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The February Coup in Czechoslovakia*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Ivo Duchacek
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Extract

The Stalinists consider parliaments to be only schools for extra-parliamentary means of struggle. Were the Czechoslovak democratic leaders aware of this attitude while cooperating with the Communists both in the Parliament and Government of Czechoslovakia after 1945? If they were, what countermeasures did they devise? Even if the daily political fight over party or local issues necessarily narrowed their horizon, responsible democratic leaders had a fairly accurate picture of the situation even in 1945, when the Communists, thanks to the presence of the Red Army, could have seized power. The democrats' awareness of danger and their decision as to countermeasures were, however, influenced by many hopes and illusions, some justifiable in view of the international situation at the end of the war.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 2 , Issue 4 , July 1950 , pp. 511 - 532
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1950

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References

1 Prior to the Liberation, Soviet friendship seemed also technically essential if President Benes and his government were to operate. Since Czechoslovak territory had been liberated from the East and by the East, the way home from London to Prague had to be via Moscow. It was the Soviet's decision whether or not the Czech Government was to have a chance to start its activities on home territory and not only in the exile which had been the Polish Government's fate.

2 The three important Czechoslovak non-Marxist parties were the following:

(1) The National-Socialist Party, whose leader was Petr Zenkl. It is a non-Marxist party which by its advocacy of social reformism combined with some anti-Catholic and very nationalistic trends would correspond to the French radicals. At the elections of 1946 it obtained 18.29 per cent of the votes.

(2) The People's Party led by Msgr. Jan Sramek. It is a Christian Democratic Party based on the Catholic social doctrine as inspired by the papal encyclical Rerum Novarum. It obtained 15.69 per cent of the votes.

(3) The Slovak Democratic Party, led by Josef Lettrich.

While the National Socialist and People's parties were born under the Hapsburgs fifty years ago, the Slovak Democratic Party was a child of the resistance and liberation period. The leading positions were occupied mostly by former Slovak Agrarian leaders, all of them Protestants, and the rank and file were Catholic, mostly former voters for the Catholic Slovak Party. This religiously heterogeneous group was held together by the common fight against Marxism. At the elections in 1946 it succeeded in obtaining 62 per cent of the votes in Slovakia against the Communists. Thus this-Slovak Party became the fourth Party of Czechoslovakia (14.08 per cent) and therefore stronger than the Social Democratic Party which had obtained only 12.05 per cent.

3 Tito, J. B. to Molotov, V. M., letter dated March 20, 1948, The Soviet-Yugoslav Dispute, Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 1948.Google Scholar

4 The Communist Speaker of the Czech Parliament, Oldrich John, on February 22, 1949, at a session commemorating the February putsch, declared: “…[in summer, 1947] there was a series of attacks against the Ministry of Interior and the Security Corps. The reaction was most systematic and aggressive in agricultural questions. At this moment the National Socialists, Slovak Democrats, and People's Party have already formed a unified and concentrated phalanx. When Vice-Premier Zenkl calls, 'Not the East, but both East and West,' this slogan does not even try to hide a campaign against our foreign policy, against the U.S.S.R.”

5 After the February coup of 1948, Jan Masaryk and Prokop Drtina were found under the windows of their respective apartments—Masaryk, on March 10, dead; Drtina, on February 27, alive but crippled for life.

6 Lenin wrote to Commissar of Justice D. I. Kursky on May 15, 1922: “... a formula must be found that would relate these activities [of the Mensheviks] to the international bourgeoisie and its struggle against us.”

7 In his speech of November 17, 1948, Gottwald discussed the countermeasures against the non-Communist groups: “… [we had to] make new claims for further nationalization and agricultural demands going beyond the framework of the governmental program. On this basis the Labor and Peasants Union called their convention. These demands became a signal for the reaction. They realized that it was really five of midnight. They reacted nervously; this speeded their coming into the open and thus they committed their mistake.”

The speech was made at a meeting of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party in Hradcany Castle. Copies were distributed by the Czechoslovak Press Agency in New York, December 29.

8 A segment of the conversation between Benes and Gottwald on May 4, 1948 follows: GOTTWALD: The President believes that the will of the people as expressed in the draft of the new Constitution could be transformed into a rule of the mob in the streets. I cannot find that in the Constitution … the people of course have the right to have their meetings and gatherings. This cannot be forbidden.

BENES: I have already faced the mob in the streets once. This is an argument for me. I do not want to be faced with street-rule for the second time. … I felt it as a humiliation for the President of the Republic and therefore I cannot forget it.

9 On March 10—the day of Jan Masaryk's mysterious death—the Parliament met for the first time after the coup and gave the new Communist Government a vote of confidence by 230 votes out of 300.

10 Speech of November 17.

11 In Foundations of Leninism, Stalin himself bids us not to forget Lenin's theory: “We cannot forget the saying of Lenin's to the effect that a great deal in the matter of our construction depends on whether we succeed in delaying war with the capitalist countries which is inevitable but which may be delayed until proletarian revolution ripens in Europe” and that in the meantime “the basis of our relations with capitalist countries consists in admitting the coexistence of two opposed systems.” —Translated by Historicus, , “Stalin on Revolution,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 27, No. 2 (January 1949), p. 207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar