Communism in Austria and Brazil

What was the cause of communism falling/withdrawling from Austria and Brazil?

Brazil's Communists were persecuted in the 30s under the Integralists (Brazilian Fascists) and under the 1960s-70s military juntas.

I don't know much about Austria, but within the Soviet leadership Molotov opposed the proposal for Soviet troops to leave the eastern portion of the country. Instead that proposal won out and Austria was made an ostensibly neutral country.

Wasn't there some options proposed by Stalin to have Austria and what became the GDR fused and become a Prussian SSR?

The Western Allies REALLy didn't like that idea as a lot of Nazism was blamed on Prussian Roots in the West.

Stalin thought otherwise from what I heard elsewhere, Is there any truth to this rumour?

I've never heard of that claim. It sounds very unlikely considering that the Soviets reduced the postwar borders of Germany (see: Oder-Neisse line.) I would have guessed that their attitude towards Germany annexing Austria yet again would also be very negative.

Stalin did propose the establishment of a neutral Germany in 1952, but the West thought that such a state would eventually gravitate towards the USSR, and at that point the Americans had a stable and profitable West Germany which was depending on Western industries for armament.

I think the point was less an expanded GDR and more of a Prussian SSR being a way to dismantle the German Cultural Identity in the Soviet Region by Supplanting it with a Prussian one moulded by the Soviets.

If by "SSR" you mean that area actually becoming a part of the Soviet Union, that sounds false. Do you have a source for the story?

omnimercurial wrote:

Wasn't there some options proposed by Stalin to have Austria and what became the GDR fused and become a Prussian SSR?

The Western Allies REALLy didn't like that idea as a lot of Nazism was blamed on Prussian Roots in the West.

Stalin thought otherwise from what I heard elsewhere, Is there any truth to this rumour?

That sounds kind of strange, because there wasn't anything "Prussian" about Austria as far as I know. Quite a difference between the Protestant Prussia and the Catholic Austrian Empire, in fact. They were often opposed to each other in the 19th century, and Austria formed no part of German unification. Germany opted for Kleindeutschland instead. It took the destruction of the Austrian Empire to put the Greater German solution back in people's minds, and who better to do this but the Austrian Hitler at the head of a resurgent Germany? But there wasn't any Prussianism there, just Greater Germanism.

During and after WWII, the Allies had called for the restoration of an Austrian republic, with Austria treated as Hitler's "first victim" rather than as his very willing collaborators. To undo all that and split up Austria between east and west would have been one thing, but to repeat Anschluss again with the eastern part would have been just silly. What purpose would it serve, but to create an extremely unhistorical state of "East Germany + East Austria"?

Of course linguistic and cultural similarity is one thing, even with a lack of historical ties, but they also never "united" Bulgaria with either the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia. If they had wanted to keep eastern Austria on board, it would have served better as yet another relatively small "people's democracy" than as some kind of artificially merged state.

EDIT: according to this, there was some very faint sympathy for Prussian tradition with the Soviets, but apparently it faded to nothing in the face of the situation on the ground and the political reality. The East German army apparently did retain some Prussian traditions. Some nice videos to check out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYN9F9QygMk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmJmzQbgP5o

Last time I checked, communism in Brazil was on the rise (they won two extra seats in parliament the last election). PCdoB won 15 out of 513 seats, and 2,8 percent (which doesn't sound great, but you have to remember that in 1990 they could only muster 0,9 percent of the votes; they've climbed steadily).... In Austria communism has been dead since the 1950s, hasn't it? (with the exception of one city in which they keep getting 10 percent...) Outside that city, they are barely able to reach 1 percent.... Despite this they did manage to increase their vote share in the last general election too 1,03 percent (an increase of 0,27), which isn't much, but at least its a beginning...

I'm brazilian, I'll give my shallow 2 cents on the subject...To me the left is strong in Brazil in comparison to other nations, especially first world ones.
First of all, Brazil was always shielded from the "revolutionary" spirit of the colonies in Latin America...No Bolivar, no concept of a united continent, or things that led to not only the forment of a national citizen, but one with power and necessities that are not met.
So our national heroes(which are already very few and in between) were not our grandfathers who fought for the liberation of the motherland against the monarchy, or the peasant who stood strong against exploration in the Empire...They are the "Bandeirantes" who killed and purged the inner most lands of Brazil with bravery and willpower(for the land owners and for money), Or the writers and musicians who fought for the independence.
Now I'm talking about the "spirit" of the everyday man post Republic...

This same man started to receive and mess around with the european immigrants who came from a broken Europe/Asia nigh 1900s, that, somewhat fed some consciousness into them, but this same process was hindered given we are a [/b][/i] Patriarchal and rural society, that didn't develop a proper industry(so...classic proletariat)until the 1940s, thus the sense of class conscious was cut stiff by the rulling classes and the government, who continually strived towards keeping the status quo of "send commodities to the 1st world, and frag industrialization".
And now we have to talk about one crucial aspect of Brazil's "social spirit":the military..
They proclamed the Republic(directly correlated with the ruling class) but along with it, adopted a positivist aura that to this day haunts our flag:Order and Progress.

What I mean to say is, our military was burguois fed, and whose basic dogma was counter revolutionary, and you might say: "that's something widespread in any military formation"...but contrary to the US armys' "energy", born out of a patriotic, revolutionary Geist, who fight FOR(they constructed it) their freedom, ours believed in fight TO KEEP(what freedom?Let's take what we have atm) our freedom(so our notion of freedom is colonial, patriarchal and rural).
We covered the Post colonial and Mid republican man, who did uplift sometimes(1917 strike), but never made a definitve political statement out of it.

Things start to change in the 30s: The latter european influence advances even more, a change in our basic economic structure is necessary, sociology starts to become a thing here and labour issues take a stand with the Vargas Era.
But, Vargas was your typical 1930s dictator, using ideologies on the go, left wing when necessary, right wing when useful. For his first uprisal he was facing severe resistance from the Communist party, and thus united with the integralists to create a fake political device called the Cohen Plan: a communist plot to MUH destroy society...
AND THIS is was major on the brazilians perception of communism, to me. Way before Mcchartyism, the notion of communists as evil devil worshippers was implanted into BR, and so the MORALIZATION of the left started early...I'll Get to that in a sec.
Now, although the communists are still active, people are being told by the guy that finally let people vote and have basic labor rights that communism is bad(so the workers rights are somewhat disconnected from commie ideals).
Later on, Vargas kills himself and populism grows(now we're already in the context of the cold war) so the US, through loans and investments begins it's already known mission of quieting socialist echoes in America...BUT, the left keeps growing and growing, especially since the forementioned investments, although contemplating the industrialization process, fell through for the proletariat and Goulart and the CP eventually reached an avid position of power...That enraged the upper class, the US and the military(Deeply connected to the former two and to the morality of socialism(entrenched by propaganda, our religious, positivist and patriarchal roots),who enacted the Coup....
It fell through(somewhat):popular music had left wing connotations, universities became directly correlated with them and the horrendous economy instilled worker strikes that created new high profile figures(like Lula) that presented a new and charismatic view on workers rights.
But again...Did that completely reach the everyday man? No, in fact the Dictatorship was dissoluted by the miltary themselves, although in a tumultous scenery.
What you have to understand is that the brazilian people are...well...accostumed to the hardships of life and along with that, from what I perceive: culture +morality(conservative, religious)>>> economy(you notice that in Bolsonaro's(our trump, but worse) FB page, hundreds of people saying frag economy, he needs to bring back our good values) So a good chunk of them viewed and view that period as a tough but spiritually clean and pure time, corrupted by people like Lula, that are communists, because they're gay, abortionists and anti-capitalists.
Remeber the morals I talked about? Well...they took everything our chauvinist, christian history hates and juggled them along with socialism.
In contrast to them, factory workers, students, and very poor people(Especially north-easterners(geographically impaired region, forgotten by the post colonial state)) felt represented by the "revolutionary" spirit arisen by the strikes and the non-conservative politicians.
Problem is, that left is actually center-right. And then the endless discussion starts: but it's much better than the right, but it's still shit, but it's not actual communism, but it favors the people, but it's just so "bread and circus-y" and so on....
So you have a very dilluted and weak notion of communism here, fought by decades of moralization and loss of faith(Especially after the scandals regarding our "left") alligned with so little political participation of the people + low levels of proper civil education and background that holds back the movement from reaching it's potential heights.
Having said that, the left has increased dramatically since the 90s and in comparison to other countries, it's SUPER.
A lot of seats amongst our deputies and senators, strong(although dubious and corrupt) syndicates and widespread dissemination of our notions and ideals(honestly, everyday you see a discussion around the issue) that keeps the spirit alive.
And honestly, I think Lula will win next year, again...Comes to show that we are still left "leaning", but a long way from being proper a proper left.