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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Literature in many languages (documentary, monographic, memoir-like and periodical) is abundant on the sovietization of Czechoslovakia, as are the reasons advanced for it. Some observers have argued that the Soviet takeover of the country stemmed from an excessive preoccupation with Panslavism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by a few Czech and Slovak intellectuals, politicians, writers and poets and their uncritical affection and fascination for everything Russian and Soviet. Others have attributed the drawing of Czechoslovakia into the Soviet orbit to Franco-British appeasement of Hitler's imperial ambitions during the September 1938, Munich crisis. At Munich, Czechoslovakia lost its sovereignty and territory, France its honor, England its respect and trust; and the Soviet Union, by its abstract offer to aid Czechoslovakia (without detailing how or in what form the assistance would come) gained admiration. Still others have pinned the blame for the sovietization of Czechoslovakia on machinations by top leaders of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, who, as obedient tools of Moscow, supported Soviet geopolitical designs on Czechoslovakia, who sought and received political asylum in the USSR during World War II, and who returned to Czechoslovakia with the victorious Soviet armed forces at the end of World War II as high-ranking members of the Soviet establishment. Finally, there are some who maintain that the sovietization of Czechoslovakia commenced with the 25 February 1948, Communist coup, followed by the tragic death of Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk on 10 March 1948, and the replacement, on 7 June 1948, of President Eduard Beneš by the Moscow-trained, loyal Kremlin servant Klement Gottwald.
1. While there is no specific study linking Czechoslovak fascination with Panslavism and the Communist triumph in Czechoslovakia, many authors refer to that connection. For sample references, see Reichcigl, Miloslav Jr., ed., Czechoslovakia: Past and Present, Vol. I (The Hague: Mouton, 1968); Korbel, Joseph, Twentieth-Century Czechoslovakia (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977); and Seton-Watson, Hugh, The East European Revolution (New York: Praeger, 1956). The leading English-languages studies on Panslavism are: Petrovich, Michael B., The Emergence of Russian Panslavism, 1856–1870 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1956); and Kohn, Hans, Panslavism: Its History and Ideology, rev. edn (South Bend: Notre Dame University Press, 1960).Google Scholar
2. Western appeasement of Hitler that resulted in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia at Munich, in September 1938, has produced numerous studies. The most pertinent are: Ripka, Hubert, Munich: Before and After (New York: H. Fertig, 1969); Noguere, Henri, Munich: “Peace for Our Time” (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965); Taylor, Telford, Munich: The Price of Peace (Garden City: Doubleday, 1979); Glotz, P. and Pollak, K. H., eds., München: Das Ende des alten Europas (Essen: Hobbing, R., 1990); Volkov, V. K., ed., Miunkhen: Predverie voiny (Moscow: Nauka, 1988); Beneš, Eduard, Paměti: Ot Mnichova k nové ύalce a k novému vitěztvi (Prague: Orbis, 1947); and Lukes, Igor, “Stalin and Beneš at the End of September 1938: New Evidence from the Prague Archives,” Slavic Review, Vol. 52, No. 1, Spring 1993.Google Scholar
3. For further discussion of this matter, see Zinner, Paul E., Communist Strategy and Tactics in Czechoslovakia, 1918–1948 (New York: Praeger, 1963); Duchaček, Ivo, The Strategy of Communist Infiltration: The Case of Czechoslovakia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949); Brzezinski, Zbigniew K., The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960); Korbel, Joseph, The Communist Subversion of Czechoslovakia, 1938–1948 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959); Kalvoda, Josef, Czechoslovakia's Role in Soviet Strategy (Washington: University Press of America, 1978); and Taborský, Edward, President Eduard Beneš: Between East and West (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1981).Google Scholar
4. For additional details, see Ripka, Hubert, Czechoslovakia Enslaved: The Story of the Communist Coup d'Etat (London: Golancz, 1951); Friedman, Otto, The Break-up of Czech Democracy (London: Golancz, 1950); Stransky, Jan, East Wind Over Prague (New York: Random House, 1951); Taborský, Edward, Communism in Czechoslovakia, 1948–1960 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961); and Opat, Jaroslav, O novu demokracii: Přispevek k dejinam narodne demokraticke revoluce v česko-slovensku v letech 1945–1948 (Prague: Akademia, 1966).Google Scholar
5. For the complete text of this agreement, see Czechoslovak Republic, Information Service, Czechoslovak Sources and Documents, No. 2 (New York: 1943), pp. 78–79. Here and elsewhere contemporary sources have been used because subsequent renditions (published in Moscow and Prague) contain deletions of important information.Google Scholar
According To Beneš the Soviets initiated the idea of forming a Czechoslovak military force in the USSR. The idea was presented to Beneš by Maisky, Ivan, Soviet Ambassador to Great Britain (a fortnight after the German invasion of the USSR), in an informal conversation that included the following points: (1) the Soviet wish to see Czechoslovak independence restored; (2) the Soviet pledge not to interfere in the domestic affairs of Czechoslovakia; (3) the Soviet desire to restore diplomatic relations with Czechoslovakia; and (4) the Soviet wish to give every possible assistance in organizing Czechoslovak military units on Soviet territory, provided that in operational and technical matters they would be subordinate to the Soviet High Command, and that the organization of these units would be handled by “a special Czechoslovak National Committee” consisting of veteran Czechoslovak Communists living in the USSR. Beneš requested that Maisky submit his proposals in writing. This was done on 16 July 1941, in the form of the draft of an agreement which was signed on 18 July 1941. The final agreement contained no reference to “the special Czechoslovak National Committee.” For details, see , Beneš, Pameti, pp. 241–242; and Taborský, Edward, “Beneš and the Soviets,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. XXVII, No. 2, January 1949, p. 308. Taborský was Beneš' secretary.Google Scholar
6. It should be noted that, following the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia and the signing of the Soviet-Nazi Pact of 23 August 1939, the Soviet Union severed its diplomatic ties with Czechoslovakia and, in the best opportunistic tradition, established relations with the German-dominated Slovak state.Google Scholar
7. Zděnek Fierlinger (born in 1891) was a member of the Czechoslovak Legion in France and Russia during World War I. After that war he joined the Czechoslovak foreign service and was stationed in The Hague, Bucharest, Washington, Bern, the League of Nations (Geneva), Vienna and Moscow. Beneš trusted Fierlinger. Other Czechoslovak officials who knew Fierlinger concluded that he was completely owned by the Soviets and that he supported Soviet, not Czechoslovak national interests. For Fierlinger's views, justifying his pro-Soviet stand, see his Zrada ceskoslovenskej burzoazie a jejikh spolencu (Prague: Mir, 1951).Google Scholar
8. For the complete text of the 27 September 1941, agreement, see Czechoslovak Sources and Documents, No. 2, pp. 79–80. Czechoslovak military units received their basic training in Buzuluk, a town in the Urals between Kuibyshev and Orenburg. The original contingent of this force consisted primarily of Carpatho-Ukrainians and Czechs who had sought political asylum in the USSR following German and Hungarian occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. Because of the Stalinist xenophobia and paranoia, Soviet authorities dispatched practically all of these political asylum-seekers to various camps of the Gulag Archipelago that stretched from Solovky and Vorkuta in the North, to Karaganda in Central Asia, and to Magadan in the Far North East. Subsequently these original military units were reinforced by Slovak prisoners of war (members of the “Rychla Brigada”) and by additional Carpatho-Ukrainians, who, as members of the Hungarian armed forces, surrendered to the Soviets. After debriefing, these men became an integral part of the Czechoslovak armed forces in the USSR that became known as the “Vychodna armada” [Eastern Army].Google Scholar
There is no study in English of the “Vychodna armada.” There are, however, numerous works in Czechoslovak literature that deal with this problem. Perhaps the most prominent are: Levora, Vladimir and Dvořaková, Zora, Ze stalinských gulagů do Československého vojska (Prague: Hřibal, 1993); Prikryl, Vladimir, Za vlády tmy (Prague: Nase voisko, 1993); Buršik, Major-General Josef, Nelituj oběti (Prague: Nase voisko, 1992); and Rousar, Jaroslav, ed., Přisahali jsme republice: Pamětni sbornik k 50. výroči vzniku prvni československé jednotky v SSSR (Ceske Budejovice, 1992).Google Scholar
9. For additional contemporary sources on the Czechoslovak-Polish Federation, see Czechoslovak Sources and Documents, No. 2, pp. 153–158. The best study of this problem is by Wandycz, Piotr S., Czechoslovak-Polish Confederation and the Great Powers, 1940–1943 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1956).Google Scholar
10. All Soviet media criticized the Czechoslovak-Polish Federation. Perhaps the most violent indictment appeared in an editorial in the influential, official publication Voina i rabochii klass, No. 4, July 1943.Google Scholar
11. For the complete English text of the 12 December 1943 Soviet-Czechoslovak treaty, see the New York Times, 14 December 1943; the Russian text is in Pravda, 16 December 1943. The complete text of the Soviet-Czechoslovak Treaty of 16 May 1935, to which the Preamble refers, is in League of Nations, Secretariat, Treaty Series. 1935–1936, Vol. CLIX, No. 3677, pp. 347–361.Google Scholar
There is some controversy concerning Beneš' motives in signing the 12 December 1943, treaty. Close scrutiny of the available sources indicates that he was influenced by several considerations. Foremost was the issue of national security: first, Beneš did not wish to see Czechoslovakia dismembered and humiliated again. Second, he wanted to secure legal continuity for the country and his government. Third, he tried to obtain an official declaration from the leading powers that the 1938 Munich dictate was wrong, immoral and, therefore, invalid. Anglo-French reluctance to correct their own mistakes, and Soviet eagerness in denouncing the Munich accord and in supporting Czechoslovak claims to the pre-Munich frontiers, convinced Beneš that a close alliance with the USSR was the best guarantee for Czechoslovakia's future. Beneš received these assurances from V. M. Molotov, the Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs, in their discussion in London at the end of May 1942; on 4 June 1942, Bogomolov, A. Ya., the Soviet Ambassador to the Czechoslovak government in London, expressed the same thoughts to Hubert Ripka, the Czechoslovak Minister of State. Finally, Beneš was also encouraged in his linking of Czechoslovakia's future with that of the USSR by many tactical changes Stalin introduced in the country during the war. For additional contemporary views about this problem, see Czechoslovakia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Four Fighting Years (London: Hutchinson, 1943); and Taborský, Edward, The Czechoslovak Cause: An Account of International Law in Relation to Czechoslovakia (London: Witherby, 1944).Google Scholar
12. Pravda, 16 December 1943.Google Scholar
13. New York Times, 2 February 1944.Google Scholar
14. Pravda, 15 December 1943.Google Scholar
15. Voina i rabochii klass, No. 14, 15 December 1943. These Soviet praises of the Soviet–Czechoslovak treaty were justified because its provisions, and the attached Protocol, laid a solid legal foundation for the emergence of the Soviet-dominated, client-state system in Eastern Europe after World War II. Accounts of the origin of the Protocol have some discrepancies. In his memoirs (p. 385), Beneš maintains that the Soviets conceived it. But, on p. 399, he says that he formulated its content. On the other hand, David Anderson, a London-based correspondent for New York Times, reported that his well-informed sources told him the Protocol was sponsored by American and British diplomats at the October–November 1943, Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers. See New York Times, 19 December 1943, IV, p. 5.Google Scholar
16. See Beneš, Eduard, “Czechoslovakia Plans for Peace,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. XXIII, No. 1, October 1944; and World News and Views, Vol. XXIV, No. 1, 1 January 1944.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
17. New York Times, 21 December 1943.Google Scholar
18. The United Nations Review, Vol. IV, No. 2, 15 February 1944, p. 61.Google Scholar
19. Ripka, Hubert, “Czechoslovakia and her Neighbours,” The Contemporary Review, Vol. CLXVII, January 1945, pp. 8–9.Google Scholar
20. Gottwald, Klement, Se Sovětskym Svazem na věčne časy. Soubor stati a projevů, 1935–1949 (Prague: 1949), pp. 51–64. Gottwald and his Czechoslovak and Russian associates were also apparently responsible for formulating a motto—“Věrni zůstaneme” [We shall remain loyal]—for the Czechoslovak armed forces in the USSR. See Nečasek, František, Klement Gottwald: Communist Premier of Czechoslovakia, “Foreword” by Harry Pollit (London: Communist Party, 1947).Google Scholar
21. Great Britain, House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates, Vol. CCCVC, p. 1520.Google Scholar
22. U.S. Department of State, The Department of State Bulletin, Vol. IX, No. 234, 18 December 1943, p. 439. There is evidence that some members of the State Department opposed the 12 December 1943, Soviet-Czechoslovak treaty because they contended that it violated provisions of the October-November 1943, Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers and the December 1943, Teheran Declarations of Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill. For an interesting contemporary assessment of this problem, see New York Times, 22 December 1943, p. 22.Google Scholar
23. For the complete text of the 8 May 1944, agreement, see Izvestiia, 9 May 1944; and New York Times, 9 May 1944.Google Scholar
24. For comments on this problem, see Central European Observer, Vol. XXI, No. 11, 26 May 1944; Karpatoruskie novosti, Vol. II, No. 5, April 1944; Moscow News, Vol. XIV, No. 36, 1 May 1944; and Izvestiia, 9 May 1944.Google Scholar
25. For an account of Soviet tactics in Carpatho-Ukraine, see František Nemec and Vladimir Moudry, The Soviet Seizure of Ruthenia (Toronto: 1955); and Markkus, Vasyl, Pryednannia Zakarpatskoi Ukrainy do radianskoi Ukrainy, 1944–1945. 2nd edn (Kiev: 1993). It should be noted that between 1934 and 1944 Beneš changed his views on Carpatho-Ukraine several times. In 1934 he maintained that “without Slovakia and Subcarpathian Ruthenia, the Little Entente [that linked Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia against a possible comeback of the Habsburgs] would have been absolutely impossible.” See Beneš, Edouard, “Discours aux Slovaques sur le present et l'avenir de notre nation,” Le Monde Slave, Vol. XI, No. 2, February 1934, p. 214.Google Scholar
After the Germans dismembered Czechoslovakia and invaded Poland, Beneš told Soviet Ambassador Maisky that in the future Czechoslovakia must have a direct and permanent “border with the Soviet Union. Munich has taught us this lesson! Later we shall discuss the question of Subcarpathian Russia between ourselves, and I am certain that we shall arrive at an agreement.” Beneš, Pameti, p. 207.Google Scholar
Subsequently, apparently thanks to Soviet assurances that the USSR had no territorial claims on Czechoslovakia, Beneš changed his mind. Speaking on 22 May 1943, at a Chicago meeting of Czechoslovak-Americans, Beneš stated that “the future of Carpathian Russia … is solved. It is solved not only because Hungary is on the other side and will have to return everything Hitler helped them to get (in March 1939), but also because the other Allies (Great Britain, the U.S., France and the USSR) consider Carpatho-Russia as a part of the (Czechoslovak) Republic. I stress strongly that the ally who we thought would be most interested in Carpatho-Russia, viz., the Soviet Union, has definitely settled the matter. We have an agreement with the Soviet Union that the question of Carpatho-Russia can be solved only in the framework of the pre-Munich boundaries, that is, that Carpatho-Russia will again be in the Czechoslovak Republic.” See Czechoslovak Sources and Documents, No. 4, p. 66; and The United Nations Review, Vol. III, No. 8, 15 August 1943, p. 320.Google Scholar
Beneš continued to hold that position even after his meeting with Stalin in December 1943. See his comments about this matter in Soviet War News, No. 747, 24 December 1943, p. 2; and his report to the Czechoslovak State Council on 3 February 1944, as reproduced in The United Nations Review, Supplement No. 4, 31 October 1944, pp. 68–69.Google Scholar
When, in the fall of 1944, he received first-hand reports from František Nemec and his staff (whom he had dispatched to Carpatho-Ukraine to reestablish Czechoslovak administration) about Soviet designs on and tactics in the region; Beneš accused the leadership of the Ukrainian SSR of responsibility for the problem. That charge had no substance because, during Stalin's rule, neither Ukraine nor any other union republic commanded such authority. Beneš' efforts to clarify the problem with Stalin went unanswered. For an account of the immediate impact of these events on Beneš, see Taborský, “Beneš and the Soviets.”Google Scholar
Finally, it is interesting to note that, in their public pronouncements, neither Beneš nor any of his top associates, before, during or after World War II, used the term “Carpatho-Ukraine.” They always used either “Ruthenia,” “Subcarpathian Russia,” “Carpathian Russia,” or “Subcarpathian Ruthenia.” Many inhabitants of the region, but, above all, Carpatho-Ukrainian members of the “Vychodna armada,” considered such references pejorative.Google Scholar
26. For the complete text of this treaty, see New York Times, 30 June 1945; and The United Nations Review, Supplement No. 6, 15 October 1945, pp. 174–175. It should be noted that when in 1947 the Czechoslovak government accepted the Marshall Plan, Stalin, who viewed the Plan as an American conspiracy against the Soviet Union, requested that a Czechoslovak delegation come to Moscow to explain its decision. The leader of the delegation was Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia Jan Masaryk, who, upon his return from Moscow to Prague, said publicly at the airport: “I went to Moscow as a free man but am returning home as a common sheepherder.” Under obvious Soviet pressure, Czechoslovak authorities informed the U.S. State Department that they had changed their mind and were no longer interested in the Marshall Plan. A few months later Masaryk was found dead. All evidence points to murder.Google Scholar
It should also be remembered that Masaryk was not the only victim of the Moscow-masterminded sovietization of Czechoslovakia. By mid-1948 Beneš became its victim, and thereafter Gottwald and his Moscow-trained associates arrested hundreds of veteran officers of the “Vychodna armada” for alleged treason. Their “treason” was that, having spent time in Soviet concentration camps, they knew too much about the real nature of the Soviet system, which neither Stalin nor Gottwald wanted the rest of the Czechoslovak population to know. Using well-tested Soviet methods of control, Czechoslovak authorities executed some veteran officers, sent many others to work and perish in the uranium mines in the Sudeten region of Czechoslovakia, and allowed only a few (assigned to work in coal mines and in forest camps) to survive.Google Scholar
After the fall of the Communist system (between 1989 and 1991) not only in Czechoslovakia but in all countries of Eastern Europe and in the USSR, innocent victims of the Communist reign of terror (regardless of whether they were living or dead—and many in both categories were personal, combat-sharing friends of this author) were rehabilitated. (There is no way to ascertain how any victim of this terror would feel about his posthumous rehabilitation!) In short, along with all other East European countries and all former union republics of the USSR, Czechoslovakia paid a very heavy price (in human and material assets) for the Moscow-masterminded and controlled sovietization experiment.Google Scholar