Comment by inglor_cz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by inglor_cz | Hacker News Reader

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Czechoslovak-born here. This is not completely correct either.

Communists won the election in 1946 and formed a coalition government in which they were the strongest force, but not completely dominant. There were other "bourgeoise" ministers. Unfortunately, Communists controlled the ministry of the interior and cleansed the police of "reactionary elements", thus cementing their control over the civilian law enforcement. Not over the army yet, though.

There were regular elections scheduled for May 1948 and opinion polls were indicating that Communist share of vote is actually going to diminish. So they preempted them by staging a coup supported by People's Militias (a completely illegal armed militia of the party) on February 25, 1948. After that, the democracy was toast and it was full speed towards Stalinism, show trials etc.

Some of the army generals wanted to suppress the coup militarily, but the aging President (Beneš) did not allow that. IDK if it would have been better or worse. Civil wars tend to leave a very toxic legacy.

There is an important lesson in it. People should be able to vote bastards, but this must always be reversible. If the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were part of the Czechoslovakian constitution at that time, this development would not be legal.

However, at that time, it was not existing and, if it existed, it would be probably quite hard to put it into the legal system because of the fresh edicts against Germans. In the end, the third Czechoslovak Republic failed because of its rooted nature and kind of deserved its fate. You cannot displace 1.2M of people and try to look as a democratic state (no matter how necessary it was).

> You cannot displace 1.2M of people and try to look as a democratic state (no matter how necessary it was).

There are a number of democratic states that have happily uprooted a lot more people than that, both before, and after WW2. Most of them haven't failed.

>If the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were part of the Czechoslovakian constitution at that time, this development would not be legal.

Which wouldn't stop anything in and of itself. The current Chinese constitution allows freedom of speech, for example.

That development was not exactly legal even then, but there was no one who would stop them because the superpowers carved up Europe and this was Stalin's area. He could do what he wanted.

1.2M.. I think the current estimates are 2.4M expelled Germans, not counting the expelled Hungarians from Slovakia (many of which later returned and were granted citizenship).

As somebody born after 1993 (thus into Czech Republic, not Czechoslovakia) who (thankfully?) didn't experience that period, thanks for the writeup.

As another Czechoslovak (born 1981 under socialism), I was eagerly awaiting inglor_cz's response the moment I saw this article on HN :-)

Wow, TIL people take notice of me :-)

> IDK if it would have been better or worse. Civil wars tend to leave a very toxic legacy.

Had it done so, it's very likely that the USSR would have intervened.

So might the Western powers. That was still the moment when Americans had the only working nuclear weapons on Earth.

The width of the possible scenarios is unsettling, one of them may be Prague turning into European Hiroshima.

> So might the Western powers.

That would be unlikely - Czechoslovakia was in Soviet sphere of influence as decided in Yalta and the West was severely outgunned (at least in conventional weapons) by Soviets in Europe.

> the West was severely outgunned (at least in conventional weapons) by Soviets in Europe.

"The west" was severely outgunned by the west - the largest political party in France in 1948 was PCF, the communist/socialist alliance in Italy almost won that year. Finland remained outside the eastern bloc simply because it was no longer seen as being part of a threat. In the UK the Labour party which tossed out Churchill while he was in Potsdam was busy nationalizing the commanding heights of England's means of production (although they were not as militant as their comrades on the continent of course).

The west was busy trying to hold onto the West, never mind intervening in Prague.

Not to mention all the troubles in Italy and Greece

Unlikely, yes, but stranger things have happened during the early Cold War.

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