The Czechoslovakian and Now Czech Republic flag.
The background to the event[]
Czechoslovakia After War (1945).
Czechoslovakia After War (1945).
The 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état, (Czech: Únor 1948, Slovak: Február 1948, both meaning "February 1948"), which is often simply just referred to as "the Czech coup" was a Soviet backed riotus take over by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.
It saw Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, who had been a powerful force since the 1920s. The Communists had got 38% of the vote in 1946 election. A coalition was set up with 9 Communists and 17 non-Communists and Klement Gottwald became Prime Minister. President Beneš was not communist, but did like Stalin, wished to Co-operate with the USSR and appreciated the Soviet liberation of Czechoslovakia in 1945. The nation was in ruins and needed help, which the Soviets and USA appeared willing to give at first.
The event[]
The Communist Interior Minister Václav Nosek began a purge of non-communists and talked about collectivising farms thoroughly upset the population in the summer of 1947. He out manoeuvred Edvard Beneš, who was terrified of a Soviet takeover in the February 1948. Insurrectionist armed local militias and the police took over Prague as Communist demonstrations were mounted and an anti-Communist student demonstration was broken up by armed gangs, local militias and cops. The non-Communist ministers had there ministerial offices were occupied and their civil servants dismissed. The Czechoslovakian army, under the direction of the formally non-partisan, but non the less pro-communist Defence Minister Ludvík Svoboda, was confined to barracks and did not intervene in the event. Communist Party leader Klement Gottwald threatened a national strike if President Beneš did not give in.
On 9 May, a new constitution was approved by parliament declaring Czechoslovakia a semi-communist "people's democracy,", but it was to ideological pro-Soviet model that President Beneš refused to sign it. At the 30 May elections, had a single National Front party list, which officially won 89.2% of the vote and out of this vote, the Communists and the Social Democrats (who soon merged in to them) had an absolute majority. Most non-communist parties who had participated in the 1946 election were also represented on the National Front list and got parliamentary seats, but by this time were now loyal partners of the Communists or openly Communist themselves. The National Front became abroad patriotic/communist movement dominated by the Communist Party. All independent political groups and parties outside were banned after the National Front's victory. Consumed by these events and feeling both fed up, disgusted and obsolete, President Beneš resigned on 2 June and was succeeded by Klement Gottwald 12 days later. With this Czechoslovak fell under Soviet rule. The west excepted the Czechoslovak's demise as they thought intervening would complicate the already complex situation in Berlin.
Aftermath[]
As the hysteria and feelings of foreboding that gripped Western circles following the Czech coup, most inter-government and America public support for the USSR slumped dramaticly. Opposition towards the Marshall Plan had developed over a short while earlier in the United States Congress, but the shocked and aroused public opinion overwhelmed this, and Congress promptly approved over US$5 billion for the first year of the European Recovery Program. The main goal had been the economic containment of Communism, primarily through the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan and a heavy reliance on the spread of atomic power and the fear of a predicted Soviet nucliar bomb as a political-economic shield to support it.
After the coup U.S. military budget. It helped spark a new round of Pentagon started lobbying for a substantial rise in the military budget, while the NSC called for "a worldwide counter-offensive" against the emerging Soviet bloc, including military aid to the Western European Union.
America's President Harry S. Truman knew that a war weary American public of 1946 and 1947 were not willing for a massive conventional arms build-up or a confrontation with the Soviet Union. Reluctanty he increased the military budget dramatically via a gradual and balanced buildup. Expecting to spend large amounts on the Marshall Plan, he sought to keep the annual defence budget below $15 billion.
In Italy, the PCI, through the use of its dominant position in the trade union movement, to organise industrial disturbances not only to sabotage the success of the Marshall Plan and also to subvert the Italian government from with in through factory committees of action as had happened in Czechoslovakia.
The elections were scheduled for 18 April and the Communist-dominated Popular Democratic Front actually stood a realistic chance of victory due to a popular backlash against the far-righting policy of the former Fascist Party in WW2. it was concluded that similar tactics could be employed in Italy as in Czechoslovakia and that the election may not even take place. British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin agreed Britain must support the Christian Democrats, despite its faults and emerging corruption.
The popular French Communist Party (PCF) could exploit and harness to instigate a coup of its own but, the PCF's failed policy of sabotage and the Marshall Plan's arrival eventually won over French public opinion. 70% of French people believed America would the most help France, compared to 7% who chose the USSR instead and a small body of opinion which said no one or the UK. Despite French concern about a strong or materialistic Germany, it was becoming increasingly clear that the Soviet threat was greater than the German. While France would still seek an advantageous power position vis-à-vis Germany, but it was becoming reconciled with prospect of a rehabilitated Germany as part of a democratic postwar Europe.
For years Britain had supported Greece, but was now near bankruptcy due to the Second World War and was thus forced to end all meaningful involvement in Greece. This is why Britain formally requested the United States take over its role in supporting Greece during the February of 1947. Yugoslavia and Bulgaria had also got plans to spread communism to Greece, conquer Albania and set up a Yugoslav puppet state in Greek Macedonia.
President Truman stated to his political opponents in the U.S. during crisis of the Greek Civil War of 1946–1949 that if Greece and Turkey did not receive the aid that they both urgently needed, they would inevitably fall to communism or be over run by their communist neighbours, with very grave consequences throughout the region. Both were also be treated equily despit Greece being in more need of help since he id not want to inflame Greco-Turkish rivelries either. The Republicans who controlled Congress and agreed to send $400 million in American money, but no military forces or material aid, to the region. Greece and Turkey the military alliance joined NATO in 1952 since it guaranteed their protection from communist invasion and terrorism.
Also see[]
- Czechoslovakian leaders
- Marshall Plan
- Berlin airlift
- Allied plans for Germany
- FRG
- GDR
- EU
- Warsaw Pact
- Czechoslovakia
- Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
- Greek Civil War of 1946–1949
- Lord Louis Mountbatten's very British coup
- What is a coup d'état?
| Communist world! (1922-1991) | |
|---|---|
| The Warsaw Pact and the military | Warsaw Pact - People's Republic of Albania (left) - German Democratic Republic- Czech Socialist Republic- Warsaw Pact Rail - USSR -People's Republic of Poland - Hungarian People's Republic - Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - People's Republic of Bulgaria - Polish People's Republic - Romanian Popular Republic - Romanian People's Republic - Soviet 5.45x39mm - Soviet Southern Group of Forces -Seven days to the River Rhine (1979) - Jüterbog Airfield -Topoľčany Army Barracks and bunker system - Brezhnev Doctrine - Soviet war in Afghanistan - Vladivostok Navel base - Murmansk Navel base - Archangelsk Navel base - Kaliningrad Navel base - Sevastopol Navel base - Kazan Higher Tank Command School and related tank factory - Burevestnik Airport - People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (de facto, but not de jure) - AK-47\Kalashnikov assault rifle - Red Army - Kartsev-Venediktov Design Bureau (OKB-520) - KhPZ Factory No. 183 in Kharkiv/Malyshev Factory - Mikhail Kalashnikov - Soviet Opytnoye Konstruktorskoye Buros (OKBs) - Eastern bloc - Tupolev Tu-160- 9M14 Malyutka - RPG-7 - R-7 ICBM - Tupolev Tu-95 |
| The Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance (ComEcom) nations |
Council for Mutual Economic Assistance - SovRoms - Mongolian People's Republic - Cuba - Vietnam - North Vietnam - German Democratic Republic- Czech Socialist Republic - USSR - Mongolian People's Republic - People's Republic of Poland - Hungarian People's Republic - Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - People's Republic of Bulgaria - Polish People's Republic - People's Republic of Albania (left) - Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (never fully joined) - Romanian Popular Republic -Romanian People's Republic - North Korea (de facto, but not de jure to avoid worrying the PRC) - Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (wanted to join, but never got round to doing so) - People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (de facto, but not de jure) - Eastern bloc |
| Other Soviet allies. | People's Republic of the Congo - People's Republic of Benin – Republic of Seychelles – Democratic Republic of Madagascar - Provisional Military Government of Socialist Ethiopia - People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia - People's Revolutionary Government (Grenada) - Junta of National Reconstruction (Nicaragua) - Libyan Arab Jamahiriya - People's Democratic Republic of Algeria - Jamaica - Grenada |
| The ones with nukes | USSR - Cuba (gave them up) - Cuban Missile Crisis - Tupolev Tu-160 - R-7 ICBM - Tupolev Tu-95 - People's Republic of China |
| The Sino-Soviet Split | Sino-Soviet Split - USSR - Zhou Enlai - Nikita Khrushchev - Mao Zedong - Pol Pot - People's Republic of China People's Republic of Albania |
| The end of it | Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 - Fall of the Berlin wall - Soviet "Era of Stagnation" - Dissolution of the Soviet Union - Singing Revolution - Baltic Republics of the Soviet Union- The political dissolution of the Soviet Union and why it broke up afterwards - Soviet war in Afghanistan - Chernobyl disaster -Glasnost - Perestroika |
| Economics | Sakhalin Island - Life under communism - Food cards- Collective farms- Yugoslavian Agricoles - Political Committee of the Communist Party of China - Soviet political organs - Soviet Social Apparatus - The purveyors of crappy Cold War era Easter Block cars - Mirny Diamond Mine - Magnitogorsk - Virgin Lands campaign - Soviet Opytnoye Konstruktorskoye Buros (OKBs) - The Agrokomerc Affair - Wuxi (diode) Factory 742 - Jiangnan Radio Factory - Agrokomerc - Kartsev-Venediktov Design Bureau (OKB-520) - KhPZ Factory No. 183 in Kharkiv/Malyshev Factory- Eastern bloc - Gorki Auto Plant - GAZ Group Holding - ZiL |
| Politics and Geo-politics | Sakhalin Island - Stalin Monument (Budapest) - Communist Party of the Soviet Union - Khrushchev Thaw- Tito–Stalin Split- Life under communism - Hungarian Revolution of 1956 - Cold War - Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia - Soviet "Era of Stagnation" - Soviet 'oligophrenics' and 'oligophrenia' - Soviet political organs - Soviet Social Apparatus - Russian and Soviet Leaders between 1917 and 2018 - Stalin's purges and ethnic cleansing- Closed Soviet locations - Gulags - Berlin Wall - Détente - Sino-Soviet Split - Brezhnev Doctrine - Stalin's cult of personality - De-Stalinisation -Glasnost - Perestroika - Kuril Islands - Rybachy Peninsula - Kaliningrad Oblast - Eastern bloc - The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union - 1952 Egyptian revolution -Sandinistas - Cuban Revolution - Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948 |
| Technology and outer space | Sputnik 1 - Soviet Space Program - Mirny Diamond Mine - Magnitogorsk - Virgin Lands campaign - Tatra trams#T3 and T3R.P trams - M62 locomotive - TEP80 locomotive -Soviet MSI nMOS chip - Soviet Ice Breaker Lenin - Chernobyl disaster - AK-47\Kalashnikov assault rifle -Soviet Opytnoye Konstruktorskoye Buros (OKBs)- The Space Race - Mikhail Kalashnikov - Yuri Gagarin - Vostok rocket-Soyuz rocket - Baikonur Cosmodrome - Plesetsk Cosmodrome - Zenit 2 - Tupolev Tu-160 - R-7 ICBM |
| People | Stalin Monument (Budapest) - Vladimir Lenin - Leonid Brezhnev - Mikhail Kalashnikov - Yuri Gagarin - Nikita Khrushchev - Joseph Stalin - Stalin's cult of personality - De-Stalinisation - Mikhail Gorbachev - Ho Chi Minh - Fidel Castro - Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej - Mohammad Najibullah - Maurice Bishop - Zhou Enlai - Salvador Allende - Dr. Kwame Nkrumah - Gamal Abdel Nasser - Pol Pot - Michael Manley - Maurice Bishop - Colonel Muammar Gaddafi |
| Important places | Sakhalin island - Moscow - Nakhodka Port - Gorki Auto Plant - Vladivostok Navel base - Murmansk Navel base - Arkangelsk Navel base - Kalinningrad Navel base - Sevastopol Navel base - Kazan Higher Tank Command School and related tank factory -Burevestnik Airport- Jüterbog Airfield - Topoľčany Army Barracks and bunker system - Kuril Islands - Berlin Wall - Mirny Diamond Mine - Magnitogorsk - Rybachy Peninsula - St. Petersburg - Closed Soviet locations - Kaliningrad Oblast - Wuxi (diode) Factory 742 - Jiangnan Radio Factory - Agrokomerc -KhPZ Factory No. 183 in Kharkiv/Malyshev Factory - Wuxi (diode) Factory 742 - Jiangnan Radio Factory - Agrokomerc - Baikonur Cosmodrome - Plesetsk Cosmodrome |
| Systems of state repression | What is a police state? - Státní bezpečnost/Štátna bezpečnosť (StB/ŠtB) - Committee for State Security (KGB) - Glavnoye razvedyvatel'noye upravleniye (GRU) - Stasi - Securitate -Gulag - Political disappearances - Berlin Wall - A Bulgarian umbrella assassination – Komitet za dǎržavna sigurnost (CSS) - Censorship East Germany - Communist Party of the Soviet Union - The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union |
| The political heretics who were
not really true communists |
People's Republic of Albania (criminal dictatorship) - Mao Zedong (mad) - Enver Hoxha (a mafia don) - Pol Pot (evil) - Nicolae Ceauşescu (evil) - Democratic Kampuchea (evil) - Khmer Rouge (evil) - The PRC (evil then state capitalist) - Communist Party of Kampuchea (evil) - The Shining Path (evil) - North Korea (despotism)- Red Brigades (in Italy) (criminal syndicate) - Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) (criminal syndicate) - Daniel Ortega (evil) - Kim Il-Sung (despot) - People's Republic of China (evil then state capitalist) - Provisional Military Government of Socialist Ethiopia (evil) - People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (evil) - Somali Democratic Republic (Black nationalist) – People's Republic of Mozambique (Black nationalist) – People's Republic of Angola (criminal syndicate) - People's Revolutionary Government (Grenada) (not fully communist and liked the UK as much as they did Cuba) - Junta of National Reconstruction (Nicaragua) (evil) - Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (evil) - People's Democratic Republic of Algeria (not fully communist) - Grenada (not fully communist and liked the UK as much as they did Cuba) - Jamaica (not fully communist and liked the UK as much as they did Cuba) - Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (not fully communist) - Michael Manley (not fully communist and liked the UK as much as they did Cuba) - Maurice Bishop (not fully communist and liked the UK as much as they did Cuba) - Colonel Muammar Gaddafi (evil) |
| The founding nations | Russian SFSR - Ukrainian SSR - Byelorussian SSR - Transcaucasian SFSR - Bukharan People's Soviet Republic - Khorezm People's Soviet Republic - Tashkent Soviet -Communist Party of the Soviet Union - The Bolshevik Party |
| Bolshevik\Soviet annexations | Estonia (annexed) - Latvia (annexed) - Lithuania (annexed) - Kaliningrad Oblast (annexed) - Finnish Civil War (the Reds lost) - Mongolian People's Republic (annexation failed) - The Far Eastern Republic (annexed) - Far Eastern Republic (annexed) - Tuvan People's Republic (annexed) - Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (annexed) - State of Buryat-Mongolia (annexed) - Mountain Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (annexed) - Kronstadt Republic (crushed) - Soviet Socialist Republic of Belarus (SSRB) (crushed)- The Belarusian People's Republic (BNR) (crushed) |
| Other former European, Central Asian
and Iranian puppet or client states |
Litbell - Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (LSSR) - Lithuanian–Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic - Soviet Republic of Naissaar - Latvian SSR of 1919-1920 - The Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) - Bolshavik Russia - Lemko-Rusyn People's Republic- West Ukrainian People's Republic - Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic - Hungarian Soviet Republic - People's State of Bavaria - Bavarian Soviet Republic - The Soviet Republic of Odessa - Kiev called the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR) - Petrograd Soviet - East Turkestan Republic (ETR) - Persian Socialist Soviet Republic - Soviet Republic of Gilan - Azerbaijan People's Government - Republic of Mahabad (1946) - Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic |
| Other stuff | Life under communism - Sputnik 1- Khrushchyovka - When is not a Yugo to a Yugo? - Soviet Space Program - The purveyors of crappy Cold War era Easter Block cars- Vietnam War - 1950–1953 Korean War - Family in the Soviet Union - Radio Moscow - Tatra trams#T3 and T3R.P trams - M62 locomotive - TEP80 locomotive - Stalin's cult of personality - De-Stalinisation - Soviet medals - Colombian conflict (1964–present) - Movimiento de Liberación Nacional-Tupamaros - The Agrokomerc Affair - Peruvian conflict - Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement - Cambodian genocide - The Jewish Holocaust and Roma Porajmos in the Baltic states - Italian Communist Party -"Reds under the bed" - The Holodomor - Colombian conflict (1964–present) - Peruvian conflict - 1979 Nicaraguan Revolution - Sandinistas - Guerrilla Army of the Poor - Viet Cong - Pathet Lao - Soviet 'oligophrenics' and 'oligophrenia' - New Jewel Movement - The 'false' Cold War theory - All the Communist countries during the Cold War - People's Liberation Army (of China) - People's Republic of China - GAZ Group Holding |