1950 Austrian general strikes
Timeline The Austrian General Strikes of 1950 were organised by the Communist Party of Austria with half-hearted support of the Soviet occupation authorities.
In August–October 1950 Austria faced a severe social and economic crisis caused by anticipated withdrawal of American financial aid and a sharp drop in real wages.
According to contemporary American press, the August strikes were "the most widespread and potentially dangerous since the end of World War II".
Quite naturally, the administrators of the Marshall Plan channelled available financial aid into heavy industry controlled by the American and British forces.
[11] The Communist Party of Austria made the alleged "ripoff of workers" in 1949 a staple of their campaigning[12] and blamed the very existence of wage-price agreements on American influence.
[10] The public remained unaware of the depth of the crisis altogether until the first week of September when the farmers refused to deliver their produce to the cities at old prices.
[15] As public anxiety mounted, Austrian Communists, who had recently lost municipal elections even in the Soviet zone,[16] grabbed the opportunity and demanded a 15% "straight wage increase with prices frozen".
The crowd of seven thousand[10] pressed its way through police barricades and rallied in front of the Federal Chancellery building at the time of the Cabinet meeting.
In Soviet-occupied Lower Austria strike groups attempted to grab control over railroad stations and post offices, and actually overran some of the latter.
In the morning of Wednesday, September 27, thousands of pro-communist strike workers took control over OGB regional headquarters in Linz and Graz with their communication infrastructure.
On September 28 the communists barely raised seventy volunteers to storm the national OGB office in Vienna, and were routed by the police.
By 7 p.m. of September 27 even the Soviets agreed that the strike failed and their radio program instructed Austrian workers to return to work.
[22] On September 30 pro-communist Conference of Shop Stewards, attended by 2,417 workers' representatives,[23] issued an ultimatum: raise wages immediately or face another general strike on October 4.
[24] The American and British commanders assessed the situation and once again told the Austrian government that their troops will not take action: their armed intervention, should it happen, "would mean shooting... a profound effect inside and outside Austria.
[27] Fears of another Berlin Blockade or even worse intensified on the eve of the strike, when the Soviets instructed Austrian police to stay off the streets and blocked the movement of gendarmes in Vienna.
Austrian government responded with arrests of strike leaders in British and American zones[28] and with an appeal to all the workers: "Repel every act of terror... destroy illegal roadblocks, drive the intruders out of factories.".
One school of thought supports the notion of a planned and concerted efforts; another says that the Communists merely grabbed the opportunity and relied on yet unknown outcome of the strike and street violence.
Sir Harold Caccia wrote that the strikes were not the result of a planned putsch, and that Austrian Communists "never committed themselves to an all-out effort.
According to a series of interviews with unnamed witnesses published by Hugo Portisch in the 1980s, the Soviets were dissatisfied with the disruption caused by Austrian communists.
Portisch wrote that Moscow actually intervened to defuse the situation and instructed the Soviet command in Austria to prevent any overt acts by Austrian Communists, in a way that would allow them to save face after a defeat.
