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join in a rescue effort if, as required under their mutual assistance treaty with Czechoslovakia, France would intervene first. But Paris, like London, was determined to avoid war at all costs. Conclusions of the four-power Munich Agreement of 30 September 1938, which directed unrepresented Czechoslovakia to cede all disputed Sudeten territory of Germany within 10 days, prompted Benes to resign and leave the country. Although his successor, Emil Hacha, was more acceptable to the Axis powers, he was in no position to halt the breakup of his homeland. Poland and Hungary joined Germany in seeking additional bits and pieces of the hapless Czechoslovak state. Finally, in March 1939, Hacha bowed to a new ultimatum from Berlin and surrendered control of all remaining Czech territory to Germany. What was left of Bohemia and Moravia was promptly incorporated en bloc into the Third Reich as a protectorate. To the east, Slovakia was established as an autonomous republic under an almost equally onerous degree of German control. After existing for only 21 years, Czechoslovakia disappeared from the map.
The outbreak of World War II enabled Benes to form an exile government in London and, in time, to secure full recognition for his group from all the major Allied powers both as the legal successor to Czechoslovakia's pre-Munich regime and as a cobelligerent in the war against the Axis. As the war progressed, Benes became convinced of the wisdom of a policy of close cooperation with the Soviet Union as well as with the West. In December 1943, he flew to Moscow to conclude a new 20-year treaty of friendship and mutual assistance with the Kremlin. While there, he also agreed to several political compromises that favored his country's Communists in order to secure their cooperation in a postwar government. In early 1945, when it became evident that responsibility for liberating Prague would fall to the Soviets, Benes returned to Moscow in order to work out the details of establishing a provisional government on Czechoslovak soil as soon as circumstances would permit. In April, Benes and his newly reorganized cabinet arrived in Kosice, a town in eastern Slovakia that had been designated as the temporary national capital a few weeks earlier. Their first official act was to publish a detailed governmental plan, the so-called Kosice Program, which revealed the extent of the concessions Benes had made to insure Soviet support.
Indeed, the changes made in Czechoslovakia's traditional political and economic systems under the Kosice Program were nearly as dramatic as the population and territorial adjustments cited earlier. A National Front coalition government was established in which the Communists initially held more than one-third of the portfolios, including the important ministries of defense, interior, agriculture, and information. The conservative Agrarian Party—the largest political party in prewar Czechoslovakia—was barred from participation in the coalition on the grounds that its representatives had collaborated with the Germans during the occupation. Under these circumstances, the Communists were soon able to push through a number of measures that further strengthened their position. Land distribution, under a thinly disguised system of party patronage, was begun by the Communist minister of agriculture. Nationalization of industry, banking, and commerce was introduced. A reorganization of the military and police establishments aimed at bringing them more fully under Communist control was initiated.
These moves, together with the general popularity enjoyed by the Communists as a result of their prewar and wartime activities, contributed to the party's strong showing in the parliamentary elections of 1946. Receiving 38% of the votes cast, Communists won 114 of the 300 seats at stake—far more than any of the other five coalition parties. Their chief, Klement Gottwald, became prime minister. With little interference from his relatively complacent intended victims, he promptly began laying the groundwork for a total Communist takeover. His opportunity came in February 1948 when, noting that Communist popularity was declining and hoping to hasten new elections, all the non-Communist cabinet ministers resigned in protest of Communist manipulation of the police.
The Communists quickly brought massive pressures to bear on President Benes to force him to form a new government which would exclude their opponents. Communist-controlled action committees in almost every town, factory, school, and government office were armed and sent out to join the police in an overwhelming display of strength in Prague and other key points throughout the country. The radio and press were commandeered and used to saturate the population with pro-Communist propaganda. Tired, sick, and above all anxious to avoid civil war, President Benes capitulated. On February 25, he accepted a new National Front cabinet headed by Gottwald and composed largely of Communists and Communist sympathizers. And, while otherwise relatively bloodless, the coup took a final tragic twist in what may have been yet another defenestration incident. Whether he jumped or fell, as the Communists maintain, or whether he was pushed, as most Czechoslovaks still believe, the body of Jan Masaryk—Benes' postwar foreign minister and son of Czechoslovakia's first President—was found beneath the window of his quarters in Prague Castle on 10 March 1948.
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110008-5
