The Red Army in Austria. Группа авторов

is also reflected in Western historiography, for example, in the monograph of the American researcher Audrey Kurth Cronin. Together with the information that “an arrival in Vienna on the part of the leaders of the Western missions was only allowed on 3 June—almost two months after the entry of Soviet troops into the city—and the Western garrisons did not arrive until the end of August,” Cronin cites a notification in the Times from June 22, 1945, according to which “the Russian requests for a most rapid arrival of the Allies in Vienna were fulfilled.” According to Cronin, a “change” in the Soviet position had come about, which she explains in that “the Soviet commanders on the ground had recognized that they were not in a position to feed the civilian population,” which is why they were subsequently interested in being able to share the responsibility for this with the Western powers. Such a change in position cannot, incidentally, be discerned for Stalin, which is demonstrated by the fact that it was suggested to the leaders of the Western missions following a one-week stay to leave the capital again.²¹

There is much in this portrayal of events and their interpretation that arouses well-founded doubts. In this context, it is above all the differing positions of Stalin and the Soviet representatives “on the ground” that seem to be exceedingly unlikely. If one of these had allowed himself even to the slightest extent to think independently and, furthermore, in relation to such an important political issue as relations with the Allies, one would in no way have wished to be in his shoes. The reason given by Cronin for the change in the Soviet stance is also not very convincing. She bases it on the preconceived and in no way provable theory of the “plundering” of the Soviet-occupied territories of Austria by Soviet troops. It should be pointed out here that even following on from this point of departure, which indicates that large-scale confiscations were carried out on the Soviet side, it should at all costs be kept in mind that the confiscated goods were, firstly, industrial installations and, secondly, items whose value for the provisioning of the population with food can be described as minimal. On the other hand, statistics exist for the delivery of foodstuffs to Austria during 1945, which show that the Soviet contribution to these deliveries was the largest.²² Is this a case of distorted statistics, which give a false picture? If not, then the cause and effect relationship established by the American academic is to be characterized in essence as incorrect.

      In my opinion, the Soviet side pursued a specific tactic with the aim of forcing through a settlement for the zone allocation that was most favorable for them. How efficient this tactic actually was can be questioned in view of the fact noted by Cronin that the Western Allies (at least the Americans) were not initially interested in a rapid deployment of their troops on Austrian territory and that the inflexible approach of the Soviets only gave them an excuse to conceal their “wait and see” policy. Ultimately, both sides moved away from their policy of irrational tactical manoeuvres, which eventually led to the signing of the aforementioned jointly drafted documents, which established both the zone borders and the fundamental principles of the occupation regime. The territory of the Soviet zone covered a larger area than had been foreseen in the aforementioned paper of the “Voroshilov Commission” from June 12, 1944 (it comprised a territory of 26,273 square kilometres with a population of 1,843,000 people, whereas the letter of the “Voroshilov Commission” had talked merely of 21,066 square kilometres with 1,407,000 inhabitants), but was nevertheless considerably smaller than the territory that had been liberated by the Soviet armed forces and was under their control at the end of the war (36,551 square kilometres with a population of 4,532,000 people).²³

      NOTES

1. Vneshnyaya politika Sovetskogo Soyuza v period Otechestvennoi voiny. Dokumenty i materialy, Vol. 1 (Moscow: Ob”edinenie gosudarstvennykh izdatel’stv, 1946), p. 43. See also Natal’ja Lebedeva, “Österreichische Kommunisten im Moskauer Exil: Die Komintern, die Abteilung für internationale Information des ZK der VKP(b) und Österreich 1943–1945,” in Stefan Karner and Barbara Stelzl-Marx, eds., Die Rote Armee in Österreich: Sowjetische Besatzung 1945–1955. Beiträge (Graz/Vienna/Munich: Oldenbourg, 2005), pp. 39–60.

      2. Foreign Policy Archives of the Russian Federation (hereafter AVP RF), f. 059, op. 1, p. 354, d. 2412, ll. 21–24. Reprinted in G. P. Kynin and J. Laufer, SSSR i germanskii vopros. 22 iyunya 1941g.-8 maya 1945. SSSR i germanskii vopros 1941–1949, Vol. 1 (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Instituta Mezhdunarodnykh Otnoshenii,1996), pp. 118–119, and in Stefan Karner, Barbara Stelzl-Marx and Alexander Tschubarjan, eds., Die Rote Armee in Österreich: Sowjetische Besatzung 1945–1955. Dokumente. Krasnaya Armiya v Avstrii: Sovetskaya okkupatsiya 1945–1955. Dokumenty (Graz/Vienna/Munich: Oldenbourg, 2005), Doc. 1.

      3. Karl Stuhlpfarrer, “Österreich—Mittäterschaft und Opferstatus,” in Ulrich Herbert and Axel Schildt, eds., Kriegsende in Europa: Vom Beginn des deutschen Machtzerfalls bis zur Stabilisierung der Nachkriegsordnung 1944–1948 (Essen: Klartext-Verlag, 1998), pp. 301–317, here p. 307.

      4. Kynin and Laufer, SSSR i germanskii vopros, p. 646.

      5. AVP RF, F. 48z, op. 24a, p. 46, d. 1, l. 46.

      6. Ibid., l. 49.

      7. Kynin and Laufer; SSSR i germanskii vopros, pp. 301–303.

      8. Ibid., p. 402.

      9. Ibid., p. 407.

      10. Ibid., p. 413.

      11. Ibid., p. 416.

      12. Ibid., p. 461.

      13. Ibid., p. 464.

      14. Ibid., p. 469.

      15. Ibid., p. 488.

      16. V. N. Beletskii, Sovetskii Soyuz i Avstriya. Bor´ba Sovetskogo Soyuza za vozrozhdenie nezavisimoi demokraticheskoi Avstrii i ustanovlenie s nei druzhestvennykh otnoshenii (1938-1960gg.) (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Instituta Mezhdunarodnykh Otnoshenii, 1962), p. 104.

      17. A. A. Roshchin, Poslevoennoe uregulirovanie v Evrope (Moscow: Mysl’, 1984), p. 86.

      18. Ibid., pp. 86–88.

      19. Perepiska predsedatelya Soveta ministrov SSSR s prezidentami SShA i prem´er-ministrami Velikobritanii vo vremya Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny 1941–1945 gg., Vol. 1 (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1957), pp. 361–362.

      20. V. M. Falin, Vtoroi front. Antigitlerovskaya koalitsiya. Konflikt interesov (Moscow: Tsentrpoligraf, 2000), p. 565.

      21. Audrey Kurth Cronin, Great Power Politics and the Struggle over Austria 1945–1955 (Ithaca/New York: Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 26–27.

      22. Beletskii, Sovetskii Soyuz i Avstriya, p. 111.

23. Ibid., p. 65.