No Change

After 13 years of Dollfuss, Schuschnigg and Hitler, Anschluss, war and defeat, a record turnout of about 3,500,000 Austrian voters had their say last week in a free election, for a change. The Austrian voters said, decisively, that they did not like Communism. In the zone occupied by the Red Army they said it stronger than anywhere else.

The result was the second rude jolt to Russian prestige in Russian-occupied lands in a month. Hungary's Communists had been snowed under by the Small Holders Party (TIME, Nov. 12). Now Austria's Communists went down to defeat even in the working-class districts of Vienna and Wiener Neustadt. The Volks-partei, heir to Dollfuss' old Christian Social Party and catchall for former members of the Pan-German and Heimwehr parties, rolled up about half of the vote. The Social Democrats got more than 40%.

When all the returns were in, Austria was back where it had been 15 years ago, with results almost matching those of the last free national elections in 1930. Once again "Red Vienna" had voted heavily Social Democrat. Once again the "black countryside" had voted for the Right. And the Communists, nowhere then, were nowhere now.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.