1948 Czechoslovak coup d’état
The 1948 Czechoslovak coup d’état completed the Communist Party’s takeover of the state, with 25 February as the decisive day. President Edvard Beneš accepted the resignations of noncommunist ministers and agreed to a reconstructed cabinet proposed by Klement Gottwald. Communist control of the security forces, armed People’s Militias, action committees, demonstrations and a general strike supplied pressure on the president and political opponents.[1]
A parliamentary sitting scheduled for 24 February was cancelled. At the first sitting after the takeover, on 10 March, Gottwald claimed that the cabinet’s reconstruction had followed a strictly constitutional, democratic and parliamentary route. Resignations of deputies, changes in parliamentary bodies, prosecution and emigration of opponents accompanied the consolidation of power.[2]
Power and Law
Presidential appointment and parliamentary votes do not by themselves establish the absence of coercion or violations of individual rights. From the standpoint of Natural Law, the acts themselves must be judged: who used force, whose liberty was taken away and how other people’s property was treated. Following a procedure cannot justify whatever is done through it.
Act No. 247/1948 Sb., adopted on 25 October 1948, became one instrument of subsequent repression. It authorised administrative confinement in forced labour camps, including a route that did not require conviction for a criminal offence.[3] The later Czechoslovak monetary reform of 1953 and Plzeň protests of 1953 show further conflicts between the regime and the people whose work, savings and property it controlled.
See also
- Forced labour camps in Czechoslovakia
- Natural Law
- Czechoslovak monetary reform of 1953
- Plzeň protests of 1953
- 1948 Czechoslovak coup d’état on Wikipedia
References
- ↑ Office of the Government of the Czech Republic, Od převratu do federace 1948–1968, 20 December 2008.
- ↑ Parliamentary Library and Archives of the Chamber of Deputies, „Osmičková“ výročí I – Únor 1948, 25 February 2018; Klement Gottwald, government statement, Constituent National Assembly, 94th sitting, part 2, 10 March 1948. Gottwald’s description of the procedure is a claim by the leader of the takeover.
- ↑ Act No. 247/1948 Sb., on forced labour camps, especially sections 2–3.
