International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

Government of the far right on the horizon

Austrian correspondents — 2025-01-18T09:39:32Z

“The aim of further tightening xenophobic and anti-minority measures is to divert discontent onto supposed scapegoats (refugees, migrants, the unemployed, welfare recipients, LGBTIQ+ people or even socially critical artists).”

- IVP600 - January 2025 / Austria, Far Right

National elections in Austria: A disaster for democracy and the welfare state – and for the left

EF, WH and PS — 2024-10-03T10:47:19Z

The right-wing extremist Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) under Herbert Kickl received 29% of the vote and was elected by 1.4 million, almost twice as many voters as five years ago. This is the best result for the FPÖ since its founding in 1955; in 2019, it was 770,000. Compared to the last election for the National Council (the parliament of the Federal Republic of Austria), where did the voters come from? 76% voted for the FPÖ again, 443,000 came from the conservative party ÖVP and 258,000 from non-voters.

- IV597 - October 2024 / Austria

Stalin Handed Hundreds of Communists Over to Hitler

Alex de Jong — 2021-09-02T10:39:17Z

During the 1930s, many communists and socialists from Germany and Austria sought refuge from the Nazis in the USSR. But in a shocking betrayal, the Soviet secret police handed over hundreds of them to Hitler's Gestapo.

- Features / Austria, Germany, Historical events and figures

Austria's far right tries to surf on popular anger

Dima Rüger — 2021-02-05T13:07:09Z

“[S]ome of the anger could well fuel a movement whose political significance seems quite similar to the anti-mask demonstrations that have marked Germany.”

- IV553 - February 2021 / Austria, Covid-19 Pandemic

Germany and Austria: the good European pupils of the Covid-19 crisis?

Dima Rüger — 2020-04-20T08:46:22Z

Once again, Germany appears in this crisis as the good European pupil: a relatively low number of deaths despite a higher number of official cases than in France, without “hard” confinement, and a government which appears to be a rather good manager. Its Austrian neighbour has even managed in recent days to “flatten” the famous curve and is considering the first measures of deconfinement. So can they claim to be “top of the class” in Europe?

- IV543 - April 2020 / Austria, Germany, Covid-19 Pandemic

Life in the Century's Midnight

Marcus Barnett — 2019-02-01T10:51:38Z

Around International Holocaust Memorial Day we should remember the resistance that organised itself in Nazi death camps.

- IV529 - February 2019 / Austria, Germany, Poland, Historical events and figures

The Austrian Anti-Social Coalition

Joachim Becker — 2018-01-19T18:12:54Z

The new government of the Ã–VP (Austrian People's Party) and FPÃ– (Freedom Party of Austria) in Austria opens the way towards radicalised neo-liberal economic and social policies. As in some other EU countries, such as Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark and Finland, a traditional liberal-conservative party has formed a coalition with or at least achieved the tolerance of a hard right-wing force with an aggressive anti-immigrant agenda in order to pursue or deepen its neo-liberal policies.

- IV516 - January 2018 / Austria

Austria's Right Turn

Benjamin Opratko — 2017-11-25T06:40:08Z

With the two parties of the Right entering into a coalition government, Austrians can expect more neoliberalism and more xenophobia.

- IV514 - November 2017 / Austria

Walter Kanelutti (1955–2017)

Friends and comrades in Vienna — 2017-08-02T07:31:41Z

Walter Kanelutti (born April, 7th, 1995, in Vienna, died July, 5th, 2017, in Vienna) was a leading member of the small Austrian section of the Fourth International, Sozialistische Alternative/SOAL (Socialist Alternative). In 1977, as a student at the age of 22, he joined the Gruppe RevolutionÃ¤re Marxisten/GRM (Group of Revolutionary Marxists) which would change its name to SOAL in 1986.

- IV511 - August 2017 / Austria, Obituary, Fourth International

How the Nazis destroyed the first gay rights movement

2017-07-24T09:42:50Z

Very recently, Germany's Cabinet approved a bill that will expunge the convictions of tens of thousands of German men for “homosexual acts” under that country's anti-gay law known as “Paragraph 175.” That law dates back to 1871, when modern Germany's first legal code was created.

- IV510 - July 2017 / Italy, Austria, France, Germany, LGBT, Far Right