Czechoslovak parliamentary election, 1946

Czechoslovak parliamentary election, 1946
All 300 seats to the Constituent National Assembly ; 151 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	93.9%
Prime Minister before election; Zdeněk Fierlinger ; ČSSD	Elected Prime Minister ; Klement Gottwald ; KSČ

Last updated March 22, 2019

Parliamentary elections were held in Czechoslovakia on 26 May 1946.^[1] The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia emerged as the largest party, winning 114 of the 300 seats (93 for the main party and 21 for its Slovak branch) with 38% of the vote (31 percent for the main party and 6.9 percent for the Slovak branch). This was the best performance for a Czechoslovak party up to that time; previously no Czechoslovak party had ever won more than 25 percent of the vote. Voter turnout was 93.9%.^[2] As it turned out, this was one of only two even partially free elections held in what would become the Eastern bloc, the other having been held in Hungary a year earlier.^[3] It would be the last free election held in Czechoslovakia until 1990.^[4]

Czechoslovakia, or Czecho-Slovakia, was a sovereign state in Central Europe that existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until its peaceful dissolution into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on 1 January 1993.

The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was a Communist and Marxist–Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992. It was a member of the Comintern. Between 1929 and 1953 it was led by Klement Gottwald. After its election victory in 1946 it seized power in the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état and established a one-party state allied with the Soviet Union. Nationalization of virtually all private enterprises followed.

Communist Party of Slovakia communist party

The Communist Party of Slovakia is a communist party in Slovakia, formed in 1992, through the merger of the Communist Party of Slovakia – 91 and the Communist League of Slovakia.

Background

After World War II a 300-member interim National Assembly was formed and met for the first time on 28 October 1945.^[5] The Assembly created a new electoral system with the country divided into 28 multi-member constituencies.^[6] 150 members were elected from Bohemia, 81 from Moravia and Silesia and 69 from Slovakia. The voting age was lowered to 18, but only Czechs, Slovaks and other Slavs could register to vote.^[5]

World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.

Bohemia is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech lands in the present-day Czech Republic. In a broader meaning, Bohemia sometimes refers to the entire Czech territory, including Moravia and Czech Silesia, especially in a historical context, such as the Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by Bohemian kings.

Moravia is a historical region in the Czech Republic and one of the historical Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. The medieval and early modern Margraviate of Moravia was a crown land of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, an imperial state of the Holy Roman Empire, later a crown land of the Austrian Empire and briefly also one of 17 former crown lands of the Cisleithanian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1867 to 1918. During the early 20th century, Moravia was one of the five lands of Czechoslovakia from 1918 to 1928; it was then merged with Czech Silesia, and eventually dissolved by abolition of the land system in 1949.

Opinion polls

Date	Polling Firm	KSČ	ČSNS	ČSL	ČSSD	Blank vote	Note
Date	Polling Firm					Blank vote	Note
April 1946	ÚVVM^[7]	39.6	22.5	19.2	16.0	2.7	Only Bohemia and Moravia

Results

Party	Votes	%	Seats	+/–
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia	2,205,697	31.2	93	+63
Czechoslovak National Socialist Party	1,298,980	18.4	55	+27
Czechoslovak People's Party	1,111,009	15.7	46	+24
Democratic Party	999,622	14.1	43	New
Czechoslovak Social Democracy	855,538	12.1	37	–1
Communist Party of Slovakia	489,596	6.9	21	New
Freedom Party	60,195	0.9	3	New
Labour Party	50,079	0.7	2	New
Invalid/blank votes	59,427	–	–	–
Total	7,130,143	100	300	0
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

Aftermath

Following the elections, Communist leader Klement Gottwald formed a coalition government. However, the Communists gradually tightened their grip on the country. After the non-Communist members resigned from the Cabinet on 25 February 1948, the Communists seized full control of the country.^[8]^[9]

Klement Gottwald was a Czechoslovak Communist politician, who was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1929 until 1945 and party chairman until his death in 1953. He was the 14th Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia from July 1946 until June 1948, at which point he became the president of the third republic, four months after the 1948 coup d'état in which his party seized power with the backing of the Soviet Union.

The 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état – in the Communist era known as "Victorious February" – was an event late that February in which the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, with Soviet backing, assumed undisputed control over the government of Czechoslovakia, marking the onset of four decades of communist rule in the country.

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References

↑ Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p471 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
↑ Nohlen & Stöver, p472
↑ Andorka, Rudolf et al. A Society Transformed, p.8. Central European University Press (1999), ISBN 963-9116-49-1
↑ Kamm, Henry. Now, the Czech Reality; Political 'Amateurs,' After Free Elections, Turn to Problems Left by the Communists. The New York Times, 1990-06-11.
1 2 Nohlen & Stöver, p464
↑ "Zákon č. 67/1946 sb. o volbě ústavodárného Národního shromáždění" (in Czech). Zakonyprolidi.cz. 18 April 1946. Retrieved 19 August 2017.
↑ mínění, Ústav pro výzkum veřejného (1946). "Výzkum Volby I. - 3/1946 duben ÚVVM/CVVM". Invenio Nusl (in Czech). Retrieved 26 January 2018.
↑ Nohlen & Stöver, p457
↑ Stupka, Jiří (2012). "Parlamentní volby v roce 1946 – odraz na stránkách ústředních tiskových orgánů politických stran" (PDF) (in Czech). Masaryk University. Retrieved 19 August 2017.

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[DN-1] Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p471 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7

[2] Nohlen & Stöver, p472

[3] Andorka, Rudolf et al. A Society Transformed, p.8. Central European University Press (1999), ISBN 963-9116-49-1

[NYT-4] Kamm, Henry. Now, the Czech Reality; Political 'Amateurs,' After Free Elections, Turn to Problems Left by the Communists. The New York Times, 1990-06-11.

[NS-5] 1 2 Nohlen & Stöver, p464

[6] "Zákon č. 67/1946 sb. o volbě ústavodárného Národního shromáždění" (in Czech). Zakonyprolidi.cz. 18 April 1946. Retrieved 19 August 2017.

[Výzkum_Volby_I._-_3/1946_duben_ÚVVM/CVVM-7] ínění, Ústav pro výzkum veřejného (1946). "Výzkum Volby I. - 3/1946 duben ÚVVM/CVVM". Invenio Nusl (in Czech). Retrieved 26 January 2018.

[8] Nohlen & Stöver, p457

[9] Stupka, Jiří (2012). "Parlamentní volby v roce 1946 – odraz na stránkách ústředních tiskových orgánů politických stran" (PDF) (in Czech). Masaryk University. Retrieved 19 August 2017.

v t e Elections in Czechoslovakia
Parliamentary elections	1920 1925 1929 1935 1946 1948 1954 1960 1964 1971 1976 1981 1986 1990 1992
Parliamentary by-elections	1924
Regional elections	1923 1928 1935
Local elections	1919 1923 1927 1931 1938 1954 1960 1964 1971 1976 1981 1986 1990
Referendums	1951
See also: Presidential elections Elections in the Czech Republic Elections in Slovakia