6 - The Gottwald government

Summary

RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COALITION

The first year after the 1946 elections was of great importance for the possibilities of developing a new model of socialism in Czechoslovakia. It was a period in which the Communist Party was clearly transcending, in much of its practice and to some extent in its ideas, the conception of the national democratic revolution as centring on a struggle against ‘reaction’. The most prominent feature in the development of their policy was the Two Year Plan for economic recovery. This was of immense importance for the development of Czechoslovak society generally as it became the focal point for social conflicts and discontent. It was also matched by a recognition within the party that new realities required theoretical advances. This led to the hesitant development of the concept of the Czechoslovak road to socialism.

The starting point for this was the recognition by the KSČ leadership that, despite their good electoral performance, they could still only govern in a coalition with all the other Czech parties. They had expected no more. In fact, Gottwald could point out that their vote of 40% in the Czech lands was barely short of the 41 % expected on the basis of predictions by basic organisations. This he saw as further evidence of how closely they were in touch with the people's thinking: by contrast, the other parties held grossly exaggerated views of their own likely votes.

Communist satisfaction was restricted by three sources of unease. The first stemmed from the Democrats' victory in Slovakia which reduced the overall majority for the KSČ together with the Social Democrats to almost the narrowest possible.