Evaluate the political developments in Czechoslovakia during

inter war years (1918-1938)

Political developments Czechoslovakia 1918 – 38

1) Constitutional and governmental development

Masaryk
Pětka
Eduard Beneš
Alois Rašín
- 1918 – 1920: Provisional government
o Established 1918
o Antonín Švehla, Alois Rašín, Jiří Stříbrný, Vavro Šrobár a František Soukup
o Governing via degrees
o 14th October 1918: National Assembly voted on ministers, president
 Masaryk – president
 Karel Kramář – PM
 Edvard Beneš – minister of foreign affairs
 Milan Štefánik – minister of army
 Provisional constitution
o 1919: Treaty of Versailles
 Ended most territory disputes
 Kramář, Beneš
 Article 86 – Mandatory protection of minorities
 New state borders
 6 ethnicities
o Germans, Czechs, Slovaks…(Poles, Hungarians, Jews)
o 1919: Saint-Germain-en-Laye agreement
 Agreement on borders with Hungary and Austria
 Incidents with Hungary, Poland
 Těšín dispute (Poland)
o Spa court (international court in Belgium) decided on the
split of area
 Bratislava dispute (Hungary)
o Superpowers handed territory to Czechoslovakia
- 29th February 1920: New constitution
o Parliamentary democracy
 Parliament
 Senate and Chamber of Deputies
o Chamber of Deputies – 300 members, 6 years, 30 years old
minimum
o Senate – 150 members, 8 years, 45 years old minimum
 Parliament having executive and legislative power
 Proportional representation
 2.6% for a seat
o No clear front runner
o Emergence of great variety of political parties
o Till 1938 no party gained 25% in elections
 If law did not pass a referendum could be proposed
o President
  Voted for 7 years by parliament, no more than 2 in a row, 35 years minimum
 Voted by the parliament
 President wielded in practice more authority than constitution
 Powers:
 Ratified international treaties
 Army’s commander-in-chief
 Appointed ministers, judges, university professors…
o Regional autonomy
 1920: Carpathian Ruthenia
 Autonomous institutions controlled from Prague
 Main language: Czechoslovak (Slovak/Czech considered as dialects)
 Granted statues to minority languages where 20% citizens spoke the
language
o Czechoslovakia divided on 5 semi-autonomous areas
 Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Slovakia, Ruthenia
 1928: Silesia merged with Moravia
 To lower German influence
- Czechoslovakian government
o Pětka
 Coalition government
 Republican agrarian party – biggest party
 Social democrats
 National socialists
 National democracy
 People party
 Led by Antonín Švehla, Jan Černý, Edvard Beneš
 PMs in 20s
 Czechoslovakian government till 1926
 Germans entering government in 1926
 Except 1926-1929 Pětka governed the whole time (in different variations)
 Rightist government led by Antonín Švehla
 Caretaker governments/political governments/semi-caretaker governments
o Other parties and their involvement in government
 Slovakian people party
 In multiple coalitions in 1920s
 Democratic German parties
 In multiple coalitions from 1925
o German Socialists/Agrarians/Christians
o Left coalitions in 1938 = government purely Czechoslovakian
o
 Sudeten Party
 Led by Heinlein
 Established 1935
 Strongest party of Czech Germans
 Never in governments
 1938: strongest party in government
o 44 seats
- The Presidents
o Tomáš Gariggue Massaryk
 Wilson signed a pact giving independence to Czechoslovakia
 Proposed by Masaryk
  Provisional president in 1918
 Elected president in 1920
 Sick in 1921
 1935: Abdicated
 1937: Died
o Edvard Beneš
 Elected president in 1935 after Masaryk abdicated
 1935: Signed protection pact with USSR
 1938: Signed the Munich pact
 1938: Abdicated after signing the Munich deal

2) Opposition development
a. Communism
- 1920 first parliament elections, Social Democrats won (predecessors to
communists)
- Czechoslovakian Communist Party (KSČ) was founded 14th of May, 1921 by
Bohumír Šmeral
- Largest communist party in the world (in relation to the population)
- Fairly popular:
1. In 1925, KSČ received 13,1% of the votes (41 seats)
2. In 1929, they received 10,2% of the votes (30 seats)
3. In 1935, they received 10,3% of the votes (30 seats)
- The communist party was disliked by Moscow
1. Czechoslovakian communism didn’t want to abolish the state, they
wanted to improve it (not purely marxist)
2. Šmeral (the leader) refused to join the commintern (global
communist party)
3. Moscow started inflitrating the party with supporters of Klement
Gottwald
- In 1929, Gottwald announced the 5th party congress during which he
overtook the party
1. Expressed his views that the party is deviated
2. Called for bloody revolution
- This change was disliked by the party members, fell from 80,000 members
to roughly 40,000
1. Also partly caused by the internal purges
- Ultimately, Klement Gottwald became the president in 1948
b. Minority Parties (political division)

· By 1938 – 60 existing political parties

- Only ¼ succeeded in elections
· Demands of political minorities – more radical after world economic crisis
· Party system characterized by polypartyism
- Cause: diverse ethnic composition of population
- Within national community: further divided by social grouping
 Integration of Czech and Slovak parties:
- Began after WW1
 - 1st form: unification of ideologically similar Czech and Slovak parties
→ e.g., Czechoslovak agrarians and Social Democrats
- In major parties: often a Slovak wing that disagreed with decisions of party leadership
- 2nd form: attempt of Czech parties to build own party structure in Slovakia
- Slovak party structure: fragmented
→ Full integration into Czechoslovak state complicated
· German parties:
- Difficult position (to deal with their new status)
- From privileged parties to national minority parties
- Often did not recognize new state system
- German parties: DSAP, BdL (Bund), DCV, SDP
→ SDP
Establishment:
- Great Depression 1929 - increase in DNSAP (German National Socialist Workers' Party)
and DNP (German National Party) membership
- 1933 – DNSAP and DNP dissolved
- 1. 10. 1933 – Konrad Henlein founded SDP
- Structure: former members of DSNAP, DNP
Increase in party’s influence:
- Membership: 1933 – 9500, 1934 – 71 431, 1935 – 384 982
- Henlein gave lectures abroad – increased interest in the Sudeten problem
- 1935 – General election: SDP won 1.2 million votes
- Promises: better representation of minority interests, economic and social situation
Year 1938:
- A turning point in Sudeten German politics
- 20. 2. – Hitler's speech – offer of hope, improving situation of Sudeten Germans
- Annexation of Austria, March 13 – the idea of uniting all Germans
- Renewal of the idea of the right for self-determination
- 28. 3. – Henlein and Hitler met – Hitler’s promise of solution to Czechoslovak problem
- Critical and negative opinion of the ČSR government – did not cooperate with the SDP
- February 1938 – 559,614 members; June – 1 349 180 members
Munich Agreement
- SDP X Czech Army – many conflicts, chaos, many Sudeten Germans died
- 5. 11. 1938 – SDP is integrated into NSDAP
· Hungarian parties:
- Also did not agree with the new position in the state
- Forced to rebuild their party structure
- Most influential: Provincial-Christian Socialist Party (OKSZP)
→ Support from Hungarian population, also Germans living in Slovakia
- Second most popular: Hungarian National Party (MNP)
→ Support first from peasantry, then artisans and merchants
- Unification of OKZSP and MNP into EMP – success only in 1936
- Low percentage of Hungarian population → small representation in public authorities
· Polish parties:
- In Těšín (Silesia) – little influence (small population)
- Polish Socialist Workers Party (PSPR) and Polish People’s Party (PSL)
→ Quite popular among Polish minority
· Jewish parties:
- Situation of Jewish minority better than in other Central European countries
- Official recognition of Jews as separate minority
- Large differentiation between parties: ideological, cultural, religious, national
 - Largest influence: Jewish Party – cooperation with international Poale Zion (Marxist-
Zionist movement)
· Ruthenian parties:
- Differentiation between parties: ideological, national, cultural
- Ukrainophiles:
→ Largely members of Eastern Catholic Churches
→ Advocated for autonomy within Czechoslovakia (even union with Soviet Ukraine)
→ Party representation: National Christian Party
- Russophiles:
→ Largely Eastern Orthodox
→ Advocated for regional autonomy
→ Representation: fascist-style Russian National Autonomous Party
- Hungarians in southern part of the area
→ Unified Magyar Party
→ permanent opposition to the government
- Communists (strong in the poor province)
→ Appeal by encouraging union with Soviet Ukraine
→ 1935 – polled 25% of the vote in Subcarpathian Rus
- 1935 elections – Communists, Unified Magyars, and autonomist groups polled 63%

c. Ethnicities (Germans, Slovaks)

-

3) 30th September 1938, Munich

= MUNICH BETRAYAL or Munich Diktat

WHAT WAS IT?

A meeting between Germany, United Kingdom, France, and Italy
“cession to the Germany of the Sudeten German territory” of Czechoslovakia
Denied 1924 alliance agreement and 1925 military pact of France and Czechoslovakia

Now days: failed act of appeasement= “a byword for the futility of appeasing expansionist
totalitarian states”

- LEADING UP TO EVENTS
o Low-intensity undeclared war on Czechoslovakia since 17 th September 1938 by
Germany
 Czechoslovakia was demanded to give its territory to Germany
 Jeseníky and Cheb under Hitler’s influence
 21st September Polish demands
 22nd September Hungarian demands
 23rd September unsuccessful Polish sabotage
- SUDETENLAND
o Strategic position
 Strengthened by significant border fortifications
 Significant to Czechoslovakia
- RESULTS:
o INTERNAL
 Legal German annexation of the Czechoslovak borderland
 Sudetenland
o More than 3 million of citizens were mainly ethnic Germans
  Hitler: “last territorial gain in Northern Europe
 March 1939, First Slovak Republic
 =Nazi puppet state
o Independent
 Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
 Germany had full control of what remained in Czechoslovakia
o Including military arsenal
 Czechoslovakia disappeared
o INTERNATIONAL
 2nd November 1938, First Vienna Award
 Separated Hungarian inhabited territories in southern Slovakia and
southern Subcarpathian Rus’ from Czechoslovakia
 30th November 1938, Czechoslovakia ceded small territories od Orava and
Spiš regions
- REACTIONS
o CZECHOSLOVAKIA
 “About us, without us!” (o nás bez nás)
 Feeling of Czechs and Slovaks towards the Munich Agreement
 Lost of 70% of iron and steel industry
 Lost 70% od electrical power
 Lost 3.5 million citizens to Germany
 “liberations for Germans
- CONDITIONS
o Eduard Beneš was president of Czechoslovakia
 Leader of the Czechoslovak government in exile
o Konrad Henlein, leader of Sudeten German Party (SdP)
 Nazi Party of Germany in Czechoslovakia
- HISTORY
o First Czechoslovak Republic established in 1918
 After collapse of Austro-Hungarian Empire after WW1
 Treaty of Trianon: defined boarders of the new state
o Divided regions of Bohemia and Moravia
o Great Depression 1929
 Affected highly-industrialized and export-oriented Sudeten Germans
 1936, 60% of unemployed people were Germans
o 1933, Sudeten German leader Konrad Henlein founded Sudeten German Party (SdP)
 Militant, populist, openly hostile to Czechoslovak government
 1935, second largest political party
th
o 24 April 1938, SdP issued series of demands
 = the Karlsbader Programm
 Required autonomy for Germans living in Czechoslovakia
o Resulted in minority rights offer by Czechoslovakia
 May 1938, SdP gained 88% of ethnic German votes
o 15th September, Secret offer of Eduard Beneš
 6 000 km2 of Czechoslovakia to Germany
 Germans had to admit 1.5-2.0 million Sudeten Germans, which
Czechoslovakia would expel
 No response from Hitler
AUTHORS: Patricie Janstová, Filip Klaban, Barbora Nesrstová, Dominika Slezáková, Filip Liška, Oliver
Schmidt