History of Czechoslovakia
Encyclopedia
With the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy
at the end of World War I
, the independent country of Czechoslovakia (Czech
, Slovak
: Československo) was formed, encouraged by, among others, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson
. The Czechs and Slovaks
were not at the same level of economic and technological development, but the freedom and opportunity found in an independent Czechoslovakia enabled them to make strides toward overcoming these inequalities. However, the gap between cultures was never fully bridged, and the discrepancy played a continuing role throughout the seventy-five years of the union.
The creation of Czechoslovakia
in 1918 was the culmination of the 19th-century struggle of identity and ethnicity politics. The Czechs, as one subject group of a multi-ethnic, multi-linguisitic empire, lived primarily in Bohemia. With the rise of national revival
movements (Czech National Revival
, Slovak National Revival instigated by Ľudovít Štúr
), mounting tensions combined with religious and ethnic policies (such as the Slovaks' resistance to Magyarization
by their Hungarian
rulers as Slovakia was largely part of the Hungarian controlled region of the empire) to push the empire to the breaking point. Subject peoples all over the empire wanted to be free from the rule of the old aristocracy and imperial family. This was partly solved by the introduction of local ethnic representation and language rights, however, the First World War put a stop to further reform, and ultimately caused the internal collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire and the liberation of subject peoples such as the Czechs and Slovaks. Although the Czechs and Slovaks have similar languages
, at the end of the 19th century, the situation of the Czechs and Slovaks was very different, because of the different stages of development of their overlords – the Austrians in Bohemia
and Moravia
, and the Hungarians in Slovakia – within Austria-Hungary
. Bohemia was the most industrialized part of Austria and Slovakia that of Hungary – however at a different level. At the turn of the century, the idea of a "Czecho-Slovak" entity began to be advocated by some Czech and Slovak leaders. In the 1890s, contacts between Czech and Slovak intellectuals intensified. Despite cultural differences, the Slovaks shared with the Czechs similar aspirations for independence from the Habsburg state and voluntarily united with the Czechs.
During World War I
, in 1916, together with Edvard Beneš
and Milan Štefánik
(a Slovak astronomer and war hero), Tomáš Masaryk
created the Czechoslovak National Council. Masaryk in the United States
, Štefánik in France
, and Beneš in France and Britain
worked tirelessly to gain Allied recognition. Around 1.4 million Czech soldiers fought in in World War I, 150,000 of them died. More than 90,000 Czech volunteers formed the Czechoslovak Legions
in Russia, France and Italy, where they fought against the Central Powers
and later with White Russian forces
against Bolshevik
troops. At times controlling much of the Trans-Siberian railway
and being indirectly involved in the hasty execution of the Tsar and his family
. Their goal was to win the Allies' support for the independence of Czechoslovakia. They succeeded on all counts. When secret talks between the Allies
and Austrian emperor Charles I (1916–18) collapsed, the Allies recognized, in the summer of 1918, the Czechoslovak National Council would be the main contributor to the future Czechoslovak government.
The independence of Czechoslovakia was officially proclaimed in Prague
on October 28, 1918 in Smetana
Hall of the Municipal House
, a physical setting strongly associated with nationalist feeling. The Slovaks officially joined the state two days later in the town of Martin
. A temporary constitution was adopted and Tomáš Masaryk declared president on November 14. The Treaty of St. Germain, signed in September 1919 formally recognized the new republic. Ruthenia
was later added to the Czech lands and Slovakia by the Treaty of Trianon
(June, 1920). There were also various border conflicts between Poland and Czechoslovakia
.
The new state was characterized by problems with its ethnic diversity, the separate histories and greatly differing religious, cultural, and social traditions of the Czechs and Slovaks. The Germans and Magyars (Hungarians) of Czechoslovakia openly agitated against the territorial settlements.
The new nation had a population of over 13.5 million. It had inherited 70 to 80% of all the industry of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Czechoslovakia was one of the world's ten most industrialized countries. The Czech lands
were far more industrialized than Slovakia. Most light and heavy industry were located in the Sudetenland
and were owned by Germans and controlled by German-owned banks. The very backward Subcarpathian Ruthenia was essentially without industry.
The Czechoslovak state was conceived as a parliamentary democracy. The constitution identified the "Czechoslovak nation" as the creator and principal constituent of the Czechoslovak state and established Czech and Slovak as official languages. The concept of the Czechoslovak nation was necessary in order to justify the establishment of Czechoslovakia towards the world, because otherwise the statistical majority of the Czechs as compared to Germans would be rather weak. The operation of the new Czechoslovak government was distinguished by stability. Largely responsible for this were the well-organized political parties that emerged as the real centers of power.
in German. Some members of this minority, which were predominantly sympathetic to Germany
, undermined the new Czechoslovak state.
Adolf Hitler
's rise in Nazi Germany
, the German annexation (Anschluss
) of Austria
, the resulting revival of revisionism in Hungary
and of agitation for autonomy in Slovakia, and the appeasement
policy of the Western powers (France
and the United Kingdom
) left Czechoslovakia without allies, exposed to hostile Germany and Hungary on three sides and to unsympathetic Poland
on the north.
After the Austrian Anschluss, Czechoslovakia was to become Hitler's next target. The German nationalist minority, led by Konrad Henlein
and vehemently backed by Hitler, demanded the union of the predominantly German districts with Germany. Threatening war, Hitler extorted through the Munich Agreement
in September 1938 the cession of the Bohemian, Moravian and Czech Silesia
n borderlands - Sudetenland where all Czech population were forcibly expelled. On September 29, the Munich Agreement was signed by Germany, Italy, France, and Britain. The Czechoslovak government agreed to abide by the agreement. The Munich Agreement stipulated that Czechoslovakia must cede Sudetenland territory to Germany. Beneš resigned as president of the Czechoslovak Republic on October 5, 1938, fled to London and was succeeded by Emil Hácha
. In early November 1938, under the First Vienna Award
, which was a result of the Munich agreement, Czechoslovakia (and later Slovakia) was forced by Germany and Italy to cede southern Slovakia (one third of Slovak territory) to Hungary. After an 30 September ultimatum
(but without consulting with any other countries), Poland obtained the disputed Zaolzie
region as a territorial cession shortly after the Munich Agreement, on 2 October.
The Czechs in the greatly weakened Czechoslovak Republic were forced to grant major concessions to the non-Czechs. The executive committee of the Slovak People's Party
met at Žilina
on October 5, 1938, and with the acquiescence of all Slovak parties except the Social Democrats formed an autonomous Slovak government under Jozef Tiso
. Similarly, the two major factions in Subcarpathian Ruthenia, the Russophiles
and Ukrainophiles, agreed on the establishment of an autonomous government, which was constituted on October 8, 1938. In late November 1938, the truncated state, renamed Czecho-Slovakia (the so-called Second Republic
), was reconstituted in three autonomous units: Czechia (i.e. Bohemia and Moravia), Slovakia, and Ruthenia.
On March 12, 1939 the Slovak State declared its independence as a satellite state
under Jozef Tiso. Hitler forced Hácha to surrender what remained of Bohemia and Moravia to German control on 15 March 1939, establishing the German protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
, which was created on March 15. On the same day, the Carpatho-Ukraine
(Subcarpathian Ruthenia
) declared its independence and was immediately invaded and annexed by Hungary. Finally, on March 23 Hungary invaded and occupied from the Carpatho-Ukraine some further parts of Slovakia (eastern Slovakia).
Beneš and other Czechoslovak exiles in London organized a Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile
and negotiated to obtain international recognition for the government and a renunciation of the Munich Agreement
and its consequences. The government was recognized by government of United Kingdom
Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax on July 18, 1940. In July and December 1941, the Soviet Union
and United States
also recognized the exiled government, respectively. Czechoslovak military units fought alongside Allied forces. In December Carpatho-Ukraine1943, Beneš's government concluded a treaty with the Soviet Union. Beneš worked to bring Czechoslovak communist exiles in Britain into active cooperation with his government, offering far-reaching concessions, including nationalization
of heavy industry and the creation of local people's committees at the war's end (which then indeed happened). In March 1945, he gave key cabinet positions to Czechoslovak communist exiles in Moscow.
The assassination of Reichsprotector Reinhard Heydrich
in 1942 by a group of British-trained Czech and Slovak commandos
led by Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabčík
led to reprisals, including the annihilation of the village Lidice
. All adult male inhabitants were executed, while females and children were transported to concentration camps. A similar fate met the villages Ležáky
and later, at the end of war, Javoříčko
too.
On May 8, 1944, Beneš
signed an agreement with Soviet leaders stipulating that Czechoslovak territory liberated by Soviet armies would be placed under Czechoslovak civilian control.
From September 21, 1944, Czechoslovakia was liberated by Soviet troops (the Red Army
), supported by Czech and Slovak resistance , from the east to the west; only southwestern Bohemia was liberated by other Allied troops (U.S. Army) from the west. In May 1945, American forces liberated the city of Plzeň. A civilian uprising against the Nazi garrison took place in Prague in May 1945. The resistance was assisted by heavily-armed Russian Liberation Army
, i.e., Gen. Vlasov's army, a force composed of Soviet POWs organised by the Germans, now turning again against them. Except for the brutalities of the German occupation in Protectorate (and, after the Slovak National Uprising
in August 1944, also in Slovakia), Czechoslovakia suffered relatively little from the war. Bratislava
was taken over on April 4, 1945, and Prague on May 9, 1945 by Soviet troops. Both Soviet and Allied troops were withdrawn in the same year.
A treaty ceding Carpatho-Ukraine
to the Soviet Union was signed in June 1945 between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union, following an apparently rigged Soviet-run referendum in Carpatho-Ukraine (Ruthenia). The Potsdam Agreement
provided for the expulsion of Sudeten Germans to Germany under the supervision of the Allied Control Council. Decisions regarding the Hungarian minority reverted to the Czechoslovak government. In February 1946, the Hungarian government agreed that Czechoslovakia could expatriate as many Hungarians as there were Slovaks in Hungary wishing to return to Czechoslovakia.
The Third Republic came into being in April 1945. Its government, installed at Košice
on April 4 and moved to Prague in May, was a National Front
coalition in which three socialist parties—Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
(KSČ), Czechoslovak Social democratic Party, and Czechoslovak National Socialist Party—predominated. Certain nonsocialist parties were included in the coalition; among them were the Catholic People's Party (in Moravia) and the Democratic Party (Slovakia)
.
Following Nazi Germany's surrender, some 2.9 million ethnic Germans were expelled
from Czechoslovakia with Allied approval, their property and rights declared void by the Beneš decrees
. Czechoslovakia
soon came to fall within the Soviet sphere of influence.
The popular enthusiasm evoked by the Soviet armies of liberation (which was decided by compromise of Allies and Joseph Stalin
at the Yalta conference
in 1944) benefited the KSČ
. Czechoslovaks, bitterly disappointed by the West at the Munich Agreement
(1938), responded favorably to both the KSČ and the Soviet alliance. Reunited into one state after the war, the Czechs and Slovaks set national elections for the spring of 1946. The democratic elements, led by President Edvard Beneš
, hoped the Soviet Union would allow Czechoslovakia the freedom to choose its own form of government and aspired to a Czechoslovakia that would act as a bridge between East and West. Communists secured strong representation in the popularly elected National Committees, the new organs of local administration. In the May 1946 election, the KSČ won most of the popular vote in the Czech part of the bi-ethnic country (40.17%), and the more or less anti-Communist Democratic Party won in Slovakia (62%). In sum, however, the KSČ won a plurality of 38 percent of the vote at countrywide level. Edvard Beneš continued as president of the republic. The Communist leader Klement Gottwald
became prime minister. Most important, although the communists held only a minority of portfolios, they were able to gain control over all key ministries (Ministry of the Interior, etc.)
Although the communist-led government initially intended to participate in the Marshall Plan
, it was forced by the Kremlin
to back out.
In 1947, Stalin summoned Gottwald to Moscow; upon his return to Prague, the KSČ demonstrated a significant radicalization of its tactics. On February 20, 1948, the twelve non-communist ministers resigned, in part, to induce Beneš to call for early elections: Beneš refused to accept the cabinet resignations and did not call for elections. In the meantime, the KSČ garnered its forces for the coup d'état of 1948
. The communist-controlled Ministry of Interior deployed police regiments to sensitive areas and equipped a workers' militia. On February 25, Beneš, perhaps fearing Soviet intervention, capitulated. He accepted the resignations of the dissident ministers and received a new cabinet list from Gottwald, thus completing, under the cover of superficial legality, the communist takeover.
On March 10, 1948 the moderate foreign minister of the government, Jan Masaryk
, was found dead in an apparent suicide, although the suspicious circumstances surrounding his death have led some to believe that it was a political assassination.
" (until 1960) – a preliminary step toward socialism and, ultimately, communism. Bureaucratic centralism under the direction of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
(KSČ) leadership was introduced. Dissident
elements were purged from all levels of society, including the Roman Catholic Church. The ideological principles of Marxism-Leninism
and socialist realism
pervaded cultural and intellectual life. The economy was committed to comprehensive central planning and abolition of private ownership of capital. Czechoslovakia became a satellite state
of the Soviet Union; it was a founding member of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon
) in 1949 and of the Warsaw Pact
in 1955. The attainment of Soviet-style command socialism
became the government's avowed policy. Slovak autonomy was constrained; the Communist Party of Slovakia
(KSS) was reunited with the KSČ (Communist Party of Czechoslovakia) but retained its own identity. Following the Soviet example, Czechoslovakia began emphasizing the rapid development of heavy industry. Although Czechoslovakia's industrial growth of 170 percent between 1948 and 1957 was impressive, it was far exceeded by that of Japan
(300 percent) and the Federal Republic of Germany (almost 300 percent) and more than equaled by Austria
and Greece
.
Beneš refused to sign the Communist Constitution of 1948 (Ninth-of-May Constitution
) and resigned from the presidency; he was succeeded by Klement Gottwald
. Gottwald died in 1953. He was succeeded by Antonín Zápotocký
as president and by Antonín Novotný
as head of the KSČ. After extensive purges modeled on the Stalinist pattern in other east European states, the Communist Party tried 14 of its former leaders in November 1952 and sentenced 11 to death. For more than a decade thereafter, the Czechoslovak communist political structure was characterized by the orthodoxy of the leadership of party chief Antonín Novotný. Novotný became president in 1957 when Zápotocký died.
In the 1950s, the Stalinists
accused their opponents of "conspiracy against the people's democratic order" and "high treason" in order to oust them from positions of power. Large-scale arrests of Communists with an "international" background, i.e., those with a wartime connection with the West, veterans of the Spanish Civil War
, Jews, and Slovak "bourgeois nationalists," were followed by show trials. The outcome of these trials, serving the communist propaganda, was often known in advance and the penalties were extremely heavy, such as in the case of Milada Horáková
, who was sentenced to death together with Jan Buchal, Záviš Kalandra
and Oldřich Pecl.
The 1960 Constitution
declared the victory of socialism and proclaimed the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
De-Stalinization
had a late start in Czechoslovakia. In the early 1960s, the Czechoslovak economy became severely stagnant. The industrial growth rate was the lowest in Eastern Europe. As a result, in 1965, the party approved the New Economic Model
, introducing free market
elements into the economy. The KSČ "Theses" of December 1965 presented the party response to the call for political reform. Democratic centralism
was redefined, placing a stronger emphasis on democracy. The leading role of the KSČ was reaffirmed but limited. Slovaks pressed for federalization. On January 5, 1968, the KSČ Central Committee elected Alexander Dubček
, a Slovak reformer, to replace Novotný as first secretary of the KSČ. On March 22, 1968, Novotný resigned from the presidency and was succeeded by General Ludvík Svoboda
.
Dubček carried the reform movement a step further in the direction of liberalism. After Novotný's fall, censorship was lifted. The press, radio, and television were mobilized for reformist propaganda purposes. The movement to democratize socialism in Czechoslovakia, formerly confined largely to the party intelligentsia, acquired a new, popular dynamism in the spring of 1968 (the "Prague Spring
"). Radical elements found expression: anti-Soviet polemics appeared in the press; the Social Democrats began to form a separate party; new unaffiliated political clubs were created. Party conservatives urged the implementation of repressive measures, but Dubček counseled moderation and reemphasized KSČ leadership. In addition, the Dubček leadership called for politico-military changes in the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact and Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. The leadership affirmed its loyalty to socialism and the Warsaw Pact but also expressed the desire to improve relations with all countries of the world regardless of their social systems.
A program adopted in April 1968 set guidelines for a modern, humanistic socialist democracy that would guarantee, among other things, freedom of religion, press, assembly, speech, and travel; a program that, in Dubček's words, would give socialism "a human face." After 20 years of little public participation, the population gradually started to take interest in the government, and Dubček became a truly popular national figure.
The internal reforms and foreign policy statements of the Dubček leadership created great concern among some other Warsaw Pact governments. KSČ conservatives had misinformed Moscow regarding the strength of the reform movement. As a result, the troops of Warsaw Pact countries (except Romania
) invaded Czechoslovakia during the night of August 20–21. Two-thirds of the KSČ Central Committee opposed the Soviet intervention. Popular opposition was expressed in numerous spontaneous acts of nonviolent resistance. In Prague and other cities throughout the republic, Czechs and Slovaks greeted Warsaw Pact soldiers with arguments and reproaches. The Czechoslovak Government declared that the troops had not been invited into the country and that their invasion was a violation of socialist principles, international law, and the UN Charter. Dubček, who had been arrested on the night of August 20, was taken to Moscow for negotiations. The outcome was the Brezhnev Doctrine
of limited sovereignty, which provided for the strengthening of the KSČ, strict party control of the media, and the suppression of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party.
On January 19, 1969, the student Jan Palach
set himself on fire in Prague's Wenceslas Square
to protest the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union in 1968.
The principal Czechoslovak reformers were forcibly and secretly taken to the Soviet Union where they signed a treaty that provided for the "temporary stationing" of an unspecified number of Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia. Dubček was removed as party First Secretary on 17 April 1969, and replaced by another Slovak, Gustáv Husák
. Later, Dubček and many of his allies within the party were stripped of their party positions in a purge that lasted until 1971 and reduced party membership by almost one-third.
. Slovakia's portion of per capita national income rose from slightly more than 60 percent of that of Bohemia and Moravia in 1948 to nearly 80 percent in 1968, and Slovak per capita earning power equaled that of the Czechs in 1971. The pace of Slovak economic growth has continued to exceed that of Czech growth to the present day (2003).
Dubcek remained in office only until April 1969. Gustáv Husák
(a centrist, and interestingly one of the Slovak "bourgeois nationalists" imprisoned by his own KSČ in the 1950s) was named first secretary (title changed to general secretary in 1971). A program of "Normalization
" — the restoration of continuity with the prereform period—was initiated. Normalization entailed thoroughgoing political repression and the return to ideological conformity.
A new purge cleansed the Czechoslovak leadership of all reformist elements.
Anti-Soviet demonstrations in August 1969 ushered in a period of harsh repression. The 1970s and 1980s became known as the period of "normalization," in which the apologists for the 1968 Soviet invasion prevented, as best they could, any opposition to their conservative regime. Political, social, and economic life stagnated. The population, cowed by the "normalization," was quiet. The only point required during the Prague spring
that was achieved was the federalization of the country (as of 1969), which however was more or less only formal under the normalization. The newly created Federal Assembly (i.e., federal parliament), which replaced the National Assembly, was to work in close cooperation with the Czech National Council
and the Slovak National Council
(i.e., national parliaments).
In 1975, Gustáv Husák added the position of president to his post as party chief. The Husák regime required conformity and obedience in all aspects of life. Husák also tried to obtain acquiescence to his rule by providing an improved standard of living. He returned Czechoslovakia to an orthodox command economy with a heavy emphasis on central planning and continued to extend industrialization. For a while the policy seemed successful; the 1980s, however, were more or less a period of economic stagnation. Another feature of Husák's rule was a continued dependence on the Soviet Union. In the 1980s, approximately 50 percent of Czechoslovakia's foreign trade was with the Soviet Union, and almost 80 percent was with communist countries.
Through the 1970s and 1980s, the regime was challenged by individuals and organized groups aspiring to independent thinking and activity. The first organized opposition emerged under the umbrella of Charter 77. On January 6, 1977, a manifesto called Charter 77
appeared in West German newspapers. The original manifesto reportedly was signed by 243 persons; among them were artists, former public officials, and other prominent figures. The Charter had over 800 signatures by the end of 1977, including workers and youth. It criticized the government for failing to implement human rights provisions of documents it had signed, including the state's own constitution; international covenants on political, civil, economic, social, and cultural rights; and the Final Act of the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Although not organized in any real sense, the signatories of Charter 77 constituted a citizens' initiative aimed at inducing the Czechoslovak Government to observe formal obligations to respect the human rights of its citizens. Signatories were arrested and interrogated; dismissal from employment often followed. Because religion offered possibilities for thought and activities independent of the state, it too was severely restricted and controlled. Clergymen were required to be licensed. Unlike in Poland, dissent and independent activity were limited in Czechoslovakia to a fairly small segment of the populace. Many Czechs and Slovaks emigrated to the West.
's perestroika
, it did not happen much in reality. On December 17, 1987, Husák, who was one month away from his seventy-fifth birthday, had resigned as head of the KSČ. He retained, however, his post of president of Czechoslovakia and his full membership on the Presidium of the KSČ. Miloš Jakeš, who replaced Husák as first secretary of the KSČ, did not change anything. The slow pace of the Czechoslovak reform movement was an irritant to the Soviet leadership.
The first anti-Communist demonstration took place on March 25, 1988 in Bratislava
(the Candle demonstration in Bratislava
). It was an unauthorized peaceful gathering of some 2,000 (other sources 10,000) Roman Catholics. Demonstrations also occurred on August 21, 1988 (the anniversary of the Soviet intervention in 1968) in Prague, on October 28, 1988 (establishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918) in Prague, Bratislava and some other towns, in January 1989 (death of Jan Palach
on January 16, 1969), on August 21, 1989 (see above) and on October 28, 1989 (see above).
The anti-Communist revolution started on November 16, 1989 in Bratislava, with a demonstration of Slovak university students for democracy, and continued with the well-known similar demonstration of Czech students in Prague on November 17.
, an umbrella group championing bureaucratic reform and civil liberties. Its leader was the dissident playwright Václav Havel
. Intentionally eschewing the label "party", a word given a negative connotation during the previous regime, Civic Forum quickly gained the support of millions of Czechs, as did its Slovak counterpart, Public Against Violence
.
Faced with an overwhelming popular repudiation, the Communist Party all but collapsed. Its leaders, Husák and party chief Miloš Jakeš, resigned in December 1989, and Havel was elected President of Czechoslovakia on 29 December. The astonishing quickness of these events was in part due to the unpopularity of the communist regime and changes in the policies of its Soviet guarantor as well as to the rapid, effective organization of these public initiatives into a viable opposition.
A coalition government, in which the Communist Party had a minority of ministerial positions, was formed in December 1989. The first free elections in Czechoslovakia since 1946 took place in June 1990 without incident and with more than 95% of the population voting. As anticipated, Civic Forum and Public Against Violence won landslide victories in their respective republics and gained a comfortable majority in the federal parliament. The parliament undertook substantial steps toward securing the democratic evolution of Czechoslovakia. It successfully moved toward fair local elections in November 1990, ensuring fundamental change at the county and town level.
Civic Forum found, however, that although it had successfully completed its primary objective—the overthrow of the communist regime—it was ineffectual as a governing party. The demise of Civic Forum was viewed by most as necessary and inevitable.
By the end of 1990, unofficial parliamentary "clubs" had evolved with distinct political agendas. Most influential was the Civic Democratic Party, headed by Václav Klaus
. Other notable parties that came into being after the split were the Czech Social Democratic Party, Civic Movement, and Civic Democratic Alliance.
By 1992, Slovak calls for greater autonomy effectively blocked the daily functioning of the federal government. In the election of June 1992, Klaus's Civic Democratic Party won handily in the Czech lands on a platform of economic reform. Vladimír Mečiar
's Movement for a Democratic Slovakia emerged as the leading party in Slovakia, basing its appeal on fairness to Slovak demands for autonomy. Federalists, like Havel, were unable to contain the trend toward the split. In July 1992, President Havel resigned. In the latter half of 1992, Klaus and Mečiar hammered out an agreement that the two republics would go their separate ways by the end of the year.
Members of Czechoslovakia's parliament (the Federal Assembly), divided along national lines, barely cooperated enough to pass the law officially separating the two nations in late 1992. On 1 January 1993, the Czech Republic
(Czechia) and the Slovak Republic (Slovakia) were simultaneously and peacefully founded.
Relationships between the two states, despite occasional disputes about the division of federal property and the governing of the border, have been peaceful. Both states attained immediate recognition from the USA and their European neighbors.
Heavy industry received major economic support during the 1950s, but central planning resulted in waste and inefficient use of industrial resources. Although the labor force was traditionally skilled and efficient, inadequate incentives for labor and management contributed to high labor turnover, low productivity, and poor product quality. Economic failures reached a critical stage in the 1960s, after which various reform measures were sought with no satisfactory results.
Hope for wide-ranging economic reform came with Alexander Dubcek's rise in January 1968. Despite renewed efforts, however, Czechoslovakia could not come to grips with inflationary forces, much less begin the immense task of correcting the economy's basic problems.
The economy saw growth during the 1970s but then stagnated between 1978-82. Attempts at revitalizing it in the 1980s with management and worker incentive programs were largely unsuccessful. The economy grew after 1982, achieving an annual average output growth of more than 3% between 1983-85. Imports from the West were curtailed, exports boosted, and hard currency debt reduced substantially. New investment was made in the electronic, chemical, and pharmaceutical sectors, which were industry leaders in eastern Europe in the mid-1980s.
Habsburg Monarchy
The Habsburg Monarchy covered the territories ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg , and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine , between 1526 and 1867/1918. The Imperial capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, when it was moved to Prague...
at the end of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the independent country of Czechoslovakia (Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
, Slovak
Slovak language
Slovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people...
: Československo) was formed, encouraged by, among others, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
. The Czechs and Slovaks
Slovaks
The Slovaks, Slovak people, or Slovakians are a West Slavic people that primarily inhabit Slovakia and speak the Slovak language, which is closely related to the Czech language.Most Slovaks today live within the borders of the independent Slovakia...
were not at the same level of economic and technological development, but the freedom and opportunity found in an independent Czechoslovakia enabled them to make strides toward overcoming these inequalities. However, the gap between cultures was never fully bridged, and the discrepancy played a continuing role throughout the seventy-five years of the union.
Historical settings to 1918
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
in 1918 was the culmination of the 19th-century struggle of identity and ethnicity politics. The Czechs, as one subject group of a multi-ethnic, multi-linguisitic empire, lived primarily in Bohemia. With the rise of national revival
Romantic nationalism
Romantic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state derives its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs...
movements (Czech National Revival
Czech National Revival
Czech National Revival was a cultural movement, which took part in the Czech lands during the 18th and 19th century. The purpose of this movement was to revive Czech language, culture and national identity...
, Slovak National Revival instigated by Ľudovít Štúr
Ludovít Štúr
Ľudovít Štúr , known in his era as Ludevít Velislav Štúr, was the leader of the Slovak national revival in the 19th century, the author of the Slovak language standard eventually leading to the contemporary Slovak literary language...
), mounting tensions combined with religious and ethnic policies (such as the Slovaks' resistance to Magyarization
Magyarization
Magyarization is a kind of assimilation or acculturation, a process by which non-Magyar elements came to adopt Magyar culture and language due to social pressure .Defiance or appeals to the Nationalities Law, met...
by their Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
rulers as Slovakia was largely part of the Hungarian controlled region of the empire) to push the empire to the breaking point. Subject peoples all over the empire wanted to be free from the rule of the old aristocracy and imperial family. This was partly solved by the introduction of local ethnic representation and language rights, however, the First World War put a stop to further reform, and ultimately caused the internal collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire and the liberation of subject peoples such as the Czechs and Slovaks. Although the Czechs and Slovaks have similar languages
Slovak language
Slovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people...
, at the end of the 19th century, the situation of the Czechs and Slovaks was very different, because of the different stages of development of their overlords – the Austrians in Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
and Moravia
Moravia
Moravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...
, and the Hungarians in Slovakia – within Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
. Bohemia was the most industrialized part of Austria and Slovakia that of Hungary – however at a different level. At the turn of the century, the idea of a "Czecho-Slovak" entity began to be advocated by some Czech and Slovak leaders. In the 1890s, contacts between Czech and Slovak intellectuals intensified. Despite cultural differences, the Slovaks shared with the Czechs similar aspirations for independence from the Habsburg state and voluntarily united with the Czechs.
During World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, in 1916, together with Edvard Beneš
Edvard Beneš
Edvard Beneš was a leader of the Czechoslovak independence movement, Minister of Foreign Affairs and the second President of Czechoslovakia. He was known to be a skilled diplomat.- Youth :...
and Milan Štefánik
Milan Rastislav Štefánik
Milan Rastislav Štefánik , Kingdom of Hungary – May 4, 1919 in Ivanka pri Dunaji, Czechoslovakia) was a Slovak politician, diplomat, and astronomer. During World War I, he was General of the French Army, at the same time the Czechoslovak Minister of War, one of the leading members of the...
(a Slovak astronomer and war hero), Tomáš Masaryk
Tomáš Masaryk
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk , sometimes called Thomas Masaryk in English, was an Austro-Hungarian and Czechoslovak politician, sociologist and philosopher, who as an eager advocate of Czechoslovak independence during World War I became the founder and first President of Czechoslovakia, also was...
created the Czechoslovak National Council. Masaryk in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Štefánik in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, and Beneš in France and Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
worked tirelessly to gain Allied recognition. Around 1.4 million Czech soldiers fought in in World War I, 150,000 of them died. More than 90,000 Czech volunteers formed the Czechoslovak Legions
Czechoslovak Legions
The Czechoslovak Legions were volunteer armed forces composed predominantly of Czechs and Slovaks fighting together with the Entente powers during World War I...
in Russia, France and Italy, where they fought against the Central Powers
Central Powers
The Central Powers were one of the two warring factions in World War I , composed of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria...
and later with White Russian forces
White movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...
against Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
troops. At times controlling much of the Trans-Siberian railway
Trans-Siberian Railway
The Trans-Siberian Railway is a network of railways connecting Moscow with the Russian Far East and the Sea of Japan. It is the longest railway in the world...
and being indirectly involved in the hasty execution of the Tsar and his family
Shooting of the Romanov family
The shooting of the Romanov family, of the Russian Imperial House of Romanov, and those who chose to accompany them into exile, Dr. Eugene Botkin, Anna Demidova, Alexei Trupp, and Ivan Kharitonov, took place in Yekaterinburg on July 17, 1918 on the orders of Vladimir Lenin, Yakov Sverdlov, and the...
. Their goal was to win the Allies' support for the independence of Czechoslovakia. They succeeded on all counts. When secret talks between the Allies
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
and Austrian emperor Charles I (1916–18) collapsed, the Allies recognized, in the summer of 1918, the Czechoslovak National Council would be the main contributor to the future Czechoslovak government.
The First Republic (1918-1938)
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
on October 28, 1918 in Smetana
Smetana
Smetana is a Slavic loanword in English for a dairy product that is produced by souring heavy cream. Smetana is from Central and Eastern Europe, sometimes perceived to be specifically of Russian origin. It is a soured cream product like crème fraîche , but nowadays mainly sold with 15% to 30%...
Hall of the Municipal House
Municipal House
The Municipal House is a major civic landmark and concert hall in Prague, and an important building in architectural and political history in the Czech Republic. It stands on the Náměstí Republiky....
, a physical setting strongly associated with nationalist feeling. The Slovaks officially joined the state two days later in the town of Martin
Martin, Slovakia
Martin is a city in northern Slovakia, situated on the Turiec river, between the Malá Fatra and Veľká Fatra mountains, near the city of Žilina. The population numbers approximately 58,000, which makes it the eighth largest city in Slovakia...
. A temporary constitution was adopted and Tomáš Masaryk declared president on November 14. The Treaty of St. Germain, signed in September 1919 formally recognized the new republic. Ruthenia
Ruthenia
Ruthenia is the Latin word used onwards from the 13th century, describing lands of the Ancient Rus in European manuscripts. Its geographic and culturo-ethnic name at that time was applied to the parts of Eastern Europe. Essentially, the word is a false Latin rendering of the ancient place name Rus...
was later added to the Czech lands and Slovakia by the Treaty of Trianon
Treaty of Trianon
The Treaty of Trianon was the peace agreement signed in 1920, at the end of World War I, between the Allies of World War I and Hungary . The treaty greatly redefined and reduced Hungary's borders. From its borders before World War I, it lost 72% of its territory, which was reduced from to...
(June, 1920). There were also various border conflicts between Poland and Czechoslovakia
Border conflicts between Poland and Czechoslovakia
Border conflicts between Poland and Czechoslovakia began in 1918 between the Second Polish Republic and First Czechoslovak Republic, both freshly created states. The conflicts centered on the disputed areas of Cieszyn Silesia, Orava Territory and Spiš...
.
The new state was characterized by problems with its ethnic diversity, the separate histories and greatly differing religious, cultural, and social traditions of the Czechs and Slovaks. The Germans and Magyars (Hungarians) of Czechoslovakia openly agitated against the territorial settlements.
The new nation had a population of over 13.5 million. It had inherited 70 to 80% of all the industry of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Czechoslovakia was one of the world's ten most industrialized countries. The Czech lands
Czech lands
Czech lands is an auxiliary term used mainly to describe the combination of Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia. Today, those three historic provinces compose the Czech Republic. The Czech lands had been settled by the Celts , then later by various Germanic tribes until the beginning of 7th...
were far more industrialized than Slovakia. Most light and heavy industry were located in the Sudetenland
Sudetenland
Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...
and were owned by Germans and controlled by German-owned banks. The very backward Subcarpathian Ruthenia was essentially without industry.
The Second Republic (1938–1939)
Although Czechoslovakia was the only central European country to remain a parliamentary democracy from 1918 to 1938, it faced problems with ethnic minorities, the most important of which concerned the country's large German population. The Sudeten Germans constituted 3 to 3.5 million out of 14 million of the interwar state's population and were largely concentrated in the Bohemian and Moravian border regions, called the SudetenlandSudetenland
Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...
in German. Some members of this minority, which were predominantly sympathetic to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, undermined the new Czechoslovak state.
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
's rise in Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, the German annexation (Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
) of Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, the resulting revival of revisionism in Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
and of agitation for autonomy in Slovakia, and the appeasement
Appeasement
The term appeasement is commonly understood to refer to a diplomatic policy aimed at avoiding war by making concessions to another power. Historian Paul Kennedy defines it as "the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and...
policy of the Western powers (France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
) left Czechoslovakia without allies, exposed to hostile Germany and Hungary on three sides and to unsympathetic Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
on the north.
After the Austrian Anschluss, Czechoslovakia was to become Hitler's next target. The German nationalist minority, led by Konrad Henlein
Konrad Henlein
Konrad Ernst Eduard Henlein was a leading pro-Nazi ethnic German politician in Czechoslovakia and leader of Sudeten German separatists...
and vehemently backed by Hitler, demanded the union of the predominantly German districts with Germany. Threatening war, Hitler extorted through the Munich Agreement
Munich Agreement
The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without...
in September 1938 the cession of the Bohemian, Moravian and Czech Silesia
Czech Silesia
Czech Silesia is an unofficial name of one of the three Czech lands and a section of the Silesian historical region. It is located in the north-east of the Czech Republic, predominantly in the Moravian-Silesian Region, with a section in the northern Olomouc Region...
n borderlands - Sudetenland where all Czech population were forcibly expelled. On September 29, the Munich Agreement was signed by Germany, Italy, France, and Britain. The Czechoslovak government agreed to abide by the agreement. The Munich Agreement stipulated that Czechoslovakia must cede Sudetenland territory to Germany. Beneš resigned as president of the Czechoslovak Republic on October 5, 1938, fled to London and was succeeded by Emil Hácha
Emil Hácha
Emil Hácha was a Czech lawyer, the third President of Czecho-Slovakia from 1938 to 1939. From March 1939, he presided under the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.-Judicial career:...
. In early November 1938, under the First Vienna Award
First Vienna Award
The First Vienna Award was the result of the First Vienna Arbitration, which took place at Vienna's Belvedere Palace on November 2, 1938. The Arbitration and Award were direct consequences of the Munich Agreement...
, which was a result of the Munich agreement, Czechoslovakia (and later Slovakia) was forced by Germany and Italy to cede southern Slovakia (one third of Slovak territory) to Hungary. After an 30 September ultimatum
Ultimatum
An ultimatum is a demand whose fulfillment is requested in a specified period of time and which is backed up by a threat to be followed through in case of noncompliance. An ultimatum is generally the final demand in a series of requests...
(but without consulting with any other countries), Poland obtained the disputed Zaolzie
Zaolzie
Zaolzie is the Polish name for an area now in the Czech Republic which was disputed between interwar Poland and Czechoslovakia. The name means "lands beyond the Olza River"; it is also called Śląsk zaolziański, meaning "trans-Olza Silesia". Equivalent terms in other languages include Zaolší in...
region as a territorial cession shortly after the Munich Agreement, on 2 October.
The Czechs in the greatly weakened Czechoslovak Republic were forced to grant major concessions to the non-Czechs. The executive committee of the Slovak People's Party
Slovak People's Party
The Slovak People's Party was a Slovak right-wing party and was described as a fascist and...
met at Žilina
Žilina
Žilina is a city in north-western Slovakia, around from the capital Bratislava, close to both the Czech and Polish borders. It is the fourth largest city of Slovakia with a population of approximately 85,000, an important industrial center, the largest city on the Váh river, and the seat of a...
on October 5, 1938, and with the acquiescence of all Slovak parties except the Social Democrats formed an autonomous Slovak government under Jozef Tiso
Jozef Tiso
Jozef Tiso was a Slovak Roman Catholic priest, politician of the Slovak People's Party, and Nazi collaborator. Between 1939 and 1945, Tiso was the head of the Slovak State, a satellite state of Nazi Germany...
. Similarly, the two major factions in Subcarpathian Ruthenia, the Russophiles
Ukrainian Russophiles
The focus of this article is part of a general political movement in Western Ukraine of the nineteenth and early 20th century. The movement contained several competing branches: Moscowphiles, Ukrainophiles, Rusynphiles, and others....
and Ukrainophiles, agreed on the establishment of an autonomous government, which was constituted on October 8, 1938. In late November 1938, the truncated state, renamed Czecho-Slovakia (the so-called Second Republic
Second Czechoslovak Republic
The Second Czechoslovak Republic refers to the second Czechoslovak state that existed from October 1, 1938 to March 14, 1939, thus existing for only 167 days...
), was reconstituted in three autonomous units: Czechia (i.e. Bohemia and Moravia), Slovakia, and Ruthenia.
On March 12, 1939 the Slovak State declared its independence as a satellite state
Satellite state
A satellite state is a political term that refers to a country that is formally independent, but under heavy political and economic influence or control by another country...
under Jozef Tiso. Hitler forced Hácha to surrender what remained of Bohemia and Moravia to German control on 15 March 1939, establishing the German protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was the majority ethnic-Czech protectorate which Nazi Germany established in the central parts of Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia in what is today the Czech Republic...
, which was created on March 15. On the same day, the Carpatho-Ukraine
Carpatho-Ukraine
Carpatho-Ukraine was an autonomous region within Czechoslovakia from late 1938 to March 15, 1939. It declared itself an independent republic on March 15, 1939, but was occupied by Hungary between March 15 and March 18, 1939, remaining under Hungarian control until the Nazi occupation of Hungary in...
(Subcarpathian Ruthenia
Ruthenia
Ruthenia is the Latin word used onwards from the 13th century, describing lands of the Ancient Rus in European manuscripts. Its geographic and culturo-ethnic name at that time was applied to the parts of Eastern Europe. Essentially, the word is a false Latin rendering of the ancient place name Rus...
) declared its independence and was immediately invaded and annexed by Hungary. Finally, on March 23 Hungary invaded and occupied from the Carpatho-Ukraine some further parts of Slovakia (eastern Slovakia).
World War II
Czechoslovak government-in-exile
The Czechoslovak government-in-exile was an informal title conferred upon the Czechoslovak National Liberation Committee, initially by British diplomatic recognition. The name came to be used by other World War II Allies as they subsequently recognized it...
and negotiated to obtain international recognition for the government and a renunciation of the Munich Agreement
Munich Agreement
The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without...
and its consequences. The government was recognized by government of United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax on July 18, 1940. In July and December 1941, the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
also recognized the exiled government, respectively. Czechoslovak military units fought alongside Allied forces. In December Carpatho-Ukraine1943, Beneš's government concluded a treaty with the Soviet Union. Beneš worked to bring Czechoslovak communist exiles in Britain into active cooperation with his government, offering far-reaching concessions, including nationalization
Nationalization
Nationalisation, also spelled nationalization, is the process of taking an industry or assets into government ownership by a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being...
of heavy industry and the creation of local people's committees at the war's end (which then indeed happened). In March 1945, he gave key cabinet positions to Czechoslovak communist exiles in Moscow.
The assassination of Reichsprotector Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich , also known as The Hangman, was a high-ranking German Nazi official.He was SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei, chief of the Reich Main Security Office and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia...
in 1942 by a group of British-trained Czech and Slovak commandos
Commandos
Commandos is a stealth-oriented real-time tactics game series, available for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. The game is set in the Second World War and follows the escapades of a fictional British Commandos section. It leans heavily on historical events during WWII to carry the plot...
led by Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabčík
Jozef Gabcík
Jozef Gabčík was a Slovak soldier of Czechoslovak army involved in Operation Anthropoid, the assassination of acting Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich....
led to reprisals, including the annihilation of the village Lidice
Lidice
Lidice is a village in the Czech Republic just northwest of Prague. It is built on the site of a previous village of the same name which, as part of the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, was on orders from Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, completely destroyed by German forces in reprisal...
. All adult male inhabitants were executed, while females and children were transported to concentration camps. A similar fate met the villages Ležáky
Ležáky
Ležáky was a village in Czechoslovakia. In 1942 it was razed to the ground by Nazis during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia.Ležáky was a settlement inhabited by poor stone-cutters and little cottagers...
and later, at the end of war, Javoříčko
Luká
Luká is a village and municipality in Olomouc District in the Olomouc Region of the Czech Republic.The municipality covers an area of , and has a population of 793 ....
too.
On May 8, 1944, Beneš
Edvard Beneš
Edvard Beneš was a leader of the Czechoslovak independence movement, Minister of Foreign Affairs and the second President of Czechoslovakia. He was known to be a skilled diplomat.- Youth :...
signed an agreement with Soviet leaders stipulating that Czechoslovak territory liberated by Soviet armies would be placed under Czechoslovak civilian control.
From September 21, 1944, Czechoslovakia was liberated by Soviet troops (the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
), supported by Czech and Slovak resistance , from the east to the west; only southwestern Bohemia was liberated by other Allied troops (U.S. Army) from the west. In May 1945, American forces liberated the city of Plzeň. A civilian uprising against the Nazi garrison took place in Prague in May 1945. The resistance was assisted by heavily-armed Russian Liberation Army
Russian Liberation Army
Russian Liberation Army was a group of predominantly Russian forces subordinated to the Nazi German high command during World War II....
, i.e., Gen. Vlasov's army, a force composed of Soviet POWs organised by the Germans, now turning again against them. Except for the brutalities of the German occupation in Protectorate (and, after the Slovak National Uprising
Slovak National Uprising
The Slovak National Uprising or 1944 Uprising was an armed insurrection organized by the Slovak resistance movement during World War II. It was launched on August 29 1944 from Banská Bystrica in an attempt to overthrow the collaborationist Slovak State of Jozef Tiso...
in August 1944, also in Slovakia), Czechoslovakia suffered relatively little from the war. Bratislava
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
was taken over on April 4, 1945, and Prague on May 9, 1945 by Soviet troops. Both Soviet and Allied troops were withdrawn in the same year.
A treaty ceding Carpatho-Ukraine
Carpatho-Ukraine
Carpatho-Ukraine was an autonomous region within Czechoslovakia from late 1938 to March 15, 1939. It declared itself an independent republic on March 15, 1939, but was occupied by Hungary between March 15 and March 18, 1939, remaining under Hungarian control until the Nazi occupation of Hungary in...
to the Soviet Union was signed in June 1945 between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union, following an apparently rigged Soviet-run referendum in Carpatho-Ukraine (Ruthenia). The Potsdam Agreement
Potsdam Agreement
The Potsdam Agreement was the Allied plan of tripartite military occupation and reconstruction of Germany—referring to the German Reich with its pre-war 1937 borders including the former eastern territories—and the entire European Theatre of War territory...
provided for the expulsion of Sudeten Germans to Germany under the supervision of the Allied Control Council. Decisions regarding the Hungarian minority reverted to the Czechoslovak government. In February 1946, the Hungarian government agreed that Czechoslovakia could expatriate as many Hungarians as there were Slovaks in Hungary wishing to return to Czechoslovakia.
The Third Republic (1945-1948) and the Communist takeover (1948)
Košice
Košice is a city in eastern Slovakia. It is situated on the river Hornád at the eastern reaches of the Slovak Ore Mountains, near the border with Hungary...
on April 4 and moved to Prague in May, was a National Front
National Front (Czechoslovakia)
The National Front was the coalition of parties which headed the re-established Czechoslovakian government from 1945 to 1948. During the Communist era in Czechoslovakia it was the vehicle for control of all political and social activity by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia...
coalition in which three socialist parties—Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, in Czech and in Slovak: Komunistická strana Československa was a Communist and Marxist-Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992....
(KSČ), Czechoslovak Social democratic Party, and Czechoslovak National Socialist Party—predominated. Certain nonsocialist parties were included in the coalition; among them were the Catholic People's Party (in Moravia) and the Democratic Party (Slovakia)
Democratic Party (Slovakia)
The Democratic Party was a political party in Slovakia. When it was founded in late 1989 , it saw itself a continuation of the historical Democratic Party....
.
Following Nazi Germany's surrender, some 2.9 million ethnic Germans were expelled
Expulsion of Germans after World War II
The later stages of World War II, and the period after the end of that war, saw the forced migration of millions of German nationals and ethnic Germans from various European states and territories, mostly into the areas which would become post-war Germany and post-war Austria...
from Czechoslovakia with Allied approval, their property and rights declared void by the Beneš decrees
Beneš decrees
Decrees of the President of the Republic , more commonly known as the Beneš decrees, were a series of laws that were drafted by the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile in the absence of the Czechoslovak parliament during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in World War II and issued by President...
. Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
soon came to fall within the Soviet sphere of influence.
The popular enthusiasm evoked by the Soviet armies of liberation (which was decided by compromise of Allies and Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
at the Yalta conference
Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D...
in 1944) benefited the KSČ
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, in Czech and in Slovak: Komunistická strana Československa was a Communist and Marxist-Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992....
. Czechoslovaks, bitterly disappointed by the West at the Munich Agreement
Munich Agreement
The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without...
(1938), responded favorably to both the KSČ and the Soviet alliance. Reunited into one state after the war, the Czechs and Slovaks set national elections for the spring of 1946. The democratic elements, led by President Edvard Beneš
Edvard Beneš
Edvard Beneš was a leader of the Czechoslovak independence movement, Minister of Foreign Affairs and the second President of Czechoslovakia. He was known to be a skilled diplomat.- Youth :...
, hoped the Soviet Union would allow Czechoslovakia the freedom to choose its own form of government and aspired to a Czechoslovakia that would act as a bridge between East and West. Communists secured strong representation in the popularly elected National Committees, the new organs of local administration. In the May 1946 election, the KSČ won most of the popular vote in the Czech part of the bi-ethnic country (40.17%), and the more or less anti-Communist Democratic Party won in Slovakia (62%). In sum, however, the KSČ won a plurality of 38 percent of the vote at countrywide level. Edvard Beneš continued as president of the republic. The Communist leader Klement Gottwald
Klement Gottwald
Klement Gottwald was a Czechoslovakian Communist politician, longtime leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia , prime minister and president of Czechoslovakia.-Early life:...
became prime minister. Most important, although the communists held only a minority of portfolios, they were able to gain control over all key ministries (Ministry of the Interior, etc.)
Although the communist-led government initially intended to participate in the Marshall Plan
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...
, it was forced by the Kremlin
Kremlin
A kremlin , same root as in kremen is a major fortified central complex found in historic Russian cities. This word is often used to refer to the best-known one, the Moscow Kremlin, or metonymically to the government that is based there...
to back out.
In 1947, Stalin summoned Gottwald to Moscow; upon his return to Prague, the KSČ demonstrated a significant radicalization of its tactics. On February 20, 1948, the twelve non-communist ministers resigned, in part, to induce Beneš to call for early elections: Beneš refused to accept the cabinet resignations and did not call for elections. In the meantime, the KSČ garnered its forces for the coup d'état of 1948
Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948
The Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948 – in Communist historiography known as "Victorious February" – was an event late that February in which the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, with Soviet backing, assumed undisputed control over the government of Czechoslovakia, ushering in over four decades...
. The communist-controlled Ministry of Interior deployed police regiments to sensitive areas and equipped a workers' militia. On February 25, Beneš, perhaps fearing Soviet intervention, capitulated. He accepted the resignations of the dissident ministers and received a new cabinet list from Gottwald, thus completing, under the cover of superficial legality, the communist takeover.
On March 10, 1948 the moderate foreign minister of the government, Jan Masaryk
Jan Masaryk
Jan Garrigue Masaryk was a Czech diplomat and politician and Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia from 1940 to 1948.- Early life :...
, was found dead in an apparent suicide, although the suspicious circumstances surrounding his death have led some to believe that it was a political assassination.
The Communist era (1948-1989)
In February 1948, when the Communists took power, Czechoslovakia was declared a "people's democracyPeople's Republic
People's Republic is a title that has often been used by Marxist-Leninist governments to describe their state. The motivation for using this term lies in the claim that Marxist-Leninists govern in accordance with the interests of the vast majority of the people, and, as such, a Marxist-Leninist...
" (until 1960) – a preliminary step toward socialism and, ultimately, communism. Bureaucratic centralism under the direction of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, in Czech and in Slovak: Komunistická strana Československa was a Communist and Marxist-Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992....
(KSČ) leadership was introduced. Dissident
Dissident
A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution. When dissidents unite for a common cause they often effect a dissident movement....
elements were purged from all levels of society, including the Roman Catholic Church. The ideological principles of Marxism-Leninism
Marxism-Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology, officially based upon the theories of Marxism and Vladimir Lenin, that promotes the development and creation of a international communist society through the leadership of a vanguard party over a revolutionary socialist state that represents a dictatorship...
and socialist realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
pervaded cultural and intellectual life. The economy was committed to comprehensive central planning and abolition of private ownership of capital. Czechoslovakia became a satellite state
Satellite state
A satellite state is a political term that refers to a country that is formally independent, but under heavy political and economic influence or control by another country...
of the Soviet Union; it was a founding member of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon
Comecon
The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance , 1949–1991, was an economic organisation under hegemony of Soviet Union comprising the countries of the Eastern Bloc along with a number of communist states elsewhere in the world...
) in 1949 and of the Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
in 1955. The attainment of Soviet-style command socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
became the government's avowed policy. Slovak autonomy was constrained; the Communist Party of Slovakia
Communist Party of Slovakia
The Communist Party of Slovakia is a communist party in Slovakia, formed in 1992, through the merger of the Communist Party of Slovakia – 91 and the Communist League of Slovakia.According to Luboš Blaha the KSS supported the government of Robert Fico....
(KSS) was reunited with the KSČ (Communist Party of Czechoslovakia) but retained its own identity. Following the Soviet example, Czechoslovakia began emphasizing the rapid development of heavy industry. Although Czechoslovakia's industrial growth of 170 percent between 1948 and 1957 was impressive, it was far exceeded by that of Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
(300 percent) and the Federal Republic of Germany (almost 300 percent) and more than equaled by Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
and Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
.
Beneš refused to sign the Communist Constitution of 1948 (Ninth-of-May Constitution
Ninth-of-May Constitution
The Ninth-of-May Constitution was a constitution of Czechoslovakia in force from 1948 to 1960. It came into force on May 9, shortly after the communist seizure of power in the country on 25 February 1948. It replaced the 1920 Constitution...
) and resigned from the presidency; he was succeeded by Klement Gottwald
Klement Gottwald
Klement Gottwald was a Czechoslovakian Communist politician, longtime leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia , prime minister and president of Czechoslovakia.-Early life:...
. Gottwald died in 1953. He was succeeded by Antonín Zápotocký
Antonín Zápotocký
Antonín Zápotocký was communist Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia from 1948 to 1953 and President of Czechoslovakia from 1953 to 1957....
as president and by Antonín Novotný
Antonín Novotný
Antonín Novotný was General Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1953 to 1968, and also held the post of President of Czechoslovakia from 1957 to 1968. He was born in Letňany, now part of Prague....
as head of the KSČ. After extensive purges modeled on the Stalinist pattern in other east European states, the Communist Party tried 14 of its former leaders in November 1952 and sentenced 11 to death. For more than a decade thereafter, the Czechoslovak communist political structure was characterized by the orthodoxy of the leadership of party chief Antonín Novotný. Novotný became president in 1957 when Zápotocký died.
In the 1950s, the Stalinists
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
accused their opponents of "conspiracy against the people's democratic order" and "high treason" in order to oust them from positions of power. Large-scale arrests of Communists with an "international" background, i.e., those with a wartime connection with the West, veterans of the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, Jews, and Slovak "bourgeois nationalists," were followed by show trials. The outcome of these trials, serving the communist propaganda, was often known in advance and the penalties were extremely heavy, such as in the case of Milada Horáková
Milada Horáková
Dr. Milada Horáková was a Czech politician executed by Communists on charges of conspiracy and treason.- Biography :...
, who was sentenced to death together with Jan Buchal, Záviš Kalandra
Záviš Kalandra
Záviš Kalandra was a Czechoslovak historian and theorist of literature executed by Communists on charges of conspiracy and treason....
and Oldřich Pecl.
The 1960 Constitution
1960 Constitution of Czechoslovakia
The Constitution of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic , promulgated on 11 July 1960 as the constitutional law 100/1960 Sb., codified the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia...
declared the victory of socialism and proclaimed the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
De-Stalinization
De-Stalinization
De-Stalinization refers to the process of eliminating the cult of personality, Stalinist political system and the Gulag labour-camp system created by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Stalin was succeeded by a collective leadership after his death in March 1953...
had a late start in Czechoslovakia. In the early 1960s, the Czechoslovak economy became severely stagnant. The industrial growth rate was the lowest in Eastern Europe. As a result, in 1965, the party approved the New Economic Model
New Economic Model
The New Economic Model is an economic plan in Malaysia unveiled on 30 March, 2010 by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak which is intended to more than double the per capita income in Malaysia by 2020...
, introducing free market
Free market
A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...
elements into the economy. The KSČ "Theses" of December 1965 presented the party response to the call for political reform. Democratic centralism
Democratic centralism
Democratic centralism is the name given to the principles of internal organization used by Leninist political parties, and the term is sometimes used as a synonym for any Leninist policy inside a political party...
was redefined, placing a stronger emphasis on democracy. The leading role of the KSČ was reaffirmed but limited. Slovaks pressed for federalization. On January 5, 1968, the KSČ Central Committee elected Alexander Dubček
Alexander Dubcek
Alexander Dubček , also known as Dikita, was a Slovak politician and briefly leader of Czechoslovakia , famous for his attempt to reform the communist regime during the Prague Spring...
, a Slovak reformer, to replace Novotný as first secretary of the KSČ. On March 22, 1968, Novotný resigned from the presidency and was succeeded by General Ludvík Svoboda
Ludvík Svoboda
thumb|Svoboda and [[I Corps |I Czechoslovak Army Corps]]Ludvík Svoboda was a Czechoslovak general and politician...
.
The Prague Spring (1968)
Prague Spring
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...
"). Radical elements found expression: anti-Soviet polemics appeared in the press; the Social Democrats began to form a separate party; new unaffiliated political clubs were created. Party conservatives urged the implementation of repressive measures, but Dubček counseled moderation and reemphasized KSČ leadership. In addition, the Dubček leadership called for politico-military changes in the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact and Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. The leadership affirmed its loyalty to socialism and the Warsaw Pact but also expressed the desire to improve relations with all countries of the world regardless of their social systems.
A program adopted in April 1968 set guidelines for a modern, humanistic socialist democracy that would guarantee, among other things, freedom of religion, press, assembly, speech, and travel; a program that, in Dubček's words, would give socialism "a human face." After 20 years of little public participation, the population gradually started to take interest in the government, and Dubček became a truly popular national figure.
The internal reforms and foreign policy statements of the Dubček leadership created great concern among some other Warsaw Pact governments. KSČ conservatives had misinformed Moscow regarding the strength of the reform movement. As a result, the troops of Warsaw Pact countries (except Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
) invaded Czechoslovakia during the night of August 20–21. Two-thirds of the KSČ Central Committee opposed the Soviet intervention. Popular opposition was expressed in numerous spontaneous acts of nonviolent resistance. In Prague and other cities throughout the republic, Czechs and Slovaks greeted Warsaw Pact soldiers with arguments and reproaches. The Czechoslovak Government declared that the troops had not been invited into the country and that their invasion was a violation of socialist principles, international law, and the UN Charter. Dubček, who had been arrested on the night of August 20, was taken to Moscow for negotiations. The outcome was the Brezhnev Doctrine
Brezhnev Doctrine
The Brezhnev Doctrine was a Soviet Union foreign policy, first and most clearly outlined by S. Kovalev in a September 26, 1968 Pravda article, entitled “Sovereignty and the International Obligations of Socialist Countries.” Leonid Brezhnev reiterated it in a speech at the Fifth Congress of the...
of limited sovereignty, which provided for the strengthening of the KSČ, strict party control of the media, and the suppression of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party.
On January 19, 1969, the student Jan Palach
Jan Palach
Jan Palach was a Czech student who committed suicide by self-immolation as a political protest.- Death :...
set himself on fire in Prague's Wenceslas Square
Wenceslas Square
Wenceslas Square is one of the main city squares and the centre of the business and cultural communities in the New Town of Prague, Czech Republic. Many historical events occurred there, and it is a traditional setting for demonstrations, celebrations, and other public gatherings...
to protest the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union in 1968.
The principal Czechoslovak reformers were forcibly and secretly taken to the Soviet Union where they signed a treaty that provided for the "temporary stationing" of an unspecified number of Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia. Dubček was removed as party First Secretary on 17 April 1969, and replaced by another Slovak, Gustáv Husák
Gustáv Husák
Gustáv Husák was a Slovak politician, president of Czechoslovakia and a long-term Communist leader of Czechoslovakia and of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia...
. Later, Dubček and many of his allies within the party were stripped of their party positions in a purge that lasted until 1971 and reduced party membership by almost one-third.
Aftermath
The Slovak part of Czechoslovakia made major gains in industrial production in the 1960s and 1970s. By the 1970s, its industrial production was near parity with that of the Czech landsCzech lands
Czech lands is an auxiliary term used mainly to describe the combination of Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia. Today, those three historic provinces compose the Czech Republic. The Czech lands had been settled by the Celts , then later by various Germanic tribes until the beginning of 7th...
. Slovakia's portion of per capita national income rose from slightly more than 60 percent of that of Bohemia and Moravia in 1948 to nearly 80 percent in 1968, and Slovak per capita earning power equaled that of the Czechs in 1971. The pace of Slovak economic growth has continued to exceed that of Czech growth to the present day (2003).
Dubcek remained in office only until April 1969. Gustáv Husák
Gustáv Husák
Gustáv Husák was a Slovak politician, president of Czechoslovakia and a long-term Communist leader of Czechoslovakia and of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia...
(a centrist, and interestingly one of the Slovak "bourgeois nationalists" imprisoned by his own KSČ in the 1950s) was named first secretary (title changed to general secretary in 1971). A program of "Normalization
Normalization (Czechoslovakia)
In the history of Czechoslovakia, normalization is a name commonly given to the period 1969 to about 1987. It was characterized by initial restoration of the conditions prevailing before the reform period led by Alexander Dubček , first of all, the firm rule of the Communist Party of...
" — the restoration of continuity with the prereform period—was initiated. Normalization entailed thoroughgoing political repression and the return to ideological conformity.
A new purge cleansed the Czechoslovak leadership of all reformist elements.
Anti-Soviet demonstrations in August 1969 ushered in a period of harsh repression. The 1970s and 1980s became known as the period of "normalization," in which the apologists for the 1968 Soviet invasion prevented, as best they could, any opposition to their conservative regime. Political, social, and economic life stagnated. The population, cowed by the "normalization," was quiet. The only point required during the Prague spring
Prague Spring
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...
that was achieved was the federalization of the country (as of 1969), which however was more or less only formal under the normalization. The newly created Federal Assembly (i.e., federal parliament), which replaced the National Assembly, was to work in close cooperation with the Czech National Council
Czech National Council
The Czech National Council was the legislative body of the Czech Republic from 1968 to 1992. It was created in 1968 to reflect the fact that Czechoslovakia became a federation. It was legally transformed into the Chamber of deputies according to the Constitution The Czech National Council was the...
and the Slovak National Council
National Council of the Slovak Republic
The National Council of the Slovak Republic , abbreviated to NR SR, is the national parliament of Slovakia. It is unicameral, and consists of 150 MPs, who are elected by universal suffrage under proportional representation every four years....
(i.e., national parliaments).
In 1975, Gustáv Husák added the position of president to his post as party chief. The Husák regime required conformity and obedience in all aspects of life. Husák also tried to obtain acquiescence to his rule by providing an improved standard of living. He returned Czechoslovakia to an orthodox command economy with a heavy emphasis on central planning and continued to extend industrialization. For a while the policy seemed successful; the 1980s, however, were more or less a period of economic stagnation. Another feature of Husák's rule was a continued dependence on the Soviet Union. In the 1980s, approximately 50 percent of Czechoslovakia's foreign trade was with the Soviet Union, and almost 80 percent was with communist countries.
Through the 1970s and 1980s, the regime was challenged by individuals and organized groups aspiring to independent thinking and activity. The first organized opposition emerged under the umbrella of Charter 77. On January 6, 1977, a manifesto called Charter 77
Charter 77
Charter 77 was an informal civic initiative in communist Czechoslovakia from 1976 to 1992, named after the document Charter 77 from January 1977. Founding members and architects were Václav Havel, Jan Patočka, Zdeněk Mlynář, Jiří Hájek, and Pavel Kohout. Spreading the text of the document was...
appeared in West German newspapers. The original manifesto reportedly was signed by 243 persons; among them were artists, former public officials, and other prominent figures. The Charter had over 800 signatures by the end of 1977, including workers and youth. It criticized the government for failing to implement human rights provisions of documents it had signed, including the state's own constitution; international covenants on political, civil, economic, social, and cultural rights; and the Final Act of the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Although not organized in any real sense, the signatories of Charter 77 constituted a citizens' initiative aimed at inducing the Czechoslovak Government to observe formal obligations to respect the human rights of its citizens. Signatories were arrested and interrogated; dismissal from employment often followed. Because religion offered possibilities for thought and activities independent of the state, it too was severely restricted and controlled. Clergymen were required to be licensed. Unlike in Poland, dissent and independent activity were limited in Czechoslovakia to a fairly small segment of the populace. Many Czechs and Slovaks emigrated to the West.
The end of the Communist era (1989) and the Velvet Revolution 1989
Although, in March 1987, Husák nominally committed Czechoslovakia to follow the program of Mikhail GorbachevMikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
's perestroika
Perestroika
Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
, it did not happen much in reality. On December 17, 1987, Husák, who was one month away from his seventy-fifth birthday, had resigned as head of the KSČ. He retained, however, his post of president of Czechoslovakia and his full membership on the Presidium of the KSČ. Miloš Jakeš, who replaced Husák as first secretary of the KSČ, did not change anything. The slow pace of the Czechoslovak reform movement was an irritant to the Soviet leadership.
The first anti-Communist demonstration took place on March 25, 1988 in Bratislava
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
(the Candle demonstration in Bratislava
Candle demonstration in Bratislava
The Candle Demonstration on 25 March 1988 in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, was the first mass demonstration since 1969 against the communist regime in Czechoslovakia....
). It was an unauthorized peaceful gathering of some 2,000 (other sources 10,000) Roman Catholics. Demonstrations also occurred on August 21, 1988 (the anniversary of the Soviet intervention in 1968) in Prague, on October 28, 1988 (establishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918) in Prague, Bratislava and some other towns, in January 1989 (death of Jan Palach
Jan Palach
Jan Palach was a Czech student who committed suicide by self-immolation as a political protest.- Death :...
on January 16, 1969), on August 21, 1989 (see above) and on October 28, 1989 (see above).
The anti-Communist revolution started on November 16, 1989 in Bratislava, with a demonstration of Slovak university students for democracy, and continued with the well-known similar demonstration of Czech students in Prague on November 17.
Democratic Czechoslovakia (1989-1992)
On 17 November 1989, the communist police violently broke up a peaceful pro-democracy demonstration, brutally beating many student participants. In the days which followed, Charter 77 and other groups united to become the Civic ForumCivic Forum
The Civic Forum was a political movement in the Czech part of Czechoslovakia, established during the Velvet Revolution in 1989...
, an umbrella group championing bureaucratic reform and civil liberties. Its leader was the dissident playwright Václav Havel
Václav Havel
Václav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
. Intentionally eschewing the label "party", a word given a negative connotation during the previous regime, Civic Forum quickly gained the support of millions of Czechs, as did its Slovak counterpart, Public Against Violence
Public Against Violence
The Public Against Violence was a political movement that was established in Bratislava, Slovakia on 20 November 1989. It was the Slovak counterpart of the Czech Civic Forum ....
.
Faced with an overwhelming popular repudiation, the Communist Party all but collapsed. Its leaders, Husák and party chief Miloš Jakeš, resigned in December 1989, and Havel was elected President of Czechoslovakia on 29 December. The astonishing quickness of these events was in part due to the unpopularity of the communist regime and changes in the policies of its Soviet guarantor as well as to the rapid, effective organization of these public initiatives into a viable opposition.
A coalition government, in which the Communist Party had a minority of ministerial positions, was formed in December 1989. The first free elections in Czechoslovakia since 1946 took place in June 1990 without incident and with more than 95% of the population voting. As anticipated, Civic Forum and Public Against Violence won landslide victories in their respective republics and gained a comfortable majority in the federal parliament. The parliament undertook substantial steps toward securing the democratic evolution of Czechoslovakia. It successfully moved toward fair local elections in November 1990, ensuring fundamental change at the county and town level.
Civic Forum found, however, that although it had successfully completed its primary objective—the overthrow of the communist regime—it was ineffectual as a governing party. The demise of Civic Forum was viewed by most as necessary and inevitable.
By the end of 1990, unofficial parliamentary "clubs" had evolved with distinct political agendas. Most influential was the Civic Democratic Party, headed by Václav Klaus
Václav Klaus
Václav Klaus is the second President of the Czech Republic and a former Prime Minister .An economist, he is co-founder of the Civic Democratic Party, the Czech Republic's largest center-right political party. Klaus is a eurosceptic, but he reluctantly endorsed the Lisbon treaty as president of...
. Other notable parties that came into being after the split were the Czech Social Democratic Party, Civic Movement, and Civic Democratic Alliance.
By 1992, Slovak calls for greater autonomy effectively blocked the daily functioning of the federal government. In the election of June 1992, Klaus's Civic Democratic Party won handily in the Czech lands on a platform of economic reform. Vladimír Mečiar
Vladimír Meciar
Vladimír Mečiar is a Slovak politician who was Prime Minister of Slovakia from 1990 to 1991, from 1992 to 1994, and from 1994 to 1998. He is the leader of the People's Party - Movement for a Democratic Slovakia...
's Movement for a Democratic Slovakia emerged as the leading party in Slovakia, basing its appeal on fairness to Slovak demands for autonomy. Federalists, like Havel, were unable to contain the trend toward the split. In July 1992, President Havel resigned. In the latter half of 1992, Klaus and Mečiar hammered out an agreement that the two republics would go their separate ways by the end of the year.
Members of Czechoslovakia's parliament (the Federal Assembly), divided along national lines, barely cooperated enough to pass the law officially separating the two nations in late 1992. On 1 January 1993, the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
(Czechia) and the Slovak Republic (Slovakia) were simultaneously and peacefully founded.
Relationships between the two states, despite occasional disputes about the division of federal property and the governing of the border, have been peaceful. Both states attained immediate recognition from the USA and their European neighbors.
Economic history
At the time of the communist takeover, Czechoslovakia was devastated by WWII. Almost 1 million people, out of a prewar population of 15 million, had been killed. An additional 3 million Germans were expelled in 1946. In 1948, the government began to stress heavy industry over agricultural and consumer goods and services. Many basic industries and foreign trade, as well as domestic wholesale trade, had been nationalized before the communists took power. Nationalization of most of the retail trade was completed in 1950-51.Heavy industry received major economic support during the 1950s, but central planning resulted in waste and inefficient use of industrial resources. Although the labor force was traditionally skilled and efficient, inadequate incentives for labor and management contributed to high labor turnover, low productivity, and poor product quality. Economic failures reached a critical stage in the 1960s, after which various reform measures were sought with no satisfactory results.
Hope for wide-ranging economic reform came with Alexander Dubcek's rise in January 1968. Despite renewed efforts, however, Czechoslovakia could not come to grips with inflationary forces, much less begin the immense task of correcting the economy's basic problems.
The economy saw growth during the 1970s but then stagnated between 1978-82. Attempts at revitalizing it in the 1980s with management and worker incentive programs were largely unsuccessful. The economy grew after 1982, achieving an annual average output growth of more than 3% between 1983-85. Imports from the West were curtailed, exports boosted, and hard currency debt reduced substantially. New investment was made in the electronic, chemical, and pharmaceutical sectors, which were industry leaders in eastern Europe in the mid-1980s.
From creation to dissolution – overview
Further reading
- Kohák, Erazim. Hearth and Horizon: Cultural Identity and Global Humanity in Czech Philosophy by Filosofia 2008, ISBN 978-80-7007-285-1
- Ash, Timothy Garton. We the People' by Granta Books, 1990 ISBN 0-14-014023-9,
- Bryant, Chad. 'Prague in Black: Nazi Rule and Czech Nationalism', Harvard University Press 2007, ISBN 0-674-02451-6
- Heimann, Mary. 'Czechoslovakia: The State That Failed' 2009 ISBN 0-300-14147-5
- Lukes, Igor. 'Czechoslovakia between Stalin and Hitler', Oxford University Press 1996, ISBN 0-19-510267-3
- Seton-Watson, Robert William. Racial problems in Hungary (1908) full text online
- Skilling Gordon. 'Czechoslovakia's Interrupted Revolution', Princeton University Press 1976, ISBN 0-691-05234-4
- 'Lighting the Night' by William Echikson Pan Books, 1990 ISBN 0-330-31825-X
- 'Despatches from the Barricades by John Simpson Hutchinson, 1990 ISBN 0-09-174582-9
- Tauchen, Jaromír - Schelle, Karel etc.: The Process of Democratization of Law in the Czech Republic (1989–2009). Rincon (USA), The American Institute for Central European Legal Studies 2009. 204 pp. (ISBN 978-0-615-31580-5)