APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110010-2
1946
- May
- Communists receive 38%, National Socialists 18%, Social Democrats 13%, and Slovak Democrats 14% of votes in first postwar general election. Three other parties share remaining 17% of votes.
- June
- Eduard Benes is unanimously elected President.
- July
- Klement Gottwald (Communist) forms government.
1947
- July
- Under Soviet pressure Czechoslovak cabinet reverses its decision to participate in Marshall Plan.
1948
- February
- Communists seize power in bloodless coup and formally establish "people's democracy."
- June
- Benes resigns presidency.
- Gottwald becomes President and Antonin Zapotocky Prime Minister.
1949
- January
- First Five Year (Economic) Plan (1949-53) begins.
1951
- March
- Roman Catholic Archbishop Beran is banished from Prague.
- November
- Rudolph Slansky is arrested and charged with conspiracy against state.
1952
- November
- Slansky and 10 other former officials are sentenced to death for treason.
1953
- March
- Gottwald dies; Zapotocky becomes President and Viliam Siroky Prime Minister.
- September
- Antonin Novotny becomes party First Secretary.
1955
- May
- Warsaw Pact is established.
1956
- January
- Second Five Year Plan (1956-60) begins.
1957
- November
- President Zapotocky dies; Novotny becomes President, retaining post of party First Secretary.
1960
- July
- Newly elected National Assembly proclaims achievement of socialism in Czechoslovakia, ratifies new "socialist" constitution, and changes country's name to "Czechoslovak Socialist Republic."
1961
- January
- Third Five Year Plan (1961-65) begins.
- June
- Judicial law tightens party control over simplified court system.
1962
- August
- Third Five Year Plan is scrapped as economic situation deteriorates.
- December
- 12th Party Congress agrees to review 1949-54 purges and to begin de-Stalinization in earnest.
1963
- May
- Intellectual ferment reaches point of public criticism of party and state leaders.
- June
- Regime announces liberalization of cultural policies at writers and journalists unions' congress.
- Novotny moves to reassert his control as de-Stalinization gains momentum.
- Verdicts of 1949-54 purge trial are revised and victims partially rehabilitated.
- September
- Premier Siroky is fired and cabinet shuffled; Jozef Lenart becomes Premier; party commissions for ideology, economy, standard of living, and agriculture are established.
- Americans still in Czechoslovak prisons are released and returned to United States in gesture to improve relations.
1964
- March
- Experiments in economic decentralization and "market socialism" begin.
- October
- Youth demonstrations occur in Prague.
- November
- Novotny is reelected President for 5-year term.
47
APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110010-2
