HISTORY
The Czech Republic was the western
part of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic. Formed into a common
state after World War I (October 28, 1918), the Czechs, Moravians,
and Slovaks remained united for almost 75 years. On January 1,
1993, the two republics split to form two separate states.
The Czechs lost their national independence
to the Hapsburgs Empire in 1620 at the Battle of White Mountain
and for the next 300 years, were ruled by the Austrian Monarchy.
With the collapse of the monarchy at the end of World War I, the
independent country of Czechoslovakia was formed, encouraged by,
among others, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson.
Despite cultural differences, the
Slovaks shared with the Czechs similar aspirations for independence
from the Hapsburg state and voluntarily united with the Czechs.
For historical reasons, Slovaks were not at the same level of
economic and technological development as the Czechs, but the
freedom and opportunity found in Czechoslovakia enabled them to
make strides toward overcoming these inequalities. However, the
gap never was fully bridged, and the discrepancy played a continuing
role throughout the 75 years of the union.
Although Czechoslovakia was the only
east European country to remain a parliamentary democracy from
1918 to 1938, it was plagued with minority problems, the most
important of which concerned the country's large German population.
Constituting more than 22% of the interwar state's population
and largely concentrated in the Bohemian and Moravian border regions
(the Sudetenland), members of this minority, including some who
were sympathetic to Nazi Germany, undermined the new Czechoslovak
state. Internal and external pressures culminated in September
1938, when France and the United Kingdom yielded to Nazi pressures
at Munich and agreed to force Czechoslovakia to cede the Sudetenland
to Germany.
Fulfilling Hitler's aggressive designs
on all of Czechoslovakia, Germany invaded what remained of Bohemia
and Moravia in March 1939, establishing a German "protectorate."
By this time, Slovakia had already declared independence and had
become a puppet state of the Germans.
At the close of World War II, Soviet
troops overran all of Slovakia, Moravia, and much of Bohemia,
including Prague. In May 1945, U.S. forces liberated the city
of Plzen and most of western Bohemia. A civilian uprising against
the German garrison took place in Prague in May 1945. Following
Germany's surrender, some 2.9 million ethnic Germans were expelled
from Czechoslovakia with Allied approval under the Benes Decrees.
Reunited after the war, the Czechs
and Slovaks set national elections for the spring of 1946. The
democratic elements, led by President Eduard Benes, hoped the
Soviet Union would allow Czechoslovakia the freedom to choose
its own form of government and aspired to a Czechoslovakia that
would act as a bridge between East and West. The Czechoslovak
Communist Party, which won 38% of the vote, held most of the key
positions in the government and gradually managed to neutralize
or silence the anti-communist forces. Although the communist-led
government initially intended to participate in the Marshall Plan,
it was forced by Moscow to back out. Under the cover of superficial
legality, the Communist Party seized power in February 1948.
After extensive purges modeled on
the Stalinist pattern in other east European states, the Communist
Party tried 14 of its former leaders in November 1952 and sentenced
11 to death. For more than a decade thereafter, the Czechoslovak
communist political structure was characterized by the orthodoxy
of the leadership of party chief Antonin Novotny.
The 1968 Soviet Invasion
The communist leadership allowed token reforms in the early 1960s,
but discontent arose within the ranks of the Communist Party central
committee, stemming from dissatisfaction with the slow pace of
the economic reforms, resistance to cultural liberalization, and
the desire of the Slovaks within the leadership for greater autonomy
for their republic. This discontent expressed itself with the
removal of Novotny from party leadership in January 1968 and from
the presidency in March. He was replaced as party leader by a
Slovak, Alexander Dubcek.
After January 1968, the Dubcek leadership
took practical steps toward political, social, and economic reforms.
In addition, it called for politico-military changes in the Soviet-dominated
Warsaw Pact and Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. The leadership
affirmed its loyalty to socialism and the Warsaw Pact but also
expressed the desire to improve relations with all countries of
the world regardless of their social systems.
A program adopted in April 1968 set
guidelines for a modern, humanistic socialist democracy that would
guarantee, among other things, freedom of religion, press, assembly,
speech, and travel; a program that, in Dubcek's words, would give
socialism "a human face." After 20 years of little public participation,
the population gradually started to take interest in the government,
and Dubcek became a truly popular national figure.
The internal reforms and foreign
policy statements of the Dubcek leadership created great concern
among some other Warsaw Pact governments. On the night of August
20, 1968, Soviet, Hungarian, Bulgarian, East German, and Polish
troops invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovak Government
immediately declared that the troops had not been invited into
the country and that their invasion was a violation of socialist
principles, international law, and the UN Charter.
The principal Czechoslovak reformers
were forcibly and secretly taken to the Soviet Union. Under obvious
Soviet duress, they were compelled to sign a treaty that provided
for the "temporary stationing" of an unspecified number of Soviet
troops in Czechoslovakia. Dubcek was removed as party First Secretary
on April 17, 1969, and replaced by another Slovak, Gustav Husak.
Later, Dubcek and many of his allies within the party were stripped
of their party positions in a purge that lasted until 1971 and
reduced party membership by almost one-third.
The 1970s and 1980s became known
as the period of "normalization," in which the apologists for
the 1968 Soviet invasion prevented, as best they could, any opposition
to their conservative regime. Political, social, and economic
life stagnated. The population, cowed by the "normalization,"
was quiet.
At the time of the communist takeover,
Czechoslovakia had a balanced economy and one of the higher levels
of industrialization on the continent. In 1948, however, the government
began to stress heavy industry over agricultural and consumer
goods and services. Many basic industries and foreign trade, as
well as domestic wholesale trade, had been nationalized before
the communists took power. Nationalization of most of the retail
trade was completed in 1950-51.
Heavy industry received major economic
support during the 1950s, but central planning resulted in waste
and inefficient use of industrial resources. Although the labor
force was traditionally skilled and efficient, inadequate incentives
for labor and management contributed to high labor turnover, low
productivity, and poor product quality. Economic failures reached
a critical stage in the 1960s, after which various reform measures
were sought with no satisfactory results.
Hope for wideranging economic reform
came with Alexander Dubcek's rise in January 1968. Despite renewed
efforts, however, Czechoslovakia could not come to grips with
inflationary forces, much less begin the immense task of correcting
the economy's basic problems.
The economy saw growth during the
1970s but then stagnated between 1978-82. Attempts at revitalizing
it in the 1980s with management and worker incentive programs
were largely unsuccessful. The economy grew after 1982, achieving
an annual average output growth of more than 3% between 1983-85.
Imports from the West were curtailed, exports boosted, and hard
currency debt reduced substantially. New investment was made in
the electronic, chemical, and pharmaceutical sectors, which were
industry leaders in eastern Europe in the mid-1980s.
The Velvet Revolution
The roots of the 1989 Civic Forum movement that came to power
during the "Velvet Revolution" lie in human rights activism. On
January 1, 1977, more than 250 human rights activists signed a
manifesto called the Charter 77, which criticized the government
for failing to implement human rights provisions of documents
it had signed, including the state's own constitution; international
covenants on political, civil, economic, social, and cultural
rights; and the Final Act of the Conference for Security and Cooperation
in Europe. Although not organized in any real sense, the signatories
of Charter 77 constituted a citizens' initiative aimed at inducing
the Czechoslovak Government to observe formal obligations to respect
the human rights of its citizens.
On November 17, 1989, the communist
police violently broke up a peaceful pro-democracy demonstration,
brutally beating many student participants. In the days which
followed, Charter 77 and other groups united to become the Civic
Forum, an umbrella group championing bureaucratic reform and civil
liberties. Its leader was the dissident playwright Vaclav Havel.
Intentionally eschewing the label "party," a word given a negative
connotation during the previous regime, Civic Forum quickly gained
the support of millions of Czechs, as did its Slovak counterpart,
Public Against Violence.
Faced with an overwhelming popular
repudiation, the Communist Party all but collapsed. Its leaders,
Husak and party chief Milos Jakes, resigned in December 1989,
and Havel was elected President of Czechoslovakia on December
29. The astonishing quickness of these events was in part due
to the unpopularity of the communist regime and changes in the
policies of its Soviet guarantor as well as to the rapid, effective
organization of these public initiatives into a viable opposition.
A coalition government, in which
the Communist Party had a minority of ministerial positions, was
formed in December 1989. The first free elections in Czechoslovakia
since 1946 took place in June 1990 without incident and with more
than 95% of the population voting. As anticipated, Civic Forum
and Public Against Violence won landslide victories in their respective
republics and gained a comfortable majority in the federal Parliament.
The Parliament undertook substantial steps toward securing the
democratic evolution of Czechoslovakia. It successfully moved
toward fair local elections in November 1990, ensuring fundamental
change at the county and town level.
Civic Forum found, however, that
although it had successfully completed its primary objective--the
overthrow of the communist regime--it was ineffectual as a governing
party. The demise of Civic Forum was viewed by most as necessary
and inevitable.
By the end of 1990, unofficial parliamentary
"clubs" had evolved with distinct political agendas. Most influential
was the Civic Democratic Party, headed by Vaclav Klaus who later
became Prime Minister. Other notable parties that came to the
fore after the split were the Czech Social Democratic Party, Civic
Movement, and Civic Democratic Alliance.
By 1992, Slovak calls for greater
autonomy effectively blocked the daily functioning of the federal
government. In the election of June 1992, Klaus's Civic Democratic
Party won handily in the Czech lands on a platform of economic
reform. Vladimir Meciar's Movement for a Democratic Slovakia emerged
as the leading party in Slovakia, basing its appeal on fairness
to Slovak demands for autonomy. Federalists, like Havel, were
unable to contain the trend toward the split. In July 1992, President
Havel resigned. In the latter half of 1992, Klaus and Meciar hammered
out an agreement that the two republics would go their separate
ways by the end of the year.
Members of the federal parliament,
divided along national lines, barely cooperated enough to pass
the law officially separating the two nations. The law was passed
on December 27, 1992. On January 1, 1993, the Czech Republic and
the Republic of Slovakia were simultaneously and peacefully founded.
Relationships
between the two states, despite occasional disputes about the
division of federal property and governing of the border have
been peaceful. Both states attained immediate recognition from
the U.S. and their European neighbors.
