CZECHOSLOVAKIA: CROSSROADS AND CRISES, 1918-88 Czechoslovakia: Crossroads and Crises, 1918-88 Edited by Norman Stone Professor of Modern History University of Oxford and Eduard Strouhal Czechoslovak Section B.B.C. World Service Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 978-1-349-10646-2 ISBN 978-1-349-10644-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-10644-8 © British Broadcasting Corporation, 1989 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1989 All rights reserved. For information, write: Scholarly and Reference Division, St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 First published in the United States of America in 1989 ISBN 978-0-312-03201-2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Czechoslovakia : crossroads and crises, 1918-88/ edited by Norman Stone and Eduard Strouhal. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-312-03201-2 1. Czechoslovakia-History-1918- I. Stone, Norman. 11. Strouhal, Eduard, 1928- DB2187.5.C94 1989 943.7'03--dcI9 89-6068 CIP This book is dedicated to the peoples of Czechoslovakia Contents Listot Maps ix List ot Plates x Acknowledgements xi Notes on the Contributors xii 1 Introductory Essay: Czechoslovakia 1 Norman Stone 1918 2 The Origins of Czechoslovakia (Russia - The Horne Front) 11 loset Kalvoda 3 France, Britain, Italy and the Independence of 30 Czechoslovakia in 1918 Harry Hantik 4 The United States and Czechoslovak Independence 62 Victor S. Mamatey 5 Thoughts on the Meaning of Utopia 80 Karel Macha 1938 6 The Nationality Question in Czechoslovakia and the 1938 89 Munich Agreement Jan Mlynarik 7 Could We Have Fought? - The 'Munich Complex' in Czech 101 Policies and Czech Thinking Karel Bartosek 8 President Edvard Benes and the Czechoslovak Crises of 120 1938 and 1948 Edward Taborsky 1948 9 Czechoslovakia's February 1948 147 Karel Kaplan vii vüi Contents 10 Czechoslovak Communists and the State (1928--48) 169 Jacques Rupnik 11 Making and Writing History (Edvard Henes, 1943-48) 183 Erazim Kohtik 1968 12 The Prague Spring - Twenty Years After 207 Milan Hauner 13 The Czechoslovak Economic Reform of the 1960s 231 Jifi Kosta 14 The Prague Spring as a Social Movement 253 Zdenek Strmiska 1918-88 15 The lews in Czechoslovakia between 1918 and 1968 271 Erich Kulka 16 The Vicissitudes of the Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia, 297 1918 to 1988 Karel Skalicky Index 325 List of Maps 1. Europe hefore the First World War xv 2. Europe after the First World War xvi 3. Czechoslovakia after Munich in 1938 xvii 4. Central Europe after the Second World War xviii ix List of Plates 1. M. R. Stefanik, as colonel, in Rome, 25 May 1918 2. M. R. Stefanik during a Czechoslovak military ceremony in Yekaterinburk 3. T. G. Masaryk's return to liberated Czechoslovakia, 20 December 1918 4. President T. G. Masaryk, Independence celebrations, Prague 5. The re-elected President T. G. Masaryk and Premier Malypetr 6. Demands for 'Unity, Security of the Republic, Democracy and Peace' 7. E. Benes with J. Masaryk in exile in Britain 8. E. Benes returns to Prague in 1945 9. Aftermath of the Czechoslovak crises in 1948 10. Klement Gottwald and his wife Marta in Prague Cathedral 11. President Ludvik Svoboda and Alexander Dubeek greet the crowds, May Day 1968 12. Soviet invasion: young Czechs carry the national ftag, August 1968 13. Festive session in honour of the fiftieth anniversary of Czecho­ slovakia at Prague Castle 14. Gustav Husak congratulates Milos Jakes after his election as general secretary x Acknowledgements The editors would like to express their gratitude to all the people whose efforts made the publication of this book possible, but especially to Andrew Taussig, BBC World Service, London. N.S. E.S. xi Notes on the Contributors Karel Bartosek was educated at Charles University in Prague and has lived in France since 1982, working at the Institut d'Histoire du Temps Present of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. He is the author of several articles and books and at present is also editor of the magazine La Nouvelle Alternative. Harry Hanak is Reader in International Relations at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at the University of London. His main research field is in East European, in particular Czechoslovak, history and Soviet foreign policy. Milan Hauner is historian of International Relations at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA, and Associate Member of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. In addition to his PhD from Charles University of Prague (1968), he has a PhD from the University of Cambridge, England (1972). Josef Kalvoda is Professor of History and Political Science at St Joseph College, West Hartford, Connecticut, USA. He has a BA from Hunter College of the City University of New York and MA and PhD degrees in public law and government from Columbia University. He has published three books and several hundred articles. Karel Kaplan, after completing his elementary education, became a qualified worker in the Bata Shoe Works in Zlin. He later studied at the Social Sciences Institute of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. In 1960 he wrote his first doctoral thesis. In the 1960s he worked at the Czechoslovak Academy of Science's Historical Institute on Czechoslovak post-war history. Since 1976 he has lived in the German Federal Republic and has published several books and studies in his field, based on hitherto unpublished original documents. Erazim Kohak is Professor of Philosophy at Boston University. His recent publications include Idea and Experience, The Embers and the Stars, and Krize rozumu a pfirozeny svet. xii Notes on the Contributors xiii Jiti Kosta Dr, CSc., Emeritus Professor of Economics, especially of Socialist economic systems, of the J. W. Goethe-Universitaet in FrankfurtIMain. He has published several books and articles on various aspects of socialist economic systems and socialist models of development. Erich Kulka was arrested in 1939 by the Gestapo for anti-Nazi activities and spent the war years in various concentration camps. In January 1945 he managed to escape from Auschwitz. After returning to his native land he was decorated for his resistance activities and began to write about his wartime experiences. In 1968 he settled in Israel and continues to write on the Holocaust and on Jewish participation in anti-Nazi resistance. Karel Macha has PhD degrees in philosophy and science from Charles University in Prague. In 1969 he was Professor and Dean of the Philosophy Faculty of Prague University but in 1970 he was deprived of his post for political reasons. Since 1978 he has been Visiting Professor at various universities in the German Federal Republic and USA. He is engaged presently in publishing and writing a history of Bohemian philosophy, apart from being the author of various books and articles. Victor S. Mamatey is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Georgia. He studied in Bratislava and later at Wittenberg College, Chicago University, Harvard and Paris. He is author of several books and articles on modern history of Central and East Europe. Jan Mlynarik studied at Charles University of Prague where he received his PhD in modern Czechoslovak history in 1957. He later taught history at university level but after 1969 he became a manual worker for poIitical reasons. In 1981-2 he was in prison for publishing various articles abroad under the name of Danubius, and in 1982 he was expelled from Czechoslovakia and lives as an independent historian in the German Federal RepubIic. Jacques Rupnik was educated at the University of Paris and at Harvard. He later became Central and East European specialist at the BBC in London, and is now Senior Fellow of Fondation National de Science Politique in Paris and the author of The History of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. xiv Notes on the Contributors Karel Skalicky is Professor of Fundamental Theology at the Papal Lateran University, Professor of Religion and Director of the Depart­ ment of Science of Religion, and Director of lectures on the Introduction to Christianity in the Faculty of Medicine at the Catholic University in Rome. Norman Stone is Professor ofModern History and Fellow ofWorcester College, University of Oxford and the author of several books and articles on modern East and Central European his tory . Zdenek Strmiska studied sociology and philosophy at the University of Brno, Bordeaux, Paris and Olomouc. In the 1960s he tried to renew sociological research and became a member of the newly­ founded Sociological Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. Since 1968 he has worked in the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris, and in 1980 he became a director of the Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires sur les Transformations Sociales. He has published several books and articles on Soviet-type societies. Edward Taborsky has the degree of Doctor of Law and State Sciences from Czechoslovakia. During the Second World War he escaped to England where he became secretary and legal adviser to the Czechoslovak President in exile, Dr Edvard Benei;' After the war he became Ambassador to Stockholm but resigned after the communist coup of 1948 and later joined the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin, where he is currently Professor of Government. He is the author of a number of books and articles, mainly on East-West relations. 1. Europe before the First World War ~ o ~ ~. ~ -a a:.. ,. •Moscow RUSSIAN EMPIRE ~ -Kiev ,.. '( // "-" ~~''''---~'''.''''- ... Lisbon 4 ~2,~ :_"~_, PERSIA (1\ ' . .. -... __ .... '-t, 2. Europe after the First World War g; ~ J: .~ t -a , a:.. •Moscow UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS ~. Klev '''- ~_"""-','--) PORTUGAL ,:, ~ , ; ....... -- ) Cl ?~ /' TURKEY /r'·-" ....... , PERSIA ,,. ___ 1-'''' I \'i, 'SYRIA j \",.'' __ (French / MESOPOTAMIA "1 ,Mandate!/ (British Mandate) '\ 3.