Won’t comment on that last statement, but the deal wasn’t ‘no self defence’, it was ‘no taking sides’. With Finland, with the allied plans to invade Norway and axis invasion of Norway and allied invasion of Iceland, the Soviets struck a deal requiring the Finns to have a good standing army so they couldn’t be invaded and made use of. They went as far as selling Finland their best fighter aircraft to ensure this. The threat was ‘Fight to stay neutral during a war or we’ll have to invade you again’.
That’s a bit sanitised version of history. Russia might have entertained the thought of finishing business with Finland, but it got such a bloody nose the last time and on top of that, Finland was worth way more as capitalist country that was honoring its huge reparation obligations towards Russia than a crippled communist satellite.
The reasons why Austria was left intact was multifold, the main factor was that Russia only controlled the flat parts that were easy to conquer and hard to defend while the Western Allies controlled the mountainous regions that were easy to defend and hard to conquer. Getting the Western Allies out of those mountains was worth way more than retaining military control of Eastern Austria. Hence “Neutrality” which however was never really able to defend itself, unlike Switzerland. It was always a myth, only kept intact by the cold war never turning hot. Russians had plans to march through Austria in case it every had turned hot in Europe.
Even then it took for Stalin to die for Austria to finally manage to end occupation. There was no way Stalin had ever agreed to that. So Austria was occupied for a full decade primarily because of Russia, not because of the western allies. As a nice bonus, Russia dismantled the industrial facilities in the territory it controlled and shipped it all eastwards. Good thing for Austria, that with western support it could exchange that with up to date machinery, while Russia was stuck with the old stuff.
Austria was allowed to defend itself. It was, however mandated to be neutral and not allowed to join any military alliance, western or eastern.
The deal was considered a good deal by all sides (except Germany, who was pissed that Austria got such a good deal and Germany was left in a shitty situation.).
how nice of the commies to leave as long as austria promises not to defend itself
russia never changes, fucking cowards
Won’t comment on that last statement, but the deal wasn’t ‘no self defence’, it was ‘no taking sides’. With Finland, with the allied plans to invade Norway and axis invasion of Norway and allied invasion of Iceland, the Soviets struck a deal requiring the Finns to have a good standing army so they couldn’t be invaded and made use of. They went as far as selling Finland their best fighter aircraft to ensure this. The threat was ‘Fight to stay neutral during a war or we’ll have to invade you again’.
That’s a bit sanitised version of history. Russia might have entertained the thought of finishing business with Finland, but it got such a bloody nose the last time and on top of that, Finland was worth way more as capitalist country that was honoring its huge reparation obligations towards Russia than a crippled communist satellite.
The reasons why Austria was left intact was multifold, the main factor was that Russia only controlled the flat parts that were easy to conquer and hard to defend while the Western Allies controlled the mountainous regions that were easy to defend and hard to conquer. Getting the Western Allies out of those mountains was worth way more than retaining military control of Eastern Austria. Hence “Neutrality” which however was never really able to defend itself, unlike Switzerland. It was always a myth, only kept intact by the cold war never turning hot. Russians had plans to march through Austria in case it every had turned hot in Europe.
Even then it took for Stalin to die for Austria to finally manage to end occupation. There was no way Stalin had ever agreed to that. So Austria was occupied for a full decade primarily because of Russia, not because of the western allies. As a nice bonus, Russia dismantled the industrial facilities in the territory it controlled and shipped it all eastwards. Good thing for Austria, that with western support it could exchange that with up to date machinery, while Russia was stuck with the old stuff.
Austria was allowed to defend itself. It was, however mandated to be neutral and not allowed to join any military alliance, western or eastern. The deal was considered a good deal by all sides (except Germany, who was pissed that Austria got such a good deal and Germany was left in a shitty situation.).
They promised neutrality and not joining Germany.