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Czechoslovakia, or Czecho-Slovakia, was a sovereign state in Central Europe, created in October 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary.
Klement Gottwald was a Czech communist politician, who was the leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1929 until his death in 1953–titled as general secretary until 1945 and as chairman from 1945 to 1953. He was the first leader of Communist Czechoslovakia from 1948 to 1953.
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization and mass protest in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), and continued until 21 August 1968, when the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact members invaded the country to suppress the reforms.
Alexander Dubček was a Slovak politician who served as the First Secretary of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) from January 1968 to April 1969. He attempted to reform the communist government during the Prague Spring but was forced to resign following the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968.
During World War II, Czechoslovakia had largely disappeared from the map of Europe. The Third Czechoslovak Republic which emerged as a sovereign state after the end of the war was not only the result of the policies of the victorious Western allies, the French Fourth Republic, the United Kingdom and the United States, but also an indication of the strength of the Czechoslovak ideal embodied in the First Czechoslovak Republic. However, at the conclusion of World War II, Czechoslovakia fell within the Soviet sphere of influence, and this circumstance dominated any plans or strategies for postwar reconstruction. Consequently, the political and economic organisation of Czechoslovakia became largely a matter of negotiations between Edvard Beneš and Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) exiles living in Moscow.
From the Communist coup d'état in February 1948 to the Velvet Revolution in 1989, Czechoslovakia was ruled by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. The country belonged to the Eastern Bloc and was a member of the Warsaw Pact and of Comecon. During the era of Communist Party rule, thousands of Czechoslovaks faced political persecution for various offences, such as trying to emigrate across the Iron Curtain.
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. The KSČ was the sole governing party in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic though it was a leading party along with the Slovak branch and four other legally permitted non-communist parties. 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.
The National Front was the coalition of parties which headed the re-established Czechoslovakia from 1945 to 1948. During the Communist era in Czechoslovakia (1948–1989) it was the vehicle for control of all political and social activity by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ). It was also known in English as the National Front of Czechs and Slovaks.
Although political control of Communist Czechoslovakia was largely monopolized by the authoritarian Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), the party technically shared political power with other parties of the National Front. The leader of the KSČ was de facto the most powerful person in the country during this period. Czechoslovakia's foreign policy was openly influenced by the foreign policy of the Soviet Union.
The Constitution of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, promulgated on 11 July 1960 as the constitutional law 100/1960 Sb., was the third constitution of Czechoslovakia, and the second of the Communist era. It replaced the 1948 Ninth-of-May Constitution and was widely changed by the Constitutional Law of Federation in 1968. It was extensively revised after the Velvet Revolution to prune out its Communist character, with a view toward replacing it with a completely new constitution. However, this never took place, and it remained in force until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992.
The government of Czechoslovakia under Marxism–Leninism was in theory a dictatorship of the proletariat. In practice, it was a one-party dictatorship run by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, the KSC.
With the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy at the end of World War I, the independent country of Czechoslovakia was formed as a result of the critical intervention of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, among others.
The Constitution of the Czech Republic is the supreme law of the Czech Republic. The current constitution was adopted by the Czech National Council on 16 December 1992. It entered into force on 1 January 1993, replacing the 1960 Constitution of Czechoslovakia and the constitutional act No. 143/1968 Col., when Czechoslovakia gave way to the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic in a peaceful dissolution.
Gustáv Husák was a Czechoslovak communist politician of a Slovak origin, who served as the long-time First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1969 to 1987 and the president of Czechoslovakia from 1975 to 1989. His rule is known as the period of the Normalization after the Prague Spring.
The Czechoslovak Republic or Fourth Czechoslovak Republic existed between 1948 and 1960 in Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was the official name of the country from 1960 to 23 April 1990. From 1948 until the end of November 1989, the country was under Communist rule and was a satellite state of the Soviet Union.
After World War I, Czechoslovakia established itself and as a republic and democracy with the establishment of the Constitution of 1920. The constitution was adopted by the National Assembly on 29 February 1920 and replaced the provisional constitution adopted on 13 November 1918.
In late February 1948, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, with Soviet backing, assumed undisputed control over the government of Czechoslovakia. It marked the onset of four decades of the party's rule in the country.
On 20–21 August 1968, Czechoslovakia was jointly invaded by four Warsaw Pact countries: the Soviet Union, Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary. About 250,000 Warsaw Pact troops, supported by thousands of tanks and hundreds of aircraft, participated in the overnight operation, which was code-named Operation Danube. Romania and Albania refused to participate, while East German forces, except for a small number of specialists, were ordered by Moscow not to cross the Czechoslovak border just hours before the invasion. 137 Czechoslovak civilians were killed and 500 seriously wounded during the occupation.
Parliamentary elections were held in Czechoslovakia on 12 June 1960. Voters were presented with a single list from the National Front, dominated by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ). According to official figures, 99.7 percent of eligible voters turned out to vote, and 99.9 percent of those who voted approved the National Front list. Within the Front, the Communists had a large majority of 216 seats–147 for the main party and 69 for the Slovak branch.
The Košice Program was a 1945 agreement between Czechoslovak Communists who had spent the war in the Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak government-in-exile, which had been based in London. They met in the city of Košice, which had already been liberated by the Red Army. The program outlined the postwar political settlement, the National Front under which all political parties would operate, and promised the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia. The program was the basis of both the Third Czechoslovak Republic and, following the 1948 coup, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
References
- ↑ Taborsky, Edward (2015). Communism in Czechoslovakia, 1948-1960. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1400877034.
