Czechoslovakia Flashcards
Czechoslovakia 1
KSC (Czech Communist party) was left in a favourable position after WW2 and made use of the people’s desire for political change after Nazi rule. This combined with the country’s new Soviet orbit caused surge in membership from 1945 (40K) to 1948 (1.35million)
Clean wartime record + public cooperation with non-communist parties + Soviet allegiance (USSR was one of the liberators from Nazi rule – seen as heroes)
Czechoslovakia 2
1945 – party leader, Klement Gottwald, declared that the party will carry out a ‘democratic national revolution’
KSC party is now linked to be in favour of Czech democratic tradition + to Czech nationalism by capitalising on the popular anti-German sentiment
Gave appearance of being willing to ‘work within the system’ by working with other parties in a coalition called the National Front – won the public’s favour
Overall façade of the KSC Communists being democratic is deeply established
Czechoslovakia 3
1946 Election (fair and free) – KSC won 38% of the vote, Gottwald invited to be prime minster Non-communist majority within government – 9 Communist:17 Non-Communist KSC gained initial control over police + armed forces – later come to dominate other key ministries e.g., propaganda, education, social welfare, agriculture etc
Czechoslovakia 4
1947 – KSC lost popularity due to offensive actions of police
Interior Minister was a Communist, so police actions were faulted to Communists
Czechoslovakia 5
1947 Cominform meeting – Soviets had achieved ‘the complete victory of the working class over the bourgeoisie in every East European land except Czechoslovakia’ – Andrei Zhdanov Stalin gave up on taking power in Czechoslovakia parliamentary when they had failed to do so in France (1947) and Italy (1948) KSC party now to switch to a 2-pronged strategy to seize power – had to maintain façade of working with the electoral political system as they were aware a revolutionary coup would be unacceptable – needed to gain a majority in the 1948 election
Czechoslovakia 6
Feb 1948 – interior minister Nosek illegally extended his powers by attempting to purge the non-communist elements in the National Police Force, security services and police forces were being transformed into instruments of the KSC
12 Feb – non-communists in the cabinet demanded punishment for the offenders but Nosek, backed by Gottwald refused to yield, threatened to use force, and mobilised their supporters in the country to avoid defeat in parliament
21 Feb 1948 – 12 non-communist ministers resigned in protest after Nosek refused to reinstate 8 non-communist senior police officers despite a majority vote of the cabinet in favour of doing so
Non-communists assumed that President Benes would refuse to accept their resignations and keep them in a caretaker government whilst embarrassing the communists enough to make them yield
Benes initially insisted that no new government could be formed that did not include ministers form the non-communist parties
Soon become neutral though due to mounting tensions coupled with massive communist led demonstrations throughout the country.
Become neutral due to fear of the KSC fomenting an insurrection and giving the Red Army a pretext to invade the country and “restore order”
Grenville (historian) believed that had Benes not given in and kept insisting the communists would not have been able to form a government – only 2 non-violent means of resolving the crisis – give way to non-communists or risk defeat in early elections which the KSC would not have had time to rig.
Czechoslovakia 7
At the same time communists were mobilising from below to take complete power, whilst non-communists minsters behaved as if this was a pre-1939 governmental crisis
Armed militia and police took over Prague + communist demonstrations were mounted
Anti-communist student demonstration was broken up.
Ministries of the non-communist ministers were occupied
Civil servants dismissed and the ministers prevented from entering their own ministries
The army, under direction of Defence Minister Ludvik Svoboda, was confined to barracks and did not interfere
Army was formally non-partisan but had previously facilitated communist infiltration into the officer corps
Communist “Action Committees” and trade unions militia were quickly set up, armed, and send into the streets as well as being prepared to carry through a purge of Anti-communists
Gottwald threatened a general strike unless Benes agreed to form a new Communists-dominated government
Red Army’s services, who were camped at the border, were offered by Soviet deputy foreign minister Valerian Zorin
Declined by Gottwald – belief that the threat of violence combined with heavy political pressure would be enough to force Benes into submission – “[Benes] knows what strength is, and this led him to evaluate this [situation] realistically” – Gottwald to Zorin after the coup
Czechoslovakia 8
25th Feb 1949 – Benes capitulated (stopped resisting) due to fears of civil war/Soviet intervention
Resignations of non-communist ministers were accepted, and new government was appointed in accordance with KSC demands
Gottwald continued as PM of gov. dominated by communists/pro-Moscow Social Democrats
Government was still nominally a coalition however other parties had been taken over by communist sympathiser and ministers from said parties were handpicked by the Communists
Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk – only minister that was not communist or a communist sympathiser – found dead 2 weeks later outside a third-floor window, ruled as suicide but was suspected as murder by the West, later confirmed by the Soviet archives
Czechoslovakia 9
Communists quickly moved to consolidate their power, thousands were fired, and hundreds were arrested – thousands more flex the country to avoid living under communism
National assembly, freely elected 2 years prior, quickly fell into line and gave Gottwald’s new gov a vote of confidence in March (230-0 unanimous result, with 9 MPs resigned after the coup)
Czechoslovakia 10
9th May 1948 – new constitution was approved by parliament, declaring Czechoslovakia a ‘people’s democratic state’ – not a completely communist document however was so close to the Soviet model that Benes refused to sign it
Czechoslovakia 11
30th May 1948 Elections – Communists won 89.2% of vote and had an absolute majority of 214 seats (160 for main party, 54 for the Slovak branch), majority grew even larger when the social democrats later in the year merged with the Communists
Practically all non-communist parties that had participated in the 1946 elections were also represented within the National Front list and received parliamentary seats.
By 1948 they had become loyal partners of the Communists
The few independent-minded members of those parties were in prison or in exile.
Czechoslovakia 12
National front was converted into a broad patriotic organisation dominated by the Communist, no political group outside it was allowed to exist
Czechoslovakia 13
Benes resigned on 2nd June 1948 and was succeeded by Gottwald as president 12 adays later
