an excellent solution that will be a hard lesson for the empire to learn again;

In the spring of 1945, Soviet Red Army forces entered Austria from the east and American Army forces entered Austria from the west, and both closed on the ancient capital city of Vienna. By then it was already evident that as soon as Nazi Germany was defeated, the wartime alliance of the United States and the Soviet Union would give way to a fierce rivalry over the fate of Europe. Austria lay in the middle of this conflict.

To prevent each other from gaining the upper hand in Austria, the American military (along with those of Britain and France) occupied parts of Austria while the Soviet military occupied others. By 1947, U.S. Department of Defense became convinced that withdrawing Western troops would leave the country open to complete Soviet occupation. For their part, the Soviets were far more interested in gaining an advantage in Germany, where the Cold War was intensifying.

Following the death of Stalin in 1953, Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov expressed his willingness to discuss Austrian independence, and he invited Austrian Chancellor Julius Raab to Moscow to discuss the matter.

Wikipedia offers a decent summary of what happened next:...........more........