Czechoslovak Socialist Republic
The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, known from 1948 to 1960 as the Czechoslovak Republic, Fourth Czechoslovak Republic, or simply Czechoslovakia, was the Czechoslovak state from 1948 until 1989, when the country was under communist rule, and was regarded as a satellite state in the Soviet sphere of interest.
Following the coup d'état of February 1948, when the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia seized power with the support of the Soviet Union, the country was declared a "people's democratic state" when the Ninth-of-May Constitution became effective. The traditional name Československá republika, along with several other state symbols, were changed on 11 July 1960 following the implementation of the 1960 Constitution of Czechoslovakia as a symbol of the "final victory of socialism" in the country.
In April 1990, shortly after the Velvet Revolution, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was renamed to the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic. On 10 December 1989, the National Government of Understanding was established with Marián Čalfa as Prime Minister, replacing a Ladislav Adamec led communist government, with a cabinet in which the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia held 10 of 21 seats, compared with the 15 of 20 seats they had held in the previous cabinet. The Communist Party continued to hold a strong plurality in government until democratic elections in June 1990 where the Civic Forum claimed victory, and a new government was formed on 27 June by Prime Minister Čalfa which led the government until its end.
Name
The official name of the country was the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. The name also means "Land of the Czechs and Slovaks" while Latinised from the country's original name"the Czechoslovak Nation"upon independence in 1918, from the Czech endonym Češivia its Polish orthography.The name "Czech" derives from the Czech endonym Češi via Polish, from the archaic Czech Čechové, originally the name of the West Slavic tribe whose Přemyslid dynasty subdued its neighbors in Bohemia around AD 900. Its further etymology is disputed. The traditional etymology derives it from an eponymous leader Čech who led the tribe into Bohemia. Modern theories consider it an obscure derivative, e.g. from četa, a medieval military unit. Meanwhile, the name "Slovak" was taken from the Slovaks. During the state's existence, it was simply referred to "Czechoslovakia", or sometimes the "ČSSR" and "ČSR" for short.
History
Background
Before the Prague Offensive in 1945, Edvard Beneš, the Czechoslovak leader, agreed to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's demands for unconditional agreement with Soviet foreign policy and the Beneš decrees. While Beneš was not a Moscow cadre and several domestic reforms of other Eastern Bloc countries were not part of Beneš's plan, Stalin did not object because the plan included property expropriation and he was satisfied with the relative strength of communists in Czechoslovakia compared to other Eastern Bloc countries.In April 1945, the Third Republic was formed, led by a National Front of six parties. Because of the Communist Party's strength and Beneš's loyalty, unlike in other Central and Eastern European countries, USSR did not require Eastern Bloc politics or "reliable" cadres in Czechoslovak power positions, and the executive and legislative organs retained their traditional structures. The Communists were the big winners in the 1946 elections, taking a total of 114 seats. Thereafter, the Soviet Union was disappointed that the government failed to eliminate "bourgeois" influence in the army, expropriate industrialists and large landowners and eliminate parties outside of the "National Front". Hope in Moscow was waning for a Communist victory in the 1948 elections following a May 1947 Kremlin report concluding that "reactionary elements" praising Western democracy had strengthened.
Following Czechoslovakia's brief consideration of taking Marshall Plan funds, and the subsequent scolding of Communist parties by the Cominform at Szklarska Poręba in September 1947, Rudolf Slánský returned to Prague with a plan for the final seizure of power. Thereafter, Soviet Ambassador Valerian Zorin arranged a communist coup d'état, followed by the occupation of non-Communist ministers' ministries, while the army was confined to barracks.
On 25 February 1948, Beneš, fearful of civil war and Soviet intervention, capitulated and appointed a Communist-dominated government who was sworn in two days later. Although members of the other National Front parties still nominally figured, this was, for all intents and purposes, the start of out-and-out Communist rule in the country. Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk, the only prominent Minister still left who was not either a Communist or fellow traveler, was found dead two weeks later. On 30 May, a single list of candidates from the National Front, which became an organization dominated by the Communist Party, was elected to the National Assembly.
Czechoslovak Republic (1948–1960)
After the passage of the Ninth-of-May Constitution on 9 June 1948, the country was reconstituted as a "people's democratic state." Although the Ninth-of-May Constitution was superficially similar to the 1920 independence constitution, it was close enough to the 1936 Soviet Constitution that Beneš refused to sign it. He had resigned a week before it was finally ratified, and died in September. The Ninth-of-May Constitution confirmed that the KSČ possessed absolute power, as other Communist parties had in the Eastern Bloc. On 11 July 1960, the 1960 Constitution of Czechoslovakia was promulgated, changing the name of the country from the "Czechoslovak Republic" to the "Czechoslovak Socialist Republic". It declared Czechoslovakia to be a socialist state, codifying the actual state of affairs since 1948.1968–1990
In 20–21 August 1968 the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact. The invasion stopped Alexander Dubček's Prague Spring liberalisation reforms and strengthened the authoritarian wing of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.Except the Prague Spring in the late-1960s, Czechoslovakia was characterized by the absence of democracy and competitiveness of its Western European counterparts as part of the Cold War. In 1969, the country became a federative republic comprising the Czech Socialist Republic and Slovak Socialist Republic.
Under the federation, social and economic inequities between the Czech and Slovak halves of the country were largely eliminated. Several ministries, such as Education, were formally transferred to the two republics. The centralized political control of the Communist Party severely limited the effects of federalization.
The 1970s saw the rise of the dissident movement in Czechoslovakia, represented by Václav Havel. The movement sought greater political participation and expression in the face of official disapproval, making itself felt by limits on work activities, police harassment and even prison time.
In late 1989, the country became a democracy again through the Velvet Revolution. In 1992, the Federal Assembly decided it would break up the country into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on 1 January 1993.
Geography
The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was bounded on the west by West Germany and East Germany, on the north by Poland, on the east by the Soviet Union and on the south by Hungary and Austria.Politics
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia led initially by First Secretary Klement Gottwald, held a monopoly on politics. Following the 1948 Tito–Stalin split, increased party purges occurred throughout the Eastern Bloc, including a purge of 550,000 party members of the KSČ, 30% of its members.The evolution of the resulting harshness of purges in Czechoslovakia, like much of its history after 1948, was a function of the late takeover by the communists, with many of the purges focusing on the sizable numbers of party members with prior memberships in other parties. The purges accompanied various show trials, including those of Rudolf Slánský, Vladimír Clementis, Ladislav Novomeský and Gustáv Husák. Slánský and eleven others were convicted together of being "Trotskyist-zionist-titoist-bourgeois-nationalist traitors" in one series of show trials, after which they were executed and their ashes were mixed with material being used to fill roads on the outskirts of Prague.
Antonín Novotný served as First Secretary of the KSČ from 1953 to 1968. Gustáv Husák was elected first secretary of KSČ in 1969 and president of Czechoslovakia in 1975. Other parties and organizations existed but functioned in subordinate roles to KSČ. All political parties, as well as numerous mass organizations, were grouped under the umbrella of National Front of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. Human rights activists and religious activists were severely repressed.
In terms of political appointments, the KSČ maintained cadre and nomenklatura lists, with the latter containing every post that was important to the smooth application of party policy, including military posts, administrative positions, directors of local enterprises, social organization administrators, newspapers, etc. The KSČ's nomenklatura lists were thought to contain 100,000 post listings. The names of those that the party considered to be trustworthy enough to secure a nomenklatura post were compiled on the cadre list.
Leaders of the Communist Party
| Name | Photo | Title | In office |
| Antonín Novotný | First Secretary | 14 March 1953 – 5 January 1968 | |
| Alexander Dubček | First Secretary | 5 January 1968 – 17 April 1969 | |
| Gustáv Husák | First Secretary / General Secretary | 17 April 1969 – 17 December 1987 as First Secretary 1969–1971 as General Secretary 1971–1987 | |
| Miloš Jakeš | General Secretary | 17 December 1987 – 24 November 1989 | |
| Karel Urbánek | General Secretary | 24 November 1989 – 20 December 1989 | |
| Ladislav Adamec | Chairman | 21 December 1989 – 1 September 1990 |