Communist Party of Austria

Communist Party of Austria
Kommunistische Partei Österreichs
AbbreviationKPÖ
LeaderGünther Hopfgartner
General SecretaryFlorian Birngruber
Founded3 November 1918[1]
Headquarters
  • Drechslergasse 42
  • A-1140 Vienna
Newspaper (1945–1991)
Youth wingCommunist Youth of Austria (1970–2004)
Membership (2004)3,500[3]
Ideology
Political positionFar-left[6][7]
National affiliationKPÖ Plus
European affiliationParty of the European Left
International affiliationIMCWP[8]
Colours
  •     Red and black
  •   Maroon (customary)
National Council
0 / 183
Federal Council
0 / 62
European Parliament
0 / 18
State Parliaments
6 / 440
Website
www.kpoe.at

The Communist Party of Austria (German: Kommunistische Partei Österreichs, KPÖ) is a communist party in Austria.[4] Established in 1918 as the Communist Party of German-Austria (KPDÖ), it is one of the world's oldest communist parties. The KPÖ was banned between 1933 and 1945 under both the Austrofascist regime and the Nazi German administration of Austria after the 1938 Anschluss.[1]

The party currently holds two seats in the Styrian and four seats in the Salzburg Landtag (state parliament), but has not had representation in the National Council (Nationalrat, Austria's federal parliament) since 1959. In the legislative election held on 29 September 2019, it won only 0.7% of the votes (32,736 out of a total of 4,835,469), well below the 4% minimum to obtain seats in the National Council. At the local level, the KPÖ has held the mayorship of Graz, Austria's second largest city, since 2021, and holds over 130 seats on district and municipal councils across the country.

It is part of the New European Left Forum (NELF) and the Party of the European Left.

  1. ^ a b "The Great Soviet Encyclopedia: Communist Party of Austria". USSR. 1979. Retrieved 3 May 2013.
  2. ^ "»Argument« meldet sich runderneuert zurück". KPÖ (in German). 30 September 2022. Retrieved 30 September 2022.
  3. ^ "Hintergrund: Mitgliederzahlen sinken konstant". Der Standard (in German). 19 September 2006. Retrieved 19 April 2012.
  4. ^ a b Nordsieck, Wolfram (2006). "Austria". Parties and Elections in Europe. Archived from the original on 1 November 2007. Retrieved 2 May 2019.
  5. ^ Nordsieck, Wolfram (2022). Parties and Elections in Austria and South Tyrol: Parliamentary Elections and Governments since 1918, State Elections and State Governments, Political Orientation and History of Parties. Books on Demand. p. 15. ISBN 978-3-7557-9460-8.
  6. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-10-22. Retrieved 2018-10-22.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  7. ^ Uwe Backes, Patrick Moreau: Communist and Post-Communist Parties in Europe
  8. ^ "Communist and Workers' Parties". SolidNet. Retrieved 16 February 2019.