David Tenner
2017-10-15 17:00:12 UTC
The 1946 Czecholoslovak elections
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechoslovak_parliamentary_election,_1946 were
conducted *after* the Soviets had withdrawn their trooops, and IMO have to be
considered basically free elections despite the banning of some pre-war
right-wing parties like the Agrarians and the disqualification of some voters
for collaboration with the Germans. [1] (There was certainly nothing like the
violence and falsification of returns that characterized the 1947 Polish
elections.) Anyway, let's say that for some reason, Benes' National Socialist
Party (no relation to the Nazis, of course, despite the similarity of
names...) does considerably better and the Communists considerably worse in
the election than in OTL. (Even in OTL the Marxist parties--the Communists
and the Social Democrats who, under Fierlinger's
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zdenek_Fierlinger leadership, were their close
allies--only got a bare majority in the National Assembly.) The non-Marxist
parties are still willing to have a coalition government with the Communists
but insist that the Communists *not* get the key positions of Prime Minister
or Minister of the Interior or Minister of Defense. (Ludvik Svoboda, who held
the last-named position, was not technically a Communist but was strongly
aligned with them.) If the Communists insist "give us these positions or we
won't participate in the government at all"--well, then, the National
Socialists, the People's (Catholic) Party, and the Slovak Democrats say they
will if necesssary form a governmemt all by themselves. (And they might be
joined by some Social Democrats; not everyone in the party was happy with
Fierlinger's leadership.)
What does Stalin do? Does he send troops back in, regardless of any backlash
this may cause in the West? I get the impression that in 1946 he is not yet
ready for a total break with the Western Allies--the Communists are still in
the governments of France and Italy, the Marshall Plan and Truman Doctrine
have yet to be formulated, etc. But if he doesn't send troops back in, will
Czechoslovakia still eventually become a Communist state? (The Czechoslovak
Communists, even without the control of key ministries or the aid of Soviet
troops, still do have leverage--with their control of the trade unions, they
can call strikes, including a general strike. But strikes alone were not
enough to destablilize France or Italy in 1947 after the Communists left the
government.) Can Stalin reconcile himself to a "Finlandized" (for want of a
better word) Czechoslovakia?
It is tempting to argue that a victory of the non-Communists would in the end
mean no more than the victory of the Smallholders in Hungary in 1945.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_parliamentary_election,_1945 But
again remember that what made it possible for Rakosi's "salami tactics"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mátyás_Rákosi to work in Hungary was the
presence of the Red Army.
[1] One indication that the election results were not foreordaianed is that
in Slovakia, the Slovak Democratic Party got 62 percent of the vote, compared
to only 30.3 percent for the Slovak Communists.
https://books.google.com/books?id=AZZoTdLB4nwC&pg=PA174 Yet the election was
neither more nor less free in the Czech lands than in Slovakia. If Czech
voters had been as supportive of the non-Marxist parties as their Slovak
counterparts were, there would have been a clear non-Marxist majority in the
National Assembly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechoslovak_parliamentary_election,_1946 were
conducted *after* the Soviets had withdrawn their trooops, and IMO have to be
considered basically free elections despite the banning of some pre-war
right-wing parties like the Agrarians and the disqualification of some voters
for collaboration with the Germans. [1] (There was certainly nothing like the
violence and falsification of returns that characterized the 1947 Polish
elections.) Anyway, let's say that for some reason, Benes' National Socialist
Party (no relation to the Nazis, of course, despite the similarity of
names...) does considerably better and the Communists considerably worse in
the election than in OTL. (Even in OTL the Marxist parties--the Communists
and the Social Democrats who, under Fierlinger's
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zdenek_Fierlinger leadership, were their close
allies--only got a bare majority in the National Assembly.) The non-Marxist
parties are still willing to have a coalition government with the Communists
but insist that the Communists *not* get the key positions of Prime Minister
or Minister of the Interior or Minister of Defense. (Ludvik Svoboda, who held
the last-named position, was not technically a Communist but was strongly
aligned with them.) If the Communists insist "give us these positions or we
won't participate in the government at all"--well, then, the National
Socialists, the People's (Catholic) Party, and the Slovak Democrats say they
will if necesssary form a governmemt all by themselves. (And they might be
joined by some Social Democrats; not everyone in the party was happy with
Fierlinger's leadership.)
What does Stalin do? Does he send troops back in, regardless of any backlash
this may cause in the West? I get the impression that in 1946 he is not yet
ready for a total break with the Western Allies--the Communists are still in
the governments of France and Italy, the Marshall Plan and Truman Doctrine
have yet to be formulated, etc. But if he doesn't send troops back in, will
Czechoslovakia still eventually become a Communist state? (The Czechoslovak
Communists, even without the control of key ministries or the aid of Soviet
troops, still do have leverage--with their control of the trade unions, they
can call strikes, including a general strike. But strikes alone were not
enough to destablilize France or Italy in 1947 after the Communists left the
government.) Can Stalin reconcile himself to a "Finlandized" (for want of a
better word) Czechoslovakia?
It is tempting to argue that a victory of the non-Communists would in the end
mean no more than the victory of the Smallholders in Hungary in 1945.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_parliamentary_election,_1945 But
again remember that what made it possible for Rakosi's "salami tactics"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mátyás_Rákosi to work in Hungary was the
presence of the Red Army.
[1] One indication that the election results were not foreordaianed is that
in Slovakia, the Slovak Democratic Party got 62 percent of the vote, compared
to only 30.3 percent for the Slovak Communists.
https://books.google.com/books?id=AZZoTdLB4nwC&pg=PA174 Yet the election was
neither more nor less free in the Czech lands than in Slovakia. If Czech
voters had been as supportive of the non-Marxist parties as their Slovak
counterparts were, there would have been a clear non-Marxist majority in the
National Assembly.
--
David Tenner
***@ameritech.net
David Tenner
***@ameritech.net