Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948

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The Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948 (often simply the Czech coup) (Czech: Únor 1948,
Slovak: Február 1948, both meaning "February 1948") — in Communist historiography
known as "Victorious February" (Czech: Vítězný únor, Slovak: Víťazný február) — was
an event late that February in which the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, with Soviet
backing, assumed undisputed control over the government of Czechoslovakia, ushering in
over four decades of dictatorship under its rule. The coup’s significance extended well
beyond the country’s boundaries, however, as it was a clear marker along the already well-
advanced road to full-fledged Cold War. The shock with which the West greeted the event
—which bore distinct echoes of Munich—helped spur quick adoption of the Marshall Plan,
the creation of a state in West Germany, vigorous measures to keep Communists out of
power in France and especially Italy, and steps toward mutual security that would, in little
over a year, result in the establishment of NATO and the definitive drawing of the Iron
Curtain until the Autumn of Nations in 1989.

Contents
[hide]

 1 Background
 2 The coup
 3 Impact
o 3.1 United States
o 3.2 Italy and France
 4 Notes
 5 Further reading
 6 References

[edit] Background
In the aftermath of World War II, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) was in a
favourable position. Its powerful influence on Czechoslovak politics since the 1920s, its
clean wartime record and cooperation with non-Communist parties, its identification with
the Soviet Union, the country's liberator, and its determination to become the country's
leading political force without alarming the West (a strategy followed too by Communist
parties in Italy and France) dovetailed with popular opposition to Nazi rule, the longing for
real change that followed it, and the new political realities of living within the Soviet orbit
to produce a surge in membership from 40,000 in 1945 to 1.35 million in 1948.
Nonetheless, party leader Klement Gottwald said in 1945 that "in spite of the favourable
situation, the next goal is not soviets and socialism, but rather carrying out a really
thorough democratic national revolution", thereby linking his party to the Czechoslovak
democratic tradition (he even claimed to be a disciple of Tomáš Masaryk) and to Czech
nationalism by capitalizing on popular intense anti-German feelings.[1] During the early
postwar period, working with the other parties in a coalition called the National Front, kept
up the appearance of being willing to work within the system.

Thus, in the 1946 election, the KSČ won 38% of the vote, far more than the 22% won by
Hungarian Communists the following year in the only other free and fair postwar election
in the Soviet area of influence. President Edvard Beneš, not himself a Communist but very
amenable to cooperation with the Soviets, and who hoped for restraint by the Allied
powers, thus invited Gottwald to be prime minister. Although the government contained
nine Communists and seventeen non-Communists, the KSČ had initial control over the
police and armed forces, and came to dominate other key ministries such as those dealing
with propaganda, education, social welfare and agriculture; they also soon dominated the
civil service.[2]

However, by the summer of 1947 the KSČ had alienated whole blocs of potential voters:
the activities of the Ministry of Interior and police were acutely offensive to many citizens;
farmers objected to talk of collectivisation, and some workers were angry at Communist
demands that they increase output without being given higher wages. The general
expectation was that the Communists would be soundly defeated in the May 1948 elections.
[2]
That September, at the first Cominform meeting, Andrei Zhdanov observed that Soviet
victory had helped achieve "the complete victory of the working class over the bourgeoisie
in every East European land except Czechoslovakia, where the power contest still remains
undecided."[3] This clearly implied the KSČ should be accelerating its drive to total power,
a notion reinforced during the Prague Spring, when party archives were opened and showed
that Stalin gave up the whole idea of a parliamentary path for the Czechs and Slovaks when
the Communist parties of France and Italy stumbled in 1947 and 1948.

The Czechoslovak representative at the meeting, Rudolf Slánský, returned to Prague with a
plan for the final seizure of power. Slánský remarked, "as in the international field, we have
gone on the offensive on the domestic front as well."[3]

[edit] The coup

During the winter of 1947-48, both in the cabinet and in parliament tension between the
Communists and their opponents led to increasingly bitter conflict.[4] In early February
1948, the Communist minister of the interior, Václav Nosek, illegally extended his powers
by attempting to purge remaining non-Communist elements in the National Police Force;
the security apparatus and police were being transformed into instruments of the KSČ,
endangering basic civic freedoms.[4] On February 12, the non-Communists in the cabinet
demanded punishment for the offending Communists in the government and an end to this
subversion but Nosek, backed by Gottwald, refused; he and his fellow Communists
threatened to use force and, in order to avoid defeat in parliament, mobilised groups of their
supporters in the country. On February 21, twelve non-Communist ministers resigned in
protest after Nosek refused to reinstate eight non-Communist senior police officers despite
a majority vote of the cabinet in favour of doing so. They assumed that President Beneš
would refuse to accept their resignations, keeping them in a caretaker government and in
the process embarrassing the Communists enough to make them yield. Beneš initially
insisted that no new government could be formed which did not include ministers from the
non-Communist parties. However, an atmosphere of mounting tension, coupled with
massive Communist-led demonstrations occurring throughout the country, convinced
Beneš to remain neutral over the issue, for fear the KSČ foment an insurrection and give
the Red Army a pretext to invade the country and restore order.[3] Had Beneš held his line,
Gottwald's ministers would not have been able to form a government, the only non-violent
means of crisis resolution being to give way to the non-Communists or to risk defeat in
early elections which the KSČ did not have time to rig. The non-Communists saw this as a
moment of opportunity, needing to act quickly before the interior ministry had total control
over the police and hampered the free electoral process.[4]

While the non-Communist ministers seemed to behave as if this was just an old-fashioned
pre-1939 governmental crisis, the Communists were mobilizing from below. To help them
do this the Soviet Ambassador, Valerian Zorin, arrived in Prague to arrange a coup. Armed
militia and police took over Prague; Communist demonstrations were mounted; an anti-
Communist student demonstration was broken up. The ministries of the non-Communist
ministers were occupied, civil servants dismissed and the ministers prevented from entering
their own ministries. The army was confined to barracks and did not interfere.[5] Communist
"Action Committees" and trade union militias were quickly set up, armed, and sent into the
streets, as well as being prepared to carry through a purge of anti-Communists. In a speech
before 100,000 of these people, Gottwald threatened a general strike unless Beneš agreed to
form a new Communist-dominated government. Zorin at one point offered the services of
the Red Army, camped on the country's borders. However, Gottwald declined the offer,
believing that the threat of violence combined with heavy political pressure would be
enough to force Beneš to surrender. As he said after the coup, Beneš "knows what strength
is, and this led him to evaluate this [situation] realistically".[3]

On February 25, 1948, Beneš, fearful of civil war and Soviet intervention, capitulated and
appointed a new government under Gottwald's leadership. The new government was
dominated by Communists and pro-Moscow Social Democrats. Members of the People's,
National Socialist and Slovak Democratic parties still figured, so the government was still
nominally a coalition. However, these parties had been taken over by Communist
sympathizers, and the people using these labels were fellow travelers. The only important
portfolio held by a non-Communist was foreign affairs, which went to Jan Masaryk, who
was however found dead two weeks later. [6] Following the coup, the Communists moved
quickly to consolidate their power: thousands were fired, hundreds arrested, and thousands
fled the country.[7] On May 9, a new constitution proclaiming Czechoslovakia a "people's
democracy" was approved by parliament. Although it was not a fully Communist
constitution, it was close enough to the Soviet model that Beneš refused to sign it. At the
May 30 elections, voters were presented with a single list from the National Front, which
officially won 89.2% of the vote; within the National Front list, the Communists and the
Social Democrats (who soon merged) had an absolute majority. Practically all non-
Communist parties that had participated in the 1946 election were also represented within
the National Front list and thus received parliament seats. However, by this time they had
all transformed themselves into loyal partners of the Communists. The National Front was
converted into a broad patriotic organisation dominated by the Communists, and no
political group outside of it was allowed to exist.[8][9][10][11] Consumed by these events, Beneš
resigned on June 2 and was succeeded by Gottwald twelve days later.[6][11] He died in
September, bringing a symbolic close to the sequence of events, and was buried before an
enormous and silent throng come to mourn the passing of a popular leader and of the
democracy he had come to represent.[6]

[edit] Impact
Czechoslovakia remained as a Communist dictatorship until the Velvet Revolution of 1989.
[12]
More immediately, the coup became synonymous with the Cold War, the loss of the last
remaining democracy in Eastern Europe coming as a profound shock to millions. For the
second time in a decade, Western eyes saw Czechoslovak independence and democracy
snuffed out by a totalitarian dictatorship intent on dominating a small country[6](though the
KSČ did most of the "dirty work").[13] The USSR seemed to have completed the formation
of a monolithic Soviet bloc and concluded the partition of Europe, which appeared to
vindicate and certainly crystallized the pessimistic, darkest appraisals of Soviet power in
the West by people who felt certain that it was folly to try to do business with Moscow.
Because its impact was equally profound in Western Europe as in the United States, it
helped unify Western countries against the Communist bloc. It gave an air of prescience to
the French and Italian governments for having forced their local Communists out of their
governments a year earlier.[6] Additionally, it finally discredited Soviet moves to prevent
the formation of a West German state and accelerated the construction of a West European
alliance, the Treaty of Brussels, the following month; mutual security was the new
watchword.[14] Until early 1948, Western and Soviet representatives had communicated in
regular meetings at the foreign minister level; the Czech coup constituted a final rupture in
relations between the two superpowers, with the West now signaling its determination to
commit itself to collective self-defence.[15] By early March, even a previously wavering
France was demanding a concrete military alliance with definite promises to help in certain
circumstances.[16]

From Moscow's point of view, the coup could not have been worse timed. The government
crisis in Prague lasted from February 20 to 27, just when Western foreign ministers were
meeting in London. The coup came off as showing Communism in its most unacceptable
form; Moscow seemed to the West bent on ruthless expansion and the suppression of
freedom.[4]

[edit] United States

The coup's impact in the United States was immediate. Opposition towards the Marshall
Plan had developed in the United States Congress, but a shocked and aroused public
opinion overwhelmed this, and Congress promptly approved over $5 billion for the first
year of the European Recovery Program.[6]

Until the Czech coup, the emphasis in Washington had been on economic containment of
Communism, primarily through the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan and a heavy
reliance on atomic power as a shield to support it. President Harry S. Truman understood
that in 1946 and 1947 the American people were not prepared for a massive conventional
arms buildup or a confrontation with the Soviet Union. He was reluctant to increase the
military budget dramatically and instead chose 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.

However, the coup served to expose the limitations of U.S. conventional forces and its
over-reliance on atomic power. At the time of the Prague crisis, roughly ten ill-equipped
and poorly trained U.S. and West European divisions faced over thirty Soviet divisions.
When taking into account Defense Department complaints that the U.S. atomic arsenal and
the air power to use it were starkly inadequate, it became clear that the U.S. lacked a
credible military deterrent in Europe.

The Czech coup changed the whole tone of the debate on the U.S. military budget. It helped
spark a new round of Pentagon lobbying for a substantial rise in the military budget, while
the NSC called for "a worldwide counter-offensive" against the Soviet bloc, including U.S.
military aid to the Western European Union. Truman responded to the crisis with a grim
nationwide radio address on March 17 calling for a renewal of selective service, which had
been allowed to lapse the previous year. He also sought congressional approval for a
programme of Universal Military Training (UMT). He aimed to send a signal of
determination to the Soviet Union that U.S. military posture was strong and that the country
with this expansion of military preparedness was also prepared in the future to rearm
massively if necessary. Congress rejected UMT, but did vote to resume selective service,
and voted the money for a seventy-group air force, 25% larger than the official request.[17]
Nevertheless, the change in American foreign policy in response to the crisis-like
atmosphere of early 1948 was more symbolic than real. American willingness to consult on
new security arrangements for Europe was the product of neither a changed estimate of
Soviet intentions nor a readiness to take on a larger share of the burden of defending
Western Europe. Rather, it was a tactical maneuver intended to mitigate the effect of the
coup in Czechoslovakia and the brief but intense war scare that followed. As a result, a
series of quick fixes followed to ensure that American forces would not be caught
completely off guard in the event of war. More important was the sensitivity with which
American officials now treated the nervousness of their European counterparts; the
Americans now became more willing to take steps to boost morale in Europe and ease the
now-widespread anxieties there.[18] The coup and the Berlin Blockade that June made clear
that constant reassurance was needed to bind the Europeans to the U.S. system;[19] hence,
the remobilization of U.S. armed forces began.[17]

Indeed, the fear of war between the Soviets and the West reached a high point after the
coup. On March 5, General Lucius D. Clay sent an alarming telegram from Berlin that
advised of its likelihood: "Within the last few weeks, I have felt a subtle change in Soviet
attitude which I cannot define but which now gives me a feeling that it may come with
dramatic suddenness". General Omar Bradley later wrote that when he read Clay's
"lugubrious assessment" in Washington he was "lifted right out of [his] chair", and George
F. Kennan wrote that the coup and the telegram had combined to create "a real war scare"
where "the military and the intelligence fraternity" had "overreacted in the most deplorable
way". Only a week later, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended rearmament and a
restoration of the draft.[20] In fact, Clay's warning had more to do with a request by Army
director of intelligence Lt. Gen. Stephen Chamberlain for material that would persuade
Congress to spend more on military readiness than with any hard evidence of Soviet intent
to launch a war in Europe. Still, in Europe too in February and March "war was being
commonly, even calmly discussed in streets and cafes on the Continent", a fear exacerbated
by reports on February 27 that Stalin had invited Finland to sign a treaty of mutual
assistance, contributing to expectations it would be the next domino to fall;[21] pressure for a
treaty was placed on Norway too.[22]

Amidst the general alarm, more sanguine voices were also raised. The Truman
Administration had months earlier written off Czechoslovakia as little more than a Soviet
satellite; in November 1947 U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall told a cabinet
meeting that the Soviets would probably soon consolidate their hold on Eastern Europe by
clamping down on Czechoslovakia as a "purely defensive move", and Kennan cabled from
Manila that the Soviets seemed to be consolidating their defences, not preparing for
aggression. He later wrote that the Prague coup and the Berlin Blockade were "defensive
reactions" to the Marshall Plan's initial successes and to the Western decision to press for
an independent West German state. This view of the event sees Truman's reaction as him
seizing on a necessary crisis to sell the Marshall Plan and the rearmament programme the
Pentagon had long been pushing.[23] Marshall's own reaction was that "in so far as
international affairs are concerned, a seizure of power by the Communist Party in
Czechoslovakia would not materially alter...the situation which has existed in the last three
years". Even as he was holding a press conference to push his economic aid plan on March
10, the CIA reported that "We do not believe...that this event reflects any sudden increase
in Soviet capabilities, more aggressive intentions, or any change in current Soviet policy or
tactics...The Czech coup and the demands on Finland...do not preclude the possibility of
Soviet efforts to effect a rapprochement with the West", but the administration chose a
different course.[24] On March 2, CIA director Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter had also written to
Truman that "the timing of the coup in Czechoslovakia was forced upon the Kremlin when
the non-Communists took action endangering Communist control of the police. A
Communist victory in the May elections would have been impossible without such
control".[25]

[edit] Italy and France

In Italy, elections were scheduled for April 18 and the Communist-dominated Popular
Democratic Front stood a realistic chance of victory. In the hysteria and foreboding that
gripped Western circles following the Czech coup, it was concluded that similar tactics
could be employed in Italy, whose citizens might not even have a chance to vote. British
Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin and the British Cabinet saw the cooperation between the two
leading parties of the Italian left in almost apocalyptic terms, believing that once the Italian
Communist Party (PCI) won power it would marginalise any moderating influence from
the socialists. Bevin immediately concluded that the "forces of democratic Socialism" must
be strengthened in Italy, and that Britain must support Christian Democracy, despite all its
faults. Bevin was especially alarmed by the ability of the PC, 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, but also to subvert the Italian government
through factory committees of action as in Czechoslovakia. The Italian foreign minister,
despite his alarm over the coup's timing, remained optimistic, assuring Bevin (who saw
Italy as "the immediate danger spot") that the army and police were in excellent shape and
that the coup would have an adverse effect, turning swing voters away from the socialists.
[26]
This was observed when Communist and socialist leaders in Italy defended the Czech
coup as a victory for democracy, rationalizing that the violation of civil rights was a
necessary and just response to a reactionary threat posed by Western imperialist (i.e.,
American) interests; such discourse probably damaged the Front's credibility and undercut
its promises of moderation.[27] Kennan cabled to suggest the PCI should be outlawed and
the U.S. intervene militarily in the likely event of a civil war, but he quickly softened his
line.[28] The American Ambassador in Rome worried that the coup would push self-
interested voters to side with what they considered the winning side, and that events in
Prague probably increased the PCI's prestige, "direct[ing] the politics of the generally
opportunistic Italian toward the Communist bandwagon".[29] In the event, the coup was one
of several factors that led a strong plurality of voters to embrace Christian Democracy and
defeat the left.[30] Stalin, satisfied that America had not moved militarily after the Czech
coup and unwilling to provoke war, respected the result, considering Italy a Western
country.[31]

In France, interesting political currents were also set in motion. The United States was still
pushing the French government to support German rehabilitation. In the aftermath of the
coup, foreign minister Georges Bidault was afraid of stoking anti-German sentiment that
the French Communist Party (PCF) could exploit and harness to instigate a coup of its own.
At the same time, the coup had forced the hand of PCF leader Maurice Thorez, whose
public remarks suggested that in the wake of a Soviet invasion, he would support the Red
Army. The Czech coup, the PCF's failed policy of sabotage and the Marshall Plan's likely
passage were all beginning to sway French public opinion. 70% of French people now
believed the U.S. would do more than any other country to help France, compared to 7%
who thought the USSR would do more. Despite French concern about Germany, it was
becoming increasingly clear that the Soviet threat was greater than the German. France
would still seek an advantageous power position vis-à-vis Germany, but it was becoming
reconciled to the prospect of a rehabilitated Germany as part of postwar Europe.[32]

Along with passage of the Marshall Plan, the other far-reaching implication of the Czech
coup for U.S. foreign policy was to heed Bevin's call for a Western defence association. He
had found the Truman Administration reluctant to accept an unambiguous and binding
alliance with Western Europe even after the irretrievable breakdown of the Council of
Foreign Ministers conference in London in December 1947; Marshall was not prepared to
accept the idea in discussions with Bevin that December 17.[33] On 26 February Bevin again
reiterated that the best way to prevent another Czechoslovakia was to evolve a joint
Western military strategy, and this time he got a more receptive hearing, especially
considering American anxiety over Italy.[33] That spring, European leaders quietly met with
U.S. defence, military and diplomatic officials at the Pentagon, under Marshall's orders,
exploring a framework for a new and unprecedented association for mutual defence. The
following year, NATO would ultimately be born out of these talks.[34]

[edit] Notes
1. ^ Grogin, p. 132.
2. ^ a b Grogin, p. 133.
3. ^ a b c d Grogin, p. 134.
4. ^ a b c d Grenville, p. 370.
5. ^ Grenville, pp. 370-71.
6. ^ a b c d e f Grogin, p. 135.
7. ^ Koester, p. 18.
8. ^ Koester, p. 18.
9. ^ Vertzberger, p. 217.
10. ^ Waller, p. 75.
11. ^ a b Europa Publications Limited, p. 304.
12. ^ Saxonberg, p. 15.
13. ^ Offner, p. 237.
14. ^ Grenville, p. 371.
15. ^ Grogin, p. 148.
16. ^ Thies, p. 32.
17. ^ a b Grogin, p. 136.
18. ^ Thies, pp. 32, 33.
19. ^ Hunter, p. 76.
20. ^ Matthias, p. 62.
21. ^ Thies, pp. 32-33.
22. ^ Thies, p. 34.
23. ^ Steel, p. 452.
24. ^ Kofsky, p. 127.
25. ^ Kofsky, p. 96.
26. ^ Pedaliu, p. 69.
27. ^ Ventresca, p. 6.
28. ^ Hixson, p. 75.
29. ^ Ventresca, p. 82.
30. ^ Pedaliu, p. 82.
31. ^ Ventresca, p. 232.
32. ^ Behrman, p. 155.
33. ^ a b Pedaliu, p. 97.
34. ^ Behrman, p. 157.

[edit] Further reading

 Kaplan, Karel. Pět kapitol o Únoru. Brno: Doplněk, 1997, ISBN 80-85765-73-X.
[edit] References
 Behrman, Greg. The Most Noble Adventure: The Marshall Plan and the Time When
America Helped Save Europe. Simon and Schuster, 2007, ISBN 0743282639.
 Europa Publications Limited. Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of
Independent States, Volume 4. Routledge, 1999, ISBN 1857430581.
 Grenville, John Ashley Soames. A History of the World from the 20th to the 21st
Century. Routledge, 2005, ISBN 0415289548.
 Grogin, Robert C. Natural Enemies: The United States and the Soviet Union in the
Cold War, 1917-1991. Lexington Books, 2001, ISBN 0739101609.
 Hixson, Walter L. George F. Kennan: Cold War Iconoclast. Columbia University
Press, 1989, ISBN 0231068956.
 Hunter, Allen. Rethinking the Cold War. Temple University Press, 1998, ISBN
1566395623.
 Koester, Otto. Seeing Babies in a New Light: the Life of Hanuš Papoušek.
Routledge, 2005, ISBN 0805842705.
 Kofsky, Frank. Harry S. Truman and the War Scare of 1948: A Successful
Campaign to Deceive the Nation. Palgrave Macmillan, 1995, ISBN 0312123299
 Matthias, Willard C. America's Strategic Blunders: Intelligence Analysis and
National Security Policy, 1936-1991. Penn State Press, 2003, ISBN 0271022906.
 Offner, Arnold A. Another Such Victory: President Truman and the Cold War,
1945-1953. Stanford University Press, 2002, ISBN 0804747741.
 Pedaliu, Effie G. H. Britain, Italy, and the Origins of the Cold War. Palgrave
Macmillan, 2003, ISBN 0333973801.
 Saxonberg, Steven. The Fall: A Comparative Study of the End of Communism in
Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland. Routledge, 2001, ISBN
905823097X.
 Steel Ronald. Walter Lippmann and the American Century. Transaction Publishers,
1999, ISBN 0765804646.
 Thies, Wallace J. Friendly Rivals: Bargaining and Burden-Shifting in NATO. M.E.
Sharpe, 2002, ISBN 0765610175.
 Ventresca, Robert. From Fascism to Democracy: Culture and Politics in the Italian
Election of 1948. University of Toronto Press, 2004, ISBN 080208768X.
 Vertzberger, Yaacov. Risk Taking and Decisionmaking: Foreign Military
Intervention Decisions. Stanford University Press, 1998, ISBN 0804727473.
 Waller, Michael. The End of the Communist Power Monopoly. Manchester
University Press ND, 1993, ISBN 0719038197.