OCR
a ~ . ‘NEWS FROM AUSTRIA, , While at the present tine the political val is sti11 32 , Simmering and nothing very definite is as yet emerging from the —= ever changing picture of party politics in Austria, there is one thing which has emerged from recent events which has taken an ever~increasing ominous pattem. Up to a few months ago, Communism in Austria was a relé&ively minor issue, The Communists, despite the Russian pressure and presence, were a negligible domestic factor. Whenever, in recent years, these dispatches pointed out that the danger was a great one and that it was folly simply to pooh-pooh its existence, we were immediately accused of alarmism and of “seeing ghosts, Now highest governement officials have come to : confirm what we have said, In a recent public statement Under- oe Secretary of Interior Graf was finally compelled by the facts to Be admit that the Communist danger was gaining dangerous proportions, dust for the record, let us remind that in the past we always pointed out : that the presence of sizeable Communist for— ces in the Police of the country — under an allied law protecting áll those niminated by the Allies in the hour of the “liberation” = = rendered the executive branch of the governenent extremely weak § — 5 that the mass-naturalization of so-called DP's - not to be confounded with legitimate expellees - was leading in the East of ‘ustria to HELO Me Sata mosts had vastly increased their potential by working ever more clo= "National League" of SS Officer Slavik and by the even more ominous © agreement between Mr. Huemer, M.P, and Professor Dobretsberger § 23, that there was an ever-increasing Nenni-wing in the Austrian Socialist Party, which in the end would either lead to a break-up of __ that party or else carry its more moderate leaders into a dangerous 3 competition with the fifth column inside of the rabks of the gg Faliing slowly into a pattern which it would be deadly to overlook. The recent Tyade Union elections were a grave warming in ore While the Communist vote scarcely increased in the Soviet Zone, true triumphs were registered in the West. In line with their policy’ to concentrate only on big industries of strategic importance, and | to let aside the smaller enterprises, the Communists scored ne@viiy =.