By Prof. Jozef Komornik, DrSc.
Contents
Early history
The Great Moravian Empire
Medieval Dynastic States
The Later Middle Ages
The Golden Age and the Rise of Nationalism
The Turkish Menace and Confessional struggles
Enlightened Absolutism and National Revival
Revolution, Reaction and (Constitutional) Dualism
World War I. and creation of the Czechoslovak State.
The first Czechoslovak Republic
From Wall Street Crash to Munich
Protectorate and Slovak State
From Democracy to Communism
From Gottwald to Dubcek
Reaction and Stagnation
Velvet Revolution and Velvet Divorce
Early history
500 - 100 BC Celtic tribes came from Western Europe: Boi settled in Bohemia, Cotini in Moravia and Slovakia (towns-oppida, metallurgy, and edged weapons).
100 BC - 400 AD. Germanic tribes Marcomans in Bohemia, Quadi in Slovakia formed satellite states of the Roman Empire north of the "Limes Romanus" (the Danube river) Germanic tribes were driven out by Huns led by Attila.
500 - 700 BC Slavonic tribes came from the region east of the Vistula river. Soon they had to defend themselves against nomadic Avars from the Pannonian lowlands. They have elected a Frankish merchant Samo as their King.
The Great Moravian Empire
770 – 960
The "Roman" Emperor Charlemagne annexed Bavaria, uprooted the Avar dominion and established East Mark (Austria). Frankish missions entered west Slovakia and Moravia. The first church was established in Nitra by Prince Pribina, a protagonist of Frankish influence. He was driven out by Moravian Prince Mojmir who annexed his principality. East Frankish king Louis the German appointed Pribina the Prince of a part of Pannonia inhabited by Slavonic population. He deposed Mojmir and appointed his nephew Rastislav the Prince of Moravia. Rastislav asked in Rome for priests but obtained no answer. Then asked in Constantinopolis. Two missionaries, brothers Constantine and Methodius were sent. They knew the language of southern Slavs and invented a new alphabet for it. They translated the most important liturgical texts.
They arrived to Moravia in 863 and founded a school for priests there. They were denounced to the pope. They had to travel to Rome and defend there their Slavonic liturgy. Constantine (Cyril) died in Rome. Methodius was appointed Archbishop of Pannonia and Great Moravia. However, he was captured by Bavarians and released only after interventions of the Pope and new Moravian Prince Svatopluk, who immediately started to christianize and annex the neighboring Slavonic territories (Krakow region, Silesia, Bohemia, Lusatia, Pannonia). Svatopluk sent Methodius to Rome to ask for direct protection independent of the Frankish Empire. The pope agreed and sent Svatopluk a letter "Industry Tue". After Methodius died in 885, no new archbishop was immediately appointed and the new Pope demanded abolition of Slavonic liturgy. After the pupils of Methodius were expelled from the country in 886, a high-rank papal delegation failed to find suitable candidates for higher church posts. New Frankish attacks followed soon as well as ones of Magyars, who invaded Pannonia. After Svatopluk died in 894, the Czech princes offered their submission to Franks. Svatopluk's sons quarreled over whether the country should submit to Franks or defend its independence. In 899 another papal delegation arrived and appointed an archbishop and bishops, but it was too late. Franks and Moravians denounced each other to the Pope for the use of Magyar mercenaries in their permanent wars. The third (Magyars) won. The Great Moravia ceased to exist in 906 and Bavarians lost the battle of Bratislava in 907. This enabled Magyars to attack various parts of Europe (sometimes as mercenaries) before they were heavily beaten near Augsburg in 955 by Otto I.
The policy of direct agreement with Rome avoiding the dependence on the East Frankish Empire was successfully applied by many Hungarian and Polish kings thanks to early establishment of archbishopric in their countries which remained a dream of Czech dukes and kings from ruling Premyslid dynasty.
After the collapse of Slavonic mission in Moravia, Slavonic culture spread to Bulgaria and Russia, where the original Cyrillic script has been further developed and is presently used by more than 200 millions of people.
Medieval Dynastic States
960 – 1200
The first remarkable Duke from Premyslid dynasty was Boleslav I, who came to power after having assassinated his brother Duke Wenceslas (known from an English carol) who later became Saint-Protector of Bohemia. Boleslav not only continued pacification of the tribes within Bohemia but also acquired Krakow and Silesia and married his daughter Dubrava to the Polish Piast Prince Mieszek. His son Boleslav II extended his rule to parts of Galicia and Slovakia and managed to establish the bishopric in Prague. Since Boleslav II intrigued with the Bavarian Duke Henry against new Emperor Otto II, the Prague bishop was not subordinated to the archbishop in Regensburg but in far-away Mainz. Boleslav II also liquidated his only internal rival East-Bohemian family of Slavniks, that produced bishop Saint Vojtech, one of best-educated men of that time.
However, Boleslav the Brave (the grand-son of Boleslav I), the greatest king of Poland, occupied all territories under Premislyds' rule as well as Slovakia. He was only thrown out with German aid. Another Premyslid Bretislav succeeded to conquer the whole Poland including its first capital Gniezno, but was forced to retreat because of German military and political pressure. Bretislav's subsequent submission marked the end of Bohemian attempts of separation from the German Empire. The next Premyslids engaged in friendly policy of cooperation with the (Holy Roman)
Emperors taking part in their military campaigns especially in Hungary and Italy. Two of them (Vratislav and Vladislav II) were given the royal title in recognition of their services. Vladislav's son Premysl Otakar I making use problems of succession in the German Empire achieved that (according to the Golden Bull of Sicily) Czechs themselves could elect their kings, who became electors of Empire.
Slovakia became a part of Kingdom of Hungary, which was a multinational political unit organized by the Arpad dynasty. The Magyars, originally nomadic horsemen who terrorized Europe for half a century and devastated parts of Saxony, France, Italy and the Byzantine empire, were compelled by their defeat in 955 to settle down in the plains along the Danube and the Theiss. They adopted the western and Roman liturgy and ritual.
The king Saint-Protector Stephen I who married a sister of the Bavarian Duke Henry II was baptized by the Prague bishop Vojtech. He was proclaimed king by both the German emperor and the Pope.
Hungary stood only a short time under the suzerainty of the German emperors (of the Saxon line) that was followed by a period of Byzantine influence in 12th century. To prevent external involvement, the country called itself the Apostolic Kingdom. Latin became its he official and literary language. Not nationality but social position was important. All power was in the hands of clerical and secular nobility with the King as its head.
The Later Middle Ages
1200 – 1310
The rulers of Premyslid, Arpad and Piast dynasties became increasingly involved in international relations including dynastic marriages. They were interested in reforming the economy and social structure of their countries in order to be able to compete with Western Europe and invited western (mostly German) settlers, artisans, miners and traders. The consequence was the dissemination of western political, legal and economic institutions as well as western sciences, poetry and art. In Bohemia, German settlement was confined to frontier regions where the Slavs have not settled. But the central areas of Bohemia remained in Czech hands, although Germans prevailed in the cities and towns. After the Tartar invasion of Hungary, its rulers invited Germans to Slovakia and Transylvania. A number of cities, mostly mining communities, were founded and developed into centers of trade and culture (e.g. Jihlava and Kutna Hora in Bohemia, Banska Stiavnica, Banska Bystrica and 24 Saxon towns in Spis County in Slovakia). New larger towns were added to older cities (such as Prague and Hradec Kralove in Bohemia, Olomouc, Brno and Znojmo in Moravia and Bratislava, Kosice, Nitra and Trnava in Slovakia).
The Czech nobility looked with displeasure on the growth of foreign influence in the country that took place especially under Premysl Otakar II, who extended sovereignty of his kingdom southwards to the Adriatic and tried to gain the crown of the German Empire. He was called the "Iron and Gold King" throughout Europe and Dante described him in the Divine Comedy as one of great contemporaries. The Imperial princes and the Pope were afraid of his power and elected Rudolf of Habsburg. Before the decisive battle of Marchfeld near Vienna in 1278 Premysl asked in vain the help of Czech nobles and Polish king stressing their common Slav kinship. The victorious Habsburgs then occupied Moravia, and Bohemia fell to Margrave Otto von Brandenburg, the guardian of Premysl Otakar's son Vaclav. After the following five years of economical disaster, Vaclav (having reached adulthood) improved the economical situation by promoting mining and minting and attempted to win neighboring territories. He was crowned King of Poland in 1300 and also Hungarian throne was offered to him. However, his sudden death and the assassination of his 17-year-old son Vaclav III in 1306 brought the end to the male line of Premyslid dynasty.
In Hungaria King Endre II. Made concessions to barons (in order to gain their support for the expansion of the kingdom) and guaranteed them corporate powers to restrict the King's freedom of action. The country mutually disintegrated into a number of regions ruled by feudal lords. Matus Cak of Trencin ruled over most of the Slovak territory. When the Arpad dynasty died out in 1301 a part of Hungarian nobles offered the crown to the Bohemian King Vaclav II. Another part (inspired by the Pope and the German Emperor Albrecht of Habsburg) bestowed it to the Neapolitan House of Anjou in exchange for confirmation of their rights.
The Golden Age and the Rise of Nationalism
1310 – 1526
Hungarian crown's weakness was transmitted throughout Europe. Poland was most affected. The Hungarian King Louis d'Anjou inherited the crown of Poland in 1370 and proclaimed a charter to the gentry of Poland in Kosice in 1374. The Czech King and Roman Emperor Charles IV (1346-1378), son of John of Luxembourg (a Premyslide after his mother's line), made Prague the main center of the German Empire. Under John and Charles the Czech Kingdom was enlarged by the regions of Silesia, Lusatia and Brandenburg that had been largely Germanized by that time. On the other hand, Charles could speak Czech and stimulated the development of Czech language and its use in legal documents (besides Latin and German). Charles imported architects from all over the Europe and built much of the Gothic that has given Prague its character and has gained a lot of enthusiasts for it ever since. He had the Prague bishopric elevated into an archbishopric in 1344 and in 1348 he founded the university of international character that bears his name. It consisted of four parallel branches: Czech, Bavarian, Saxonian, and Polish. The intellectual ferment that followed, put the Czechs scholars who dissatisfied with their minoritarian position at the university at the forefront of reformist ideas, and made the city into the seat of the first Christian reformation. (The Bible was translated into Czech).
It was Sigismund, a son of Charles IV, King of Hungary and Emperor of Germany (since the forced abdication of his brother, the weak Czech King Vaclav in 1440), who lit the spark of nationalism in Bohemia. In 1414 he summoned the Czech reformer Jan Hus who criticized the Church for its blatant materialism before the council of Constance, giving him a promise of safe conduct. But Hus was condemned to death there and burned at the stake. A revolt under the military leadership of Jan Ziska and Prokop was backed by the estates of Bohemia. All German crusades organized by Rome were defeated and Hussites launched attacks on the neighboring countries. The wars exhausted the Czech Lands and embittered Czech-German relations. The Council of Basel in 1431 made peace with the moderate wing of Hussites, while the radical wing was defeated in 1434 at the battle of Lipany. Sigismund was accepted as King of Bohemia, but died in 1437 without a male heir. He transferred the crowns of Empire And Bohemia and Hungary to his son-in-law Albrecht of Habsburg, who died in 1439. Afterwards, the estates of Bohemia and Hungary elected George of Podiebrad and Mathias Corvin as national Kings, respectively. Both kingdoms were joined in a personal union in 1490 under the rule of Polish-Lithuanian dynasty of Jagiellons (that had merged with the Anjou dynasty). The King Louis Jagiello was killed in the Battle of Mohacs against the Turks in 1526.
The Turkish Menace and Confessional struggles
1526 - 1740
In 1526 the Czech and Hungarian diets elected the Austrian Duke Ferdinand of Habsburg to their thrones. However, a part of Hungarian nobles proclaimed his rival John Zapolya as counter-King, and he called for Turkish help. The Turks advanced towards Vienna in 1529 and 1532 nevertheless failed to conquer it. After the peace of 1538 and the death of John Zapolya in 1541 Hungary remained divided for 150 years, with the central part including the capital Buda in Turkish hands. Ferdinand was left with a crescent-shaped strip of land containing Slovakia, the western fringe of Hungary (with a large German minority) and the western part of Croatia. Transylvania became a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire and the basis of permanent attacks of Hungarian nobles against the Habsburg rule in neighboring Slovak territories. Bratislava (Pressburg, Pozsony) became the administrative capital of Habsburg-ruled part of Hungarian kingdom. In 1543, the archbishop - primate moved his residence to Trnava.
The Turkish conquest of central Hungary gave rise to Magyar influence in Slovakia promoted by moving of the central institutions of Hungarian state to its territory. Some Magyar nobles escaping Ottoman power contributed, partly through intermarriage, to Magyarization of the lower gentry, which had been largely of Slovak origin. Magyar peasants also sought refuge from Turks, and as a result the Magyar-Slovak ethnic frontier shifted north.
Migration of Magyar nobles into the towns of Slovakia helped to weaken the position of the German patricians and to improve that of Slovaks. Magyar nobles brought along large retinues of Slovak servants and directly challenged the power monopoly of Germans. The Hungarian diet in Bratislava (1608) gave Germans, Hungarians and Slovaks equal share of municipal power and prescribed regular rotation of these ethnics in offices of majors of royal boroughs.
The Lutheran religious reformation spread into Bohemia as well as to Habsburg-ruled part of Hungaria and Transylvania in the second half of the sixteenth century. The Habsburgs immediately answered by promoting Catholicism. . Under the reign of Rudolf II (1583-1612) the imperial court residing in Prague made the Czech lands again into a center of learning and culture, housing some of greatest names of European astronomy and painting. (J. Kepler, Tycho de Brahe).
By that time, however, the Turkish stranglehold on the Balkan and Middle Hungary terminated the once lucrative trade with the Middle East. Influx of precious metals from the New World drastically reduced the value of Czech and Slovak silver. (The copper from Banska Bystrica remained an important export article). The discovery of new sea routes transferred commerce and banking to the northwestern Europe, thus undermining the prosperity of central Europe. Rudolf's charter of religious freedom of 1609 eased tensions throughout the country. Following his death, however, the religious conflict once more grew sharper. In 1619 the Diet of Czech Kingdom deposed Ferdinand II Habsburg and elected Fredric of Palatine, a leader of Protestant Union and Imperial Elector as king. (Few days after his election to the Czech throne, Frederic voted for the deposed Ferdinand to become German Emperor.)
Since Frederic was the son-in-law of king James I of England, help from this side was expected. However, the English failed to help, only the Netherlands giving some financial aid, while Gabor Bethlen of Transylvania and the Prince of Savoy helped militarily. Habsburgs could rely on the large financial resources of Spain and the Pope.
The Czech revolt marked the beginning of the so-called Thirty Years War. It was crushed in the Battle of Biela Hora (1620), and 27 leaders were publicly executed in the Old Square of Prague, and their heads were stuck onto the bridge tower of the Old City. All who took even an indirect part in the revolt had their property confiscated. Nearly three quarters of the land was confiscated and Habsburgs gave it or sold very cheaply to Austrian, German, Italian and Spanish nobles (e.g. the Schwarzenbergs, the Mansfelds, Colloredo).
The Czech Crown Lands became Habsburg hereditary provinces, while Lusatia was given to the Protestant Elector of Saxony as a recompense for his help. Latin became the language of Prague University, the administration of which was confided to the Jesuits. Catholicism was declared the only state religion. The free population (i.e. nobility and burghers) were given a choice: to become Catholic or leave the country. A considerable part of Protestant nobility emigrated, serving in the Swedish armies in following fights against Habsburgs. Protestant hopes were raised during the rest of the Thirty Years' War by periodic military or political successes of the Swedes and the Saxons (who joined the Protestant League 1631 and deserted it in 1637). But they were completely extinguished by the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, which gave the Habsburgs full freedom to settle religion affairs in both Bohemia and Moravia. The following Counter-Reformation was less explicit in Silesia as well as in Slovakia (some 5000 Protestant families immigrated to that country). One of the most famous Czech emigres was pastor Jan Amos Komensky, renowned for his advocacy of enlightenment and humanity in education.
After the Thirty-Year's War, towns and cities as well as whole regions of Czech Kingdom were largely depopulated and Germanized. The remaining Catholic nobles lost their national consciousness and served the Habsburgs. The Czech language was kept alive by the peasantry and by patriotic lower catholic clergy.
During 17th century, the Slovak territory faced devastating attacks on Habsburgs waged by Hungarian nobility from Transylvania. The recurring waves of aggression against Protestants culminated in 1671-73, and the threat of the neighboring Turkish power was not removed until after the war of1683-99. It was started by the last Turkish siege of Vienna and ended by the total defeat of the Turks and their allies - the Hungarian estates under Thokoly. The detrimental effects of these events were only partly offset by some side-effect promotion of Slovak national interests - by isolating the Slovak territory from an overwhelming Magyar impact.
The influence of Czech culture in Slovakia intensified after the arrival of Czech Protestants including important literary figures, e.g. J. Tranovsky, the author of the Protestant hymnal Cithara Sanctorum (1636), - - (a collection of Czech Hussite hymns and Slovak religious songs used by the Protestants of Slovakia up to the present.
At that time, the Catholic university of Trnava served as the centre of Counter-Reformation in the country. It published the first Latin-Magyar-Slovak dictionary in 1648, and the hymnal Cantus Catholici (written in Slovak) in 1655. Those first manifestations of Slovak literary expression were initiated by Jesuits who were essentially responsible for the decline of the Czech in Bohemian lands. In the second half of the 17th century Vienna lost interest in supporting the German burghers in Slovak towns, viewing them as disloyal heretics. The Counter-Reformation and lack of governmental support weakened the German elite so it had to yield power to Slovaks in most communes. After new opportunities to migrate to newly recovered territories of central and southern Hungaria emerged in the first half of 18th century, about 15 thousand Slovak families moved there. A lot of inhabitants of the overcrowded northern counties settled in southern Slovakia. As a result, the limits of Slovak ethnic settlement, which retreated northward two hundred years ago, once more were relegated farther south, especially in the areas of Kosice and those neighboring of Bratislava from the East. This population movement helped to generate a sense of Slovak ethnic unity, as the arrival of settlers from north into central and southern Slovak counties tended to blur former regional, linguistic and psychological archetypes.
At the beginning of 18th century the magnates started to invest in manufacturing. First textile manufactures were founded in Northern Bohemia, Northern Moravia, Central and Western Slovakia. In the Gemer county of Slovakia o iron production flourished, stimulated by military needs. The first high furnace was erected in Dobrina in 1680. In 1627 the first known use of gunpowder in European mining, {to extend a mineshaft, , took place at Banska Stiavnica, where a mining school of first-class European level was established in 1737. A remarkable position was taken up by Presov, which acted as a commercial hub for Transylvania's exports and imports (via Poland). In 1703, when Austria was involved in the War of Spanish Succession, another insurrection of Hungarian estates broke out under F. Rakoczi. It resulted in the Szatmar (Satu Mare) Compromise guaranteeing the Hungarian Kingdom a kind of autonomy that was to become an obstacle for further economical development.
Enlightened Absolutism and National Revival
1740 – 1848
During the reign of Maria Theresa (1740 - 1780) Austria lost Silesia to Prussia. To compensate for this loss, the imperial government encouraged the development of textile industries in Bohemia. Both Maria Theresa and her son Joseph II (1780-1790) introduced some reforms inspired by ideas of the European Enlightenment. In 1781 Joseph II issued a decree restoring freedom of movement to peasants, which enabled their large-scale migration to the towns.
A by-product of the European Enlightenment was strengthening of central government, and it evoked a kind provincialism in the Czech Lands. In 1790 the Royal Bohemian Society of Sciences was founded by German-speaking nobles, becoming the center of Czech cultural revival later. In 1818 the Bohemian Museum was set up in Prague. Its German-language Journal failed but circulation of the Czech version grew rapidly. The German provincial nobility also gave essential support to a number of outstanding scholars whose writing facilitated and shaped the cultural revival. Josef Dobrovsky produced the first Czech grammar; Josef Jungmann translated foreign classics to demonstrate the possibilities of the Czech language and compiled the first large dictionary. Frantisek Palacky began to work on his great history of the Czech nation, which not only reconstructed the past but also became a basis of the Czech national philosophy. In the meantime, the small but growing Czech middle class of Prague started to penetrate hitherto German organizations and to establish political clubs of their own. The backbone of Czech movement was formed by intellectuals. The education reforms of Joseph II opened young Czechs schools. The intellectuals gave the lead when the call for revolution spread throughout Europe from Paris in 1848. The Czech revolt collapsed, but it was highly significant. The Habsburgs authorized the use of Czech for limited purposes in university and secondary education.
In Slovakia, reforms of Maria Theresa and Joseph II made less impact, because the Hungarian nobility wanted to gain more independence from the Habsburgs. In 1792 A. Bernolak, a Catholic priest, established a Slovak Learned Society in Trnava to publish and distribute books written in the first version of Slovak language, which was based on West Slovakian dialects. In 1803 the Lutheran high school in Bratislava set up a center of Czechoslovak literature. Some Slovaks like P. J. Safarik and J. Kollar wrote in Czech. At those times, the policy of Magyarization made the question of literary language and its political consequences absolutely crucial. In 1840 the Hungarian Diet (transferred to Pest after Bratislava had been damaged during the wars with Napoleon) passed an alarming legislation that replaced Latin with Magyar as the official language in the whole Hungarian Kingdom. Young Slovak intellectuals headed by Ludovit Stur from Bratislava Lutheran school decided to develop the Central Slovak dialect as probably the most likely to unite all Slovaks. Paradoxically, it was more different from Czech than the first Trnava (Catholic) version. In 1845 they began to publish the Slovak National News, which very soon fulfilled its purpose: with some modification, their choice of Central Slovakian dialect was accepted by Slovaks. Magyar policies and Slovak aspirations were inevitably set on a collision course. In 1848 some hastily armed Slovak detachments attacked -- with official encouragement of Habsburgs -- the Magyar rebels,nevertheless they received no recognition from Vienna in return.
Slovakia enjoyed more favorable preconditions for industrial development than the rest of Hungary. It possessed old tradition of crafts and urban life, and was endowed with substantial natural resources.
However, this potential was hampered by Habsburg government and influential Hungarian nobility, deliberately transforming Hungary into an agrarian appendage of the Austrian Empire. The textile industry was exposed to a drastic effect of Austrian and Bohemian competition. After 1815 the textile manufactures failed to develop into factories - Slovak iron industry was slow in applying the new techniques initiated by industrial revolution in Czech and Austrian lands. Nevertheless certain innovations did take place, and Slovakia was able to outdo the rest of Hungary in that regard. Surprisingly, first genuine factories didn't appear in textile productionor in metallurgy, but in of papermaking and sugar refining, thanks to the investments of Austrian and foreign capital.
Rapid economic growth in the Czech lands led to the systematic introduction of machinery in the textile and food industries, and in turn, the engineering industry began to expand. Requirements of machine building and railroads stimulated iron production. The first furnace using coke was erected in Vitkovice in 1836. A steam-powered railroad joined Brno with Vienna in 1839 and Prague with Olomouc in 1845 and Bratislava with Trnava in 1848.
Revolution, Reaction and (Constitutional) Dualism
1848 – 1914
In the second half of the 19th century Slovak cultural life was stifled by the reaction that followed the Revolution in 1848 and by the aftermath of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 reached after Austria lost the war against Prussia in 1866.
The Hungarian government adopted a policy of "Magyarization" of the non-Magyar minorities and of transformation of Hungary -- where the Magyars constituted less than half the population -- into an ethnically homogeneous Magyar state. The only escape from the oppressive Hungarian policies was emigration that reached the proportion of a mass flight. At the end of 19th and the beginning of 20th century, about 30,000 people (1% of the entire population) used to lave Slovakia each year for countries at the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Many Slovaks moved to the fast growing Budapest, where about 164 000 Slovaks lived in 1910 (and subsequently became Magyarized.). Slovakia shared with Ireland the highest emigration rate in Europe. This further weakened the Slovak people by depriving them of their most enterprising elements.
In 1907 various Slovak organizations in the United States set up the Slovak League of America to defend the interest of Slovak ethnic group and to voice the aspirations of the Slovaks in Hungary to independence.
In the nineteenth century the Czechs achieved a level of social economic and cultural development second only to that of the Germans (in the empire). However, they failed to fulfill their political ambition to restore the historic "state right" of Bohemia and to elevate its status to that of the kingdom of Hungary after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867.
Emperor Francis Joseph I (1848-1916) three times promised to accept coronation by the crown of St. Wenceslas. However, the Germans in Bohemia (counting 1/3 of the population) who feared isolation in an autonomous Bohemian state with a Czech majority, were always able to frustrate an agreement between Vienna and the Czechs by mobilizing German opinion in other part of the empire in support of their stand. After 1906, when universal male suffrage was adopted in the Austrian part of the Empire, the Czechs hoped to achieve their objectives by forming an alliance of Slavs that formed two-thirds of the population. But they failed to gain their objective, because only the Slovenes (from southeastern Austria) would cooperate with them (but not the Poles and the Ukrainians from Galicia). Frustrated, they became increasingly alienated to the empire but they did not consider their withdrawal before the outbreak of World War I in 1914.
The industrial revolution continued in the Czech lands until the economic crisis in 1873. While textiles have been the main source of accumulation of the German capital, sugar refining would serve the same function for its Czech counterpart. Other light industries that underwent mechanization after 1848 were those producing glass, porcelain, paper and leather. Development of heavy industry followed. The steel production shifted slowly to blast furnaces fueled by coke in Vitkovice, Kladno and Trinec. The most prominent machine-tool industries were located in Prague and its suburbs (Ringhoffer, Danek, Prvni Ceskomoravska Strojirna) and in Plzen (Walenstein machine works acquired by E. Skoda in 1869). After the loss of Lombardy in 1859, the Czech lands became the most important area of industrial development of the empire. The beginnings of electrical industry were connected with the names of two inventors-entrepreneurs F. Krizik and F. Kolben. Construction of large electric power stations began in the first decade of the twentieth century. New types of production included motors, automobiles and equipment for electrical industries. Demand for armament opened another stimulus for expansion. The Skoda Works, with 10,000 employees, were one of the largest munition producers in the world in 1914. The Czech Lands depended heavily on industrial capital, especially Austrian and German. In 1914 only about one-third of investments in the industries of the Czech Lands were of Czech origin. Despite their rapid growth, the holdings of Czech commercial banks did not significantly exceed one quarter of the stock capital of Viennese commercial banks. Vienna attracted a lot of migrants from South Bohemia and South Moravia and was the largest Czech city along with Prague in 1910.
While still suffering from Austrian competition, Slovak industry benefited a little from the Hungarian government's industrial subsidies after 1880. However, it still lagged behind the general advance, particularly after 1900. Within the structure of Hungarian industry dominated by Budapest, Slovakia had a significant share of output of unfinished and half-finished products, especially paper, textiles, leather, iron, woods and chemicals. A major oil refinery was established in Bratislava, where Dynamit-Nobel explosives factory flourished since 1885.
World War I. and creation of the Czechoslovak State.
1914 – 1918
After the outbreak of the World War I on July 28, 1914 most Czech and Slovak politicians adopted the policy of two sides: it meant that whatever the final outcome of the war, their nations would come out as victors. Professor T. G. Masaryk, leader of the small Realist party, visited several neutral countries in the fall of 1914 and while in Switzerland, he was warned he might be arrested by the Austrian authorities that had recently imprisoned a number of Czech politicians. He decided to stay abroad and join the pro-independence movement of Czech and Slovak emigrants, becoming its leader in a short time. . As early as August 1914, Czech units including Slovaks were set up within the French and Russian armies. The Czech Alliance and the Slovak Leagueof America reached an agreement in Cleveland in 1915, in which they demanded liberation of Czech and Slovak nations and their union "in a federative form of State. In the document, comprehensive autonomy for Slovakia, with its own parliament, political and financial administration, and Slovak as the language of the state was foreseen. A similar agreement was co-signed by T. G. Masaryk (who had a Slovak father) in Pittsburgh in May 1918. In 1915 Masaryk was joined by his chief assistant Dr. E. Benes, and M. R. Stefanik, a Slovak-born French citizen and a Major of French Air Force with many influential friends in French, Italian and American governmental circles. The Allies, especially the French, appreciated the Czech and Slovak contribution to the war, however they did not favor the Czech and Slovak independence, as they preferred the prospect of separate peace with Austria in this phase.
The fall of Tsarist regimeoffered the Czechs and Slovaks an opportunity to play a more significant role in the war. T. G. Masaryk who traveled to Russia was enabled by the Provisional Government of that country to organize two Army Corps from both the Czech and Slovak settlers and prisoners of war. By November 1917, when the Bolsheviks took power, the Czechoslovak Army Corps (otherwise called the Czechoslovak Legion) numbered 30 000 men.
After the Bolsheviks concluded a separate peace with Germany, the Czechoslovak Legion that was acknowledged as an Allied army in the meantime, remained the only substantial unit the Allies were left with in Russia.
In May 1918 a conflict broke out between the Czechoslovak Legion and the Soviet Government in Siberia. The speed and ease with which the Czechoslovak Legion seized the Siberian railway made the Allies consider their intervention in Russia, the Legion becoming the pivot of their forces. In summer 1918, while preparing the intervention, - France, Great Britain and USA recognized the Czechoslovak National Council led by Masaryk as the "de facto government" of Czechoslovakia.
On October 16, 1918 the Austrian Emperor Charles issued a manifesto authorizing the nationalities to form national committees and sanctioning existing ones.
Following this manifesto,aimed at federalization of Austria, the German Austrian deputies withdrew from the Austrian parliament and constituted a provisional assembly of an independent German-Austrian state.
On October 27 Vienna conceded defeat in the war. The armisticesigned by the Austro-Hungarian Army on November 3 left a legal vacuum in East Central Europe, which lasted until the opening of Paris Peace Conference more than two month later. On October 28the Prague National Committee, after securing the acquiescence of the Austrian military authorities, declared the independent Czechoslovak state. On October 30 the Slovak National Council convened in Martin adopted a resolution declaring the right of self-determination for Slovaks and endorsing the principle of Czechoslovak unity.
The German deputies from Bohemia and Moravia (Sudeten Germans) had joined other German deputies in forming the German-Austrian Parliament and declared the German parts of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia to be part of the German-Austria. On November 12, 1918 the Anschluss of German-Austrian Republic to Germany was proclaimed, which definitely buried the possibility of a confederation of the successor states of the Habsburg empire.
According to an agreement between Karel Kramar of the Prague National Committee, and Edvard Benes representing the Paris National Committee reached in Geneva at the beginning of November, that Masaryk should become the first President of Czechoslovakia. At the same time, Kramar, a hero of the domestic resistance, known for his extreme nationalistic views, was assigned the post of Prime minister.
Assuming the subsequent approval of the Allies, the Czechoslovak government under Kramar decided to call up volunteers and to occupy the Sudeten German areas. The French leaders were determined that Germany must not come out of the war with any additional territory. Therefore they approved the Czechoslovak action.It took place swiftly and almost without fighting, since Germans were in a very poor shape after the war defeat of Germany and Austria-Hungaria.
The Belgrade armistice put Hungary under direct Allied control that was enforced by a commission under a French Lt. Col. F. Vyx. The new government of Hungary actively resisted the effort to establish Czechoslovak authority in Slovakia. It sent troops to that country and dissolved the Slovak National Council. Czechoslovak foreign minister Benes (still in Paris) protested to the French government and proposed a demarcation line to be set up between the Czechoslovak and Hungarian forces. Paris sent instructions to Col. Vyx, Hungarian government protested but finally complied. At about the same time (Dec.20, 1918) Masaryk returned from exile, accompanied by the first elements of the Legions. They swiftly moved to Slovakia and occupied it by January 20, 1919. The last to return was Stefanik who was in charge of legions in Russia. His prospective position in the government was inadequate to his role in the exile movement. The mysterious crash of his plane near Bratislava has been never properly clarified.
The Paris Peace Conference, opened in January 1919, was faced with a series of fait accomplis, which it neither wished nor could challenge. Czechoslovakia entered the conference as the owner of almost all the territory it required.
The only exception was the region of Tesin disputed with another allied power, Poland. It was later divided so that its coalfields and an important railway were given to Czechoslovakia in return for territorial concessions in northern Slovakia. However, the subsequent Polish hostility prevented closer cooperation that could have been extremely profitable for both countries and for their security. (Masaryk had even contemplated a federation with Poland). The Paris Conference also approved the inclusion of Ruthenia (a small region east of Slovakia with a majority of Ruthenians, an east Slavonic stock) in Czechoslovakia formerly agreed by Masaryk and Ruthenian exile representatives. The Allied powers took the side of Czechoslovakia as far as political settlement was concerned, but they were less positive in the financial matters. The liberation costs assessed to Czechoslovakia, Poland, Rumania and Yugoslavia were established at 1.5 billion gold francs. Of this amountCzechoslovakia, as the most prosperous of them, was required to pay one half. Hence the new state started its existence with a considerable foreign debt.
Ethnically Czechoslovakia represented a small inverse image of the Habsburg Empire. The population of 13.6 million was formed by Czechs (6,7), Slovaks (2,05), Ruthenians (0,46), Germans (3,2), Magyars (0,69), Jews (0,18) and Poles (0,08).
The first Czechoslovak Republic
1919 – 1938
The first Czechoslovak provisional constitution was adopted on November 13, 1918. It vested all power in a (unicameral) National Assembly. It had 256 deputies, 216 of them representing Czech political parties on the basis of the 1911 elections. Only 40 deputies (later 54) representing Slovakia were chosen in an arbitrary manner by V. Srobar, the only Slovak in the government. Half of them were Protestants, although this confession constituted only 12% of Slovak population. Seven so-called Slovak deputies were in fact Czechs (including E. Benes), chosen "for their pro-Slovak activities". Germans, Hungarians, Ruthenians and Poles were not represented at all. This "revolutionary" National Assembly passed many important laws before being replaced after the elections in April 1920, among others:
Under the currency separation law - the only successful stabilization policy among the Successor States, prepared by the Minister of Finance A. Rasin - - 50 % of all privately hold banknotes were withdrawn; the bank and savings accounts were blocked and converted into a 1 per cent compulsory loan. Administration of currency and coin monopoly was transferred from the Austro-Hungarian Bank in Vienna to the Banking Office in Prague. The national currency (the Czechoslovak crown ) was introduced in April 1919.
The land reform empowered the government to expropriate (for financial compensation) all large estates exceeding 150 ha of arable land or 250 ha of land in general. It did away with the huge aristocratic estates of the largely German and Hungarian nobility, but the major part of the allotments was too small and economically inexpedient. It allowed the creation of so-called "residual estates" in the hands of the Land Office and – in this way -- of the Agrarian Party, which used their sale to promote its political interests.
The nostrification Law forced joint-stock companies to transfer their head offices to the territory of the new state where they had their factories and plants. This law created favorable conditions for Czech banks above all the Zivnostenska Bank. It also provided a strong financial base for the Agrarian Party, the most stable political force of the Czechoslovak State. From 1922 to 1938 Agrarians formed the core of all coalition governments occupying the ministries of interior and agriculture, and holding the office of prime minister. (The last one was a Slovak, M. Hodza.)
The constitution adopted in February 1920 defined Czechoslovakia as a "democratic republic headed by an elected president". It entrusted the legislative powers to the National Assembly, elected both on the basis of universal suffrage and by a direct and secret ballot; the executive powers to the president and the cabinet of ministers; and judicial powers to an independent judiciary. Following the Western models, the constitution provided for the protection of fundamental civil and political rights of all citizens on a completely equal basis and for special protection of national and religious minorities. The Language law designed "Czechoslovak" as the country's official language. Since in reality a single Czechoslovak language never existed, the Czech and Slovak enjoyed the status of official languages. However, neither of them has ever been taught in the opposite part of the country, which gave rise to increasing dualism. The law assured the national minorities full freedom in the use of their languages in everyday life and in schools, as well as in dealing with authorities in districts where they constituted at least 20 % of the population.
By identifying the Slovaks with Czechs under the label "Czechoslovak", the constitution ignored the Slovak national identity. The Slovaks (especially their Catholic majority) felt cheated since President Masaryk had signed the Pittsburgh agreement guaranteeing Slovak autonomy. The Slovak pre-war populist leader Andrej Hlinka revitalized the Slovak National Party in 1919. He insisted on Slovak legislative autonomy on the basis of the Pittsburgh agreement. The entire Slovak politics often appeared as a personal contention between Hlinka and Hodza.
The Social Democrats became the strongest party in the first elections in April 1920. They forced laws through the National Assembly establishing an eight-hour working day, special insurance schemes, and unemployment benefits for the workers. After the secession of the communists in 1921, the party lost a great deal of its strength and regained only a part of it in the late 1920's.
The internal conflict of the Social Democracy in 1920-21, when the right-wing minority called in the police to retain the party under its control, led to the furious reaction of the left wing that turned against the system as such and set up plans to seize power. However President Masaryk appointed a new cabinet under J. Cerny, an experienced civil servant who had faced similar situations in the Habsburg Monarchy.Personally overseeing repressive actions the President put down the general strike along with e the communist attempts for power. Before the end of 1921, Czechoslovakia was able to return to parliamentary government.
The relative political stability of Czechoslovakia was above all due to the solid administration and the political tradition it took over from the Habsburg Monarchy. Czechoslovakia inherited about 80 % of the industrial power of the Habsburg empire, but the partition of the empire deprived it of its natural markets. The Sudeten area had traditionally been the center of Bohemia's highly developed consumer industries, especially textiles and glass. The growth of protectionism among the successor states forced a shift in emphasis in Czechoslovak industrial production from consumer goods to heavy industries, especially machinery, and reorientation of Czechoslovak export from Central Europe to Western Europe and overseas. This had the undesirable effect of increasing the social and political discontent of the Sudeten Germans.
In the last 2 decades before the war, industrial development of Slovakia was promoted by subsidies, Hungarian state orders, tax alleviation, and favorable transport rates. It never faced a challenging competition as it remained effectively shielded from the more advanced Czech industry by protective measures, as well as by difficulties in the east-west transportation. After the war the situation of Slovak industry became very difficult since it lost Hungarian markets and new potential markets were very far apart. Because of the many privately owned railroad lines in the eastern part of the country, as compared with a mostly state-owned railway network in the west, the transportation rates were much higher in Slovakia and it took many years before they were unified. A further burden was posed by the relatively higher tax rates in the eastern Slovakia and Ruthenia that remained under the Hungarian tax system until 1929, when the whole Czechoslovak tax system was overhauled. The Slovak and Ruthenian industry stagnated even during the relatively prosperous 1920's. Of the combined national income, Slovakia and Ruthenia shared 18,2% in 1911-13 but only 15% in 1929 and 1937.
The Slovak iron industry participated by 10% on the total Czechoslovak output in 1919 but only 2,7% in 1926. Industrialization in Slovakia took place in relatively isolated areas, in many cases concentrating on specialized products that0 supplemented the advanced Czech industries (e.g. cables, rubber products and wood distillation). Whereas Slovak industry and banking were in the hands of German and Hungarian entrepreneurs before the World War I, Czech industrialists and bankers attained a decisive share of Slovak economy between the two world wars. This resulted in differences between Czechs and Slovaks in the economic sphere.
Development of industry in the Czech lands in 1920's was similar to that of Western Europe, with producer goods industries gaining in relation to the consumer goods industries.
From Wall Street Crash to Munich
1929 – 1938
The initial rapid growth of industry in 1920's was accompanied with the growth of larger enterprises and wide spread of cartels. Companies developed a pyramid structure, which created opportunities for capital expansion in South-East Europe, via subsidiary companies of Czechoslovak banks and industrial concerns. This formed a significant incentive to foreign investors and was further reinforced by the comparatively low labor costs, relatively stable political conditions, and the strategic position of the country. Through direct investment, a quarter of the Czechoslovak economy came into the hands of foreign investors (British, French, Belgian, Dutch) during the inter-war period. The most important foreign investment in mechanical engineering industry was the decisive hold of the French iron and steel maker Schneider Creusot on Skoda Plzen. This enterprise was not only Czechoslovakia's top runner, but also its significance for East Central and South-Eastern Europe was comparable to that of Vickers in Great Britain or Krupp in Germany. The Czechoslovak chemical industry was dominated by corporations closely linked to the Belgian Solvay Company and to the Anglo-Dutch trust of Lever Brothers.
Only in the shoe industry the foreign capital played no important role. Thanks to the monopoly position of the Bata Works, Czechoslovakia held the first place among the world's leading shoe exporters in 1930's, after overtaking Great Britain and the USA.
Czechoslovakia was very hard hit by the Great Depression of 1929 – 1933. Czechoslovak government provided legislative support for cartelization of the branches of industry that were still relatively competitive. Czechoslovak cartels participated in the majority of international cartels existing at that time. In 212 valid international cartel agreements, a striking number of by large German companies emerged. In this way, German producers obtained an agreed share of the former markets of Czechoslovak manufacturers, mainly in South-Eastern Europe.
The Czechoslovak Government, dominated by Agrarians, introduced a system of protective tariffs for agricultural products. Consequently, exports of the Balkan states to Czechoslovakia began to drop, and they started to look to Germany as a potential trading partner. The German share of the Balkans foreign trade rose while the Czechoslovak one fell.
This development weakened the so-called Little Entente, created by Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Rumania against Hungarian aspirations to revise the post-war borders. In 1936, when the new Czechoslovak president E. Benes put forward a military pact of the Little Entente countries against any aggressor, Rumania and Yugoslavia did not answer positively. Their position seemed to be less vulnerable and they did not want to antagonize Germany, which had already acquired hold over their economies. On the other hand, Benes, who had been Czechoslovak foreign minister since 1918, failed to conclude an alliance with Poland strongly advocated by both agrarians and military experts, since he considered the Polish position more exposed. (Both he and Masaryk expressed their belief that the Danzig Corridor was "an absurdity" that Poland would have to abandon to the Germans.)
In 1934 Poland and Germany surprisingly signed a declaration of non-aggression, which was a blow to Prague's diplomacy. Worried by the German-Polish agreement, France came forth with a plan for an Eastern Pact that should include Czechoslovakia and Soviet Russia.
Eventually, only two bilateral treaties – Franco - Russian and Czechoslovak - Russian - were signed in 1935. The Russian aid to Czechoslovakia was conditional on fulfillment of conditions of the French-Czechoslovak alliance of 1925. Nevertheless, this alliance proved to be nothing but a theoretical link when the Sudeten German problem became acute after Konrad Henlein's party gained seventy percent of Sudeten German votes in 1935. President Benes desperately tried to bargain secretly with Hitler, who was not interested in agreement, but in discrediting and isolating Czechoslovakia.
In winter 1938 Hitler annexed Austria and publicly promised to help the Sudeten Germans. In September 1938 he made it clear that the Sudeten problem was a question of war and peace. The French and British governments tried to appease Hitler. On September 30, the French and British Prime Ministers, together with Mussolini and Hitler reached an agreement (in Munich) stating that the Sudeten districts would be separated from Czechoslovakia. Poland and Hungary also claimed parts of Czechoslovak territory. President Benes accepted the Munich arbitration despite widespread rioting in the Czech provinces. Czechoslovakia was deprived of one – third of its territory that included some of its most important industrial centers and most fertile farmland, which left the country economically crippled. President Benes resigned and went into exile. He was replaced by E. Hacha, a non-party bureaucrat. Rudolf Beran, an Agrarian party leader who used to criticize Benes for refusing to seek an agreement with Hitler, became prime minister. The old Slovak and Ruthenian demands for autonomy were finally granted.
France recalled her military mission from Prague. The giant armament concern Skoda Works, which had been under French control since 1919, was sold to a Czechoslovak consortium and latter passed to the Hermann-Goring Werke. The Communist party of Czechoslovakia was dissolved. Czech rightist parties established the National Unity party under Agrarian leadership, while leftist (noncommunist) parties amalgamated into a new National Labor Party. The Slovak Populists came to terms with Agrarians and formed the Slovak National Unity Party, which won more than 90% of the votes in the election to the new Slovak diet in December 1939. The Slovak minister of interior F. Durcansky visited Germany and indicated that some Slovak politicians were preferring independence in association with Germany. The Prague government became suspicions, sent troops to Slovakia, deposed the Slovak government and appointed a new one under K. Sidor, a member of the central government. Durcansky escaped to Vienna and sent a telegram to Berlin, asking for German help. Hitler summoned the deposed Premier Tiso to Berlin, and gave him the choice of declaring Slovakia's independence or seeing it annexed by Hungary. On March 14 the Slovak Diet declared Slovakia independent. Simultaneously, Hungary was permitted by Hitler to annex Ruthenia (together with a part of eastern and southern Slovakia). Meanwhile President Hacha solicited an interview with Hitler to discuss the Slovak situation. Instead, he was bullied to sign a document placing Bohemia and Moravia under German protection. On March 15, 1939 the German army occupied the provinces.
Protectorate and Slovak State
1939 – 1948
Almost immediately the Czechs began to form resistance organizations. However, they were confined to gathering of intelligence, sabotage of industrial production, occasional attacks on German officials and maintaining communications with the exile government in London (established in 1940 by Benes and recognized by the British government).
After the student riots in November 1939 the Czech universities and colleges were closed. In contrast to Poland and Yugoslavia there was almost no news of open Czech resistance before 1942. To maintain the negotiating power of his exile government, Benes decided to parachute trained agents that assassinated the hated German Protector Heydrich in May 1942. Retribution was swift and vicious. Thousands were arrested, hundreds shot. Gestapo decided to destroy villages Lidice and Lezaky for it suspected their population of complicity in the assassination. The men were shot, the women sent to concentration camps and the children divided among German families. The buildings were burned and flattened. Almost the entire resistance movement was destroyed. Nevertheless the assassination achieved its political aim:it sanctioned Benes leadership in the eyes of Allied politicians, and destruction of Lidice made the Czechoslovak cause plausible to them and to the public opinion all over the world. Consecutively, the British and French governments repudiated the Munich agreement.
No major acts of sabotage took place in the Czech countries between May 1942 and May 1945. The Czech regions were of particular value to the German armament industries as a place less threatened by the Allied bombardments. In 1939-40 the German government was concerned with the impression its treatment of Slovakia could make on the countries of Southeastern Europe, on which it depended for wheat, oil and other supplies. Therefore, it tried to show of that it respected Slovak sovereignty and independence. Slovakia could operate its own diplomatic service, and was recognized by 27 governments, including those of the Soviet Union, France and Britain. This, however, did not prevent German government agencies from assigning large "advisory missions" to all Slovak ministries. Soon the young Slovak nationalists, as well as the Catholic conservatives, began to demand a wider area free from German interference. Durcansky, who combined the posts of interior and foreign ministers, sent proposals of neutrality to France and Britain to assure Slovakia's independence in case of German defeat. The spectacular German victory in France put the Reich in position to discipline its Slovak protege. Durcansky was dismissed and premier Tuka, who proclaimed "Slovak National Socialism", became minister of foreign affairs as well. The post of minister of interior was given to A. Mach. However, Tiso, who had been elected President in October 1939, was prepared to collaborate with Germany in the economic and diplomatic spheres, but as a priest a patriot he was dead against the nazification of Slovak life. The radicals intended to carry out a coup d' etat but their plans were disclosed by army circles. German government decided to sacrifice ideological conformity for the sake of political and economical stability. The corps of German advisers was transformed from an instrument of ideological indoctrination into a team of economic experts that sought to increase Slovak war production through modernization and reorganization of Slovak industry. The war brought about an economic boom in Slovakia. The number of employed in industry rose by 50 percent. However, the Slovak share of the total joint-stocks capital in Slovakia increased only from 15 percent to 18 percent between 1939 and 1945, while the German share grew from 0,2 percent to 62 percent, the Czech one decreasing from 84 percent to 8 percent. Slovakia became a mayor creditor of Germany, as its exports were never fully reimbursed. On September 10, 1941, Tuka and Mach pushed through the Diet the Jewish code, providing for the legal basis for the expropriation, outlawing, internment, and, finally, deportation of 56,000 Jews between March and August 1942 alone. The deportations were halted only when the Vatican repeatedly protested against them and pointed out that the question was not of "resettlement" but of extermination of Jews. For two years Tiso resisted the pressures of Tuka, Mach and Germans to resume the deportations. In May 1944 the Diet passed a law to stop the transports and to confine Jews in relatively "humane" Slovak concentration camps. Unfortunately, in September 1944, when Germany occupied Slovakia, the SS seized many Jews, most of who did not survive the German "special treatment".
The Battle of Stalingrad and the Allied landing in Italy opened the prospects of Germany's defeat in 1943. Two Slovak resistance movements, one democratic and one Communist, then sprang up. In the Christmas Agreement of 1943 they agreed upon a common program of struggle for the restoration of a democratic Czechoslovakia with two distinct nations, the Czechs and the Slovaks and formed the Slovak National Council.
After the tragedy of Lidice Benes ceased his negotiations with Sudeten German Social Democrats and joined Czech radicals that demanded the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans after the war. In summer of 1942 he secured the agreement of Britain to the principle of transfer. American agreement, at least to a radical solution, came during Benes's visit to the USA in summer 1943. However, in America he also was confirmed in his impression that the Czechoslovakia's future was more dependent on the Soviet Union. Although discouraged by the Western Allies, he made a journey to Moscow, and in December 1943 he signed a friendship treaty with the Soviets who had already considered population transfer as a useful instrument of their own East European policy. The treaty amounted to recognition by Presidents Benes of the change of balance of power in Central Europe, as well as an internal Czechoslovak adjustment: the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia would have to be admitted and integrated into the post-war system.
Several high-ranking officers of the Slovak army were involved in the activity of the Slovak National Council, and began to plan an insurrection against the Tiso regime. They managed (with a tacit approval of Minister of Defense Gen. Catlos) to concentrate army units and supplies of ammunition, food, medicine and money in the highlands of central Slovakia. The preparations for the uprising were complicated by the outbreak of partisan warfare, led in part by parachuted Soviet commanders, threatening to bring in the German occupation before the uprising was ready. The inopportune capture and execution of the German military mission by partisans forced the Slovak National Council prematurely to proclaim the Slovak National Insurrection at Banska Bystrica on August 29. It took Germans exactly two months to crush the uprising. The Soviet army, waiting in the Carpathian Mountains, passively witnessed this national tragedy as they had done near Warsaw during the Polish revolt. The London exiles succeeded to persuade Americans to airlift weapons and ammunition from Italy to Slovakia. But the airlift was promptly stopped after the Soviets vetoed it as an encroachment upon what was their zone of military operations. Remnants of the participants of the uprising retreated into the mountains, and continued guerilla warfare until the occupation of Slovakia by Soviet armies in the spring 1945.
In March 1945 Benes and the exile government moved from London to Moscow. There the exiled leaders of the democratic parties, Communists and of the Slovak National Council agreed upon the programme and composition of the first post-war government. A draft of the programme was drawn up by the Communists; there were no rival drafts. Conflict arose in the discussion of the Slovak organs of government. The Communists favored a large measure of Slovak autonomy. Finally the Slovak National Council (SNR) was recognized as the instrument of legislative and executive power representing the Slovak nation and enjoying wide powers of autonomy. The six parties (National Socialists, Social Democrats, the People's Party and Communists on the Czech side, the Democrats and Communists on the Slovak side) agreed to ban the two formerly strongest parties, the Czech Agrarians and the Slovak Populists "which had harmed the national interest".
The communists in fact replaced the Agrarian party. They managed to occupy the key positions in the government, such as the Ministry of Interior, which gave them control over the entire apparatus of internal administration including the police; the Ministry of Information and Education, putting a powerful weapon of thought-control into their hands, the Ministry of Agriculture, which was to become the distributor of land to be confiscated from the expelled Sudeten Germans, and whose possession was thus certain to provide Communists with great leverage over the country's sizeable peasant population.
The new government returned to Czechoslovakia on April 3 1945. They set foot in Kosice, where they announced their programme, subsequently called the Kosice programme.
They went to Prague on May 10, having been preceded by the Red Army that entered the capital one day after the end of the war. Three weeks before that the American Army liberated Plzen and was ordered to halt its unresisted eastward drive, which would have allowed it to liberate the most populous portion of Czechoslovakia, including Prague.
From Democracy to Communism
1945 – 1948
As envisaged in the Kosice program, large-scale industry and all banking and insurance were nationalized and the first stage of land reform took place. Some industries were transferred from the Sudeten area to Slovakia.
Nationalization created a powerful public sector of economy, including two-thirds of the industrial work force. The land reform was aimed at confiscation and distribution of land and farms of the expelled Germans. Their property was given to agricultural laborers and landless, giving rise to a new group of medium-size farmers that owed their existence to the new regime.
By the turn of the year the parties had their own structures completed and a new political pattern arose. The most numerous became Gottwald's Communist Party, which, by March 1946, counted over a million members, equaling the three other Czech parties taken together. In Slovakia, the Communist Party had a membership of 63 000, and the Democratic Party of some 400 000.
On the 26 May 1946 elections to the Constituent National Assembly made the Communists the strongest party with a total (for the whole country) of 38 percent. The Communists were not happy with the election results in Slovakia, where the Democratic Party obtained an absolute majority (about 67 %). Communists proposed the autonomy of Slovak national authorities should be restricted - to the applause of all Czech non-Communist parties.
The election results entitled Communists to take the premiership, but not to absolute power. Despite the objections of his advisors, Benes reappointed the Communist Minister of Interior who had been formerly accused of misusing his powers.
In July 1947 Gottwald, after his interview with Stalin, telephoned from Moscow telling that the Czechoslovak government must rescind its previous decision to participate in the Marshall Plan talks in Paris, a decision for which Gottwald and his comrades themselves had previously voted for. About the same time, Benes suffered his first major stroke and thus was unable to act.
The creation of the Cominform in 1947 signaled the communist decision to end their cooperation with democratic parties and to liquidate them as a dangerous fifth column of the West in the Soviet sphere.
In Czechoslovakia, the decision was implemented in two stages. First, in November 1947, the Slovak Democratic Party was emasculated. Next, in February 1948 the Czech democratic parties were eliminated.
It both cases, the Communists used the same tools—mass organizations to pass "spontaneous" resolutions and the police forces to enforce them. Only President Benes stood in the way of their monopoly of power. After a brief resistance, he bowed to a communist show of force in Prague – as he had bowed to Hitler's show of force at Munich ten years ago. The communists arrived to power by a bloodless (velvet) coup. (They lost their power in "the velvet revolution" in November 1989.)
From Gottwald to Dubcek
1948 – 1967
February 1948 meant the end of the Moscow compromise of 1945. Some leaders, like Benes, still nurtured faint hopes. Others like Ripka fled abroad and still others like Sramek were arrested and imprisoned. Jan Masaryk, the Foreign Minister, (who failed to join the resignation of non-communist ministers on February 20 and presented Gottwald with a parliamentary means of taking all power) committed suicide. The general election of May 1948 brought the predictable victory of the "renovated" National Front; only ten percent dared to vote against. In October 1948 a five-year Plan (1949-53) was approved. It was still based on pragmatic considerations rather then on ideological assumptions. However, after the COMECON had been founded in January 1949, Czechoslovakia was subjected to pressure to play the role of main supplier of investment goods for the entire Soviet block. As a result, the five-year plan was revised in 1950 and again in 1951, when Stalin ordered a drastic increase of military production. He believed that the Soviet bloc's absolute superiority in conventional troops and weapons provided it the opportunity to occupy whole of Europe. President Gottwald and his colleagues realized that Czechoslovakia had been given unrealistic quotas by the Soviet general staff. They decided to invite more Soviet advisers to run the military build-up and to take the responsibility in case its objective were not achieved. Some Soviet advisers arrived already in 1948 and 1950. They organized and controlled a Soviet-style secret police apparatus, seeking out victims, forcing their confessions, and stage-managing their trials. Soon they spread out the range of crimes and extended their purge on the Communists as well. Leading Slovak Communists (including G. Husak who headed the coup of November 1947) were arrested on a charge of bourgeois nationalism. Stalin's agents soon struck at the heart of Czechoslovak Communist Party. Even its Secretary General R. Slansky fell and was ultimately executed, his Jewish origin having prompted Stalin to pick on him rather than on Gottwald.
In March 1953 Stalin and Gottwald suddenly died. The results of the militarization programme were disastrous. It absorbed half of the total industrial investment. Military production was increased by 700 percent, while output of agricultural machinery was down to 69 percent of the 1949 level, of tractors to 28 percent, of passenger cars to 46 percent and of trucks to 87 percent. Traditional consumer industries were paralyzed. Living standard declined. Since high wages were paid to employees in industries that did not produce consumer goods and services, the population accumulated enormous savings. In June 1953 a currency reform nullified the savings, causing workers' riots in several industrial centers.
The period of relaxation started in mid-1953 and ended abruptly in 1955. During this time the Czechoslovak economy was run in accordance with continually redrafted, ad hoc one-year plans. Paralleling the developments in USSR and Nikita Khrushchev's career, A. Novotny's rise to supreme power in Czechoslovakia began. He was a not very bright apparatchik, able to manipulate other apparatchiks.
He was serving as Gottwald's chief aide in the party after Slansky's arrest. However, he succeeded to apportion blame for former misdemeanor to "enemies" within and outside the party, and consecutively sacrificed all his Stalinist friends. Many party members and leaders accused of "deviations" were punished.
In the second five-year plan for 1956-60, emphasis was once again placed on heavy military industries. In 1958 a sort of economic reform with an emphasis on overall economic efficiency was introduced. However, it was accompanied by a "political verification" campaign of entire employed population. As a result, tens of thousands of managerial and technical personal were purged.
The third five-year plan for 1960-65 came to a bitter end, known as the first "socialist economic recession".
The failure shocked the party leadership, which firmly believed that the central planning would ensure a non-cyclical economic development. A group of "economists" called for a profound systematic reform based on a synthesis of a market and an indicative plan. They were either reformers (O. Sik), or technocrats (O. Cernik) or even dissatisfied members of the Central committee of the Communist party. However, the party apparatus refused to give up its control over the economy, including the day-to-day control of enterprises.
Tensions between the reluctantly reformed economic system and the unchanged political system were growing.
The "economists" were joined by a large group of party "intellectuals" who detested the self-made President and resented his occasional interference in a sphere they considered as their own domain.
In addition, President Novotny succeeded in antagonizing the Slovaks. In 1950s Slovak communists' grumbling was drastically supressed, but in the 1960s, when the surviving victims were rehabilitated and resumed important offices, the grumbling recurred.
The organization structure of the Czechoslovak Communist Party was unsymmetrical. The Slovak Communist Party was its subordinated branch since the uprising in 1944, while there was no similar Czech counterpart.
At the Central Committee meeting in October 1967 Alexander Dubcek, the First Secretary of the Slovak Communist Party, unexpectedly criticized Novotny for systematically damaging Slovakia's economic and cultural interests. Many CC members from Bohemia and Moravia joined the attack, demanding separation of the posts of First Secretary and President. Novotny found himself in a minority.
In despair he appealed to the Soviet leaders to help him, but they refused, for they considered him as a fallen Khrushchev's protege , and disliked him accordingly. In January 1968 Dubcek was elected the first secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party while Novotny remained President. Surprisingly, Dubcek decided to force his retreat by means of the pressure of public opinion within and outside the party. The media took up this task with great enthusiasm. Novotny had to resign.
In April 68 the Communist Party proclaimed a new Action Programme –(AP). It promised federalization of Czechoslovakia. (There would be no possibility of Czechs outvoting Slovaks on legal or constitutional questions). However, AP would not give up " the leading role" of the Communist Party.
Other political parties and associations would be tolerated only under the condition of accepting the Communist monopoly of political power within the so-called National Front. AP recognized the necessity of introducing market forces and modest private enterprise in the service sector.
The newly acquired freedom of communication not only revitalized communist party, but also resuscitated old political forces.
The Soviet leaders came to consider the Czechoslovak experiment as great unorthodox risk. But the Czechoslovak leaders were impressed by an enthusiastic popular support, and wanted to make use of it. They believed that they would be permitted to devise their own particular "socialism with human face", different from the Soviet and Chinese ones. This was a miscalculation. On August 21, 1968 the Soviet army together with four "allies" invaded and occupied Czechoslovak territory. Many leaders, including Dubcek, Premier Cernik and Speaker Smrkovsky were kidnapped to the USSR.
The spontaneous passive resistance prevented Soviets to install a new government headed by members of diehard Indra-Bilak group. On August 26 the Moscow Protocol was signed enabling Dubcek to return as the First Secretary of CP, but left him little room for maneuver. The Czechoslovak public was not informed of the full content of the protocol. Dubcek's reassurances that he intended to continue with so-called post-January policies calmed the situation for a while. Although many reformers could preliminary keep their position, a strong group of diehards had to be appointed to the Central Committee. However, they were extremely unpopular, and Bilak was replaced by Husak at the top of the Slovak Communist party. Husak was the man in charge of the committee preparing Czech-Slovak federation. His position was that so long as Czechoslovakia was federated, much of the rest of the Action Programme was negotiable. The Constitution signed on October 28, 1968, the 50th Anniversary of the founding of Czechoslovakia, created a new federal state with two national republics, Slovak and Czech, which were to enjoy equal and wide autonomy. This meant at least a temporary satisfaction for the Slovaks, and strengthening of Husak's position. He became more and more critical of Dubcek, and of the unrealistic policies he believed Dubcek stood for.
Reaction and Stagnation
1969 – 1989
On 17 April 1969 the Central Committee announced, that Husak replaced Dubcek as First Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. However, Husak soon found imself outvoted by the diehards in the CC. He had to stop his frequent unprepared public presentations and limit himself to reading ideologically approved boring speeches. Having no other choice he served the diehards and Soviets, enjoying the glance of the topmost post in the party to which he added that of Czechoslovak President in 1975, thusreturning to the very "cumulation of functions" for which Novotny had been removed.
He was ruthless enough to preside over the relentless purges of his former colleagues. The screening of party members reduced its numbers from 140000 to 1100000. The purges affected central and local bureaucracies, the news media and the whole education system. Although Czechoslovakia was formally a federation of two national states with separate governments and national councils, the organization structure of the Communist Party remained asymmetric and most of real power was centralized in the hands of its Presidium in Prague. Husak's only credit seems to be that no show trials of reform leaders have occurred.
Since 1970 most elements of the economic reforms from the second half of 1960s were withdrawn and Czechoslovakia became a rigidly neo-Stalinist country. Surprisingly, its economic performance in the first half of 1970s was quite good. The post-1969 leadership began to invest in consumer branches, agriculture, housing and infrastructure. In Prague, construction of very expensive subway started, and so did the construction of a modern motorway from Prague to Brno and Bratislava. The consumer infrastructure boom was partly financed by loans both from the East and the West. Productive investment was postponed. The trade balance was in the red.
However, the situation changed since mid 1970s. Industry, energy and joint projects with the Comecon required large investments, while debts had to be repaid and trade balanced.
The world energy crisis forced the leadership increasingly to substitute soft coal for oil and natural gas, with disastrous environmental consequences. In the early 1980s another recession arrived, nevertheless. Consumption continued to grow, despite declining growth while investment ratio declined substantially.
Inspired by Perestroika in the Soviet Union, various measures were taken after 1986. New laws increased the possibilities for companies to engage in foreign trade and in joint ventures with foreign partners allowing them to repatriate their profits.
Velvet Revolution and Velvet Divorce
1989 – 1992
Forced by the popular movement (and by changes in Soviet policy towards Central European allies) the Communist Party dropped its claims to "a leading role" in November and December 1989. President Husak was replaced by Vaclav Havel, playwright and dissident who led the strongest political organization of that era, Civic Forum (CF). An allied, butformally independent organization Public Against Violence (PAV) was founded in Slovakia. Negotiations between renewed leadership of Communist Party and the alliance of non-Communist organizations led by CF and PAV yielded a new Government, led by a Slovak communist, M. Calfa who soon deserted to PAV. The Federal Assembly was reconstructed. The most outspoken representatives of the old regime were ousted and replaced by those of new political organizations. The system of central planning was abandoned. The country has been striving to reintroduce market economy and to forge close links with the international economic and financial community. A serious Czecho-Slovak conflict suddenly emerged when the Federal Assembly discussed the proposal to drop the attribute "socialistic" (introduced by A. Novotny in 1960) out of the name of the country. Many Slovak deputies demanded that the country return to its original name Czecho-Slovakia adopted by the Treaty of Versailles in 1918. (The hyphen has been dropped out only in 1923). After unexpectedly fierce discussions the country was renamed as Czech and Slovak Federal Republic in April 1990. At the same time the Slovak National Party (demanding independence of Slovakia) was founded.
The first free elections for 40 years were held in June 1990. Jan Carnogursky, the leader of Slovak Christian Democratic Movement (CDM) protested against President Havel's "intervening in Slovak internal affairs" and his open agitation for the PAV. CF won absolute majority in the Czech Republic, and formed a single party government there. On the other hand, PAV had to create a coalition with CDM. The federal government was formed by members of CF, PAV and CDM. Both governments, federal and Slovak, were led by PAV - members (Calfa and V. Meciar). Nevertheless, strong jurisdictional disputes soon emerged between these two governments, causing serious political crisis in the PAV as well as in the whole federal state. After some hesitation, CDM joined the pro-federal wing of PAV. They, together with two Hungarian parties, managed to establish a very slight majority in the Slovak National Council and in its Presidium, which ousted Meciar and replaced him by J. Carnogursky in April 1991. Meciar's group split from the PAV and established so-called Movement for Democratic Slovakia (MDS). The Civic Forum had split even earlier. Its major part formed the Civic Democratic Party (CDP) led by pragmatic Finance Minister V. Klaus. Many prominent former dissidents found themselves isolated in a small Civic Movement that failed to gain any of the seats in the Federal or Czech Parliament in the next elections in 1992.
Under the overwhelming influence of V. Klaus, the crude form of monetarism that had been hardly practiced elsewhere, was dominating the economic policy. Already suffering from external shocks - collapse of the market for Czechoslovak goods in the Soviet Union and other former East block countries - the country has been subjected to macroeconomic policies assuring a collapse of domestic demand as well. The real volume of credits was decreased by 30%, and the real wages declined by 26,9% in the first half of 1991 while the personal consumption dropped by 37%. As a result industrial production was down by about one-third in 1991. Unemployment, virtually nonexistent before 1990, rise to 8,4% in April 1992 (12,7% in Slovakia). Such rates of decline make the Great Depression of 1930s pale.
The government's approach to privatization and its methods (e.g. voucher privatization, physical restitution, non-competitive sale to a predetermined owner, sale to foreign entity, "Dutch auctions", uncompensated transfer to commercial banks) have provoked controversial discussions both in the country and abroad.
Discussions on the future constitution of the country and related negotiations did not yield the desired effect. Their only remarkable indirect result was splitting of CDH to a nationalist -- the Slovak CDH (SCDH)—and a pro-federal wing (CDH).
The election of June 1992 were won by V. Klaus's CDS led by in the Czech Republic, and MDS led by V. Meciar in Slovak Republic. Both of them gained more than one third of seats within their republics where they were able easily to form coalitions with sympathizing parties. CDS ran for election in Slovakia as well, but it failed to reach 5% threshold. This "schizophrenic" election result led to a series of negotiations between two victorious parties. They agreed to form a federal government on the principle of symmetric power sharing. However, this government had only a limited mandate until the end of 1992. CDS considered the principle of symmetry claimed by MDS as unpractical and unprofitable. (There are approximately 10 millions of Czechs and 5 millions of Slovaks). CDS also refused the proposal of Slovak partners to transform the country into a loose federation based on the principle of the Treaty of Maastricht and Premier Klaus uttered pessimistic comments concerning that treaty. This principal lack of consensus brought about the velvet divorce that was scheduled at January 1, 1993.
However, a divorce can hardly be pleasant, especially because of usual problems connected with splitting of common assets. One of the main problems that remained to be settled, was the division of the pipeline that transports Russian gas to Germany. No better solution has been find than the construction of an extra pumping station at the new common border. On the other hand, especially for Slovakia, this pipeline is one of the most important strategic factors . It crosses 8 times the borderline between Slovakia and Hungary from the 1939-45 period. This is therefore a very strong argument for the stability of the present border between these two countries.
Contact:
Prof. Jozef K o m o r n i k, DrSc., Department of Applied Mathematics, Comenius University, Mlynska dolina, 842 15 Bratislava, Slovakia
[1] Bradley J. F. N.: Czechoslovakia, Univ. Press Edinburg, 1971.
[2] Grauset F. et al.: Eastern and Western Europe in Middle ages. Thames and Hudson, London 1970.
[3] Kaan R. A., David Z. V.: The People of Eastern Habsburg Lands, 1526-1918. Univ. of Washington Press, Seattle 1981.
[4] Wallace W. V.: Czechoslovakia. Westview Press, 1976.
[5] Mamatey V. S., Lu_a R.: A History of Czechoslovak Republic, 1918-1948. Princeton Univ. Press, 1973.
[6] Teichova A.: The Czechoslovak Economy 1918-1980. Routledge, 1988
[7] Skilling H. G. ed.: Czechoslovakia 1918-88. MacMillan Academic and Professional LTD., 1991
[8] Stone E., Strouhal E. ed.: Czechoslovakia: Cross-roads and Crises, 1918-88. The MacMillan Press LTD., 1989.
[9] Prust J. et al.: The Czech and Slovak Federal Republic. IMF 1990.
[10] Va_ous J.: Recent Czechoslovak Economic Performance. Plan Econ Report, Vol. VII.(1991). No 40-41.
Sent by:
Jan George Frajkor
School of Journalism, Carleton Univ.
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1S 5B6
gfrajkor@ccs.carleton.ca
Published: 2003-01-29
Updated: 2003-01-29
Categories: History
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