.9
1930	107.1	175.8	68.7
1931	94	108.6	14.6
1932	68.4	75.6	7.2
1933	50.4	86.9	36.5
1934	49.6	91.3	41.7
1935	57.4	127.4	70
1936	59	129.5	70.5
1937	80.3	172.6	92.3

Trade with Hungary

year	import	export	EGG
1929	327.8	164.5	−163.3
1930	285.1	117.8	−167.3
1931	197.6	90	−107.6
1932	135.9	71.2	−64.7
1933	135	76.9	−58.1
1934	129.2	98.4	−30.8
1935	115	96.4	−18.6
1936	118.3	94.4	−23.9
1937	131.7	111.2	−20.5

literature

• Ayromlou, Shahram: 70 Years of Peace Policy and Austro-Soviet Relations - Vienna 1989
• Documentation archive of the Austrian Resistance (Ed.): Austrians in exile. Soviet Union 1934-1945. - Vienna 1999 (p. 307f.)
• Haas, Hanns and Stadler Franz: Austria and the Soviet Union 1918-1955 - Vienna 1984
• Haider, Edgard: The Austrian-Soviet Relations 1918–38. - Phil. Diss. - Vienna 1975
• Neutatz, Dietmar: Relations between the Soviet Union and Austria 1918 - 1938. - Salzburg 1987
• Austrian State Archives: BmfAA NPA, 01 / 1a, Ktn. 53-56; NRA, F47, PS Russia, Ktn. 389

Web links

Commons : Austro-Soviet relations  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Andreas Gémes: Austria, Italy and central European integration plans . In: Maddalena Guiotto, Wolfgang Wohnout (ed.): Italy and Austria in Central Europe in the interwar period / Italia e Austria nella Mitteleuropa tra le due guerre mondiali . Böhlau, Vienna 2018, ISBN 978-3-205-20269-1 , p. 80-84 .