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Communist Failure in Czechoslovakia

Venocara

God Save the King.
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Researching the 1948 coup in Czechoslovakia, I learned that the President of Czechoslovakia (Edvard Benes) had the opportunity to halt the coup in its tracks. On the 21st February 1948 twelve non-Communist ministers resigned from their posts in opposition to Communist subversion in the government. If Benes had refused to accept their resignations, it is possible that could have halted the momentum that the Communists had been building, and as they were growing increasingly unpopular it is likely that they wouldn’t have won the May 1948 elections. So I would like to ask, what if the Czechoslovak coup failed? Would the West try to intervene to draw the country into their orbit or would the Soviets simply invade and crush the government?
 
Researching the 1948 coup in Czechoslovakia, I learned that the President of Czechoslovakia (Edvard Benes) had the opportunity to halt the coup in its tracks. On the 21st February 1948 twelve non-Communist ministers resigned from their posts in opposition to Communist subversion in the government. If Benes had refused to accept their resignations, it is possible that could have halted the momentum that the Communists had been building, and as they were growing increasingly unpopular it is likely that they wouldn’t have won the May 1948 elections. So I would like to ask, what if the Czechoslovak coup failed? Would the West try to intervene to draw the country into their orbit or would the Soviets simply invade and crush the government?

https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...e-1948-czechoslovak-coup.465126/post-18715893 argues that by February 1948, it was too late to stop the coup.
 
Researching the 1948 coup in Czechoslovakia, I learned that the President of Czechoslovakia (Edvard Benes) had the opportunity to halt the coup in its tracks. On the 21st February 1948 twelve non-Communist ministers resigned from their posts in opposition to Communist subversion in the government. If Benes had refused to accept their resignations, it is possible that could have halted the momentum that the Communists had been building, and as they were growing increasingly unpopular it is likely that they wouldn’t have won the May 1948 elections. So I would like to ask, what if the Czechoslovak coup failed? Would the West try to intervene to draw the country into their orbit or would the Soviets simply invade and crush the government?

Honestly, it was too late by then. There is a reason why Benes gave in after all (some argue that the precedent of the interwar Petka didn't help). The KSC controlled the defence and interior ministries and had by this point purged the police and military of non-KSC-loyal members, meaning essentially they were already in charge, by and large, of the country's monopoly of violence apparatus. And Benes knew it. After all, that was also the reason why the rest of the government resigned.

On top of that, in response to the government crisis (and the terrible polling the KSC faced in 1948), the party had begun mobilising its numerous members from 'grassroots' organisations to support it taking power. On the ground, it seemed like the streets of Prague already belonged to the Communists. It was probably too late, absent some kind of violent conflict or street-led revolution leading to the same outcome.

This is even before going into the issue of the Social Democratic left, led by PM Fierlinger, who were very clearly just counting the days until they could join the KSC, and various fifth columnists in the CSL and the CSNS. The only party that was totally committed to anti-Communism were the Slovak Democrats, who had been, by this point, also heavily weakened thanks to the KSC's salami tactics and their own uselessness.

TL;DR, I think 1948 is too late
 
I think that the big problem for Czechoslovakia is that not just democracy but the idea of an even vaguely pro-Western alignment had been seemingly discredited by the previous decades. The Western democracies did nothing to prevent first the loss of the Sudetenland and then the utter subjugation of the Czechs to a German state that seemed bound to fulfill the Czechs' worst nightmares of a forcible assimilation. The idea of friendly relations, whether with the Western democracies or with German-speaking Europe, was not that worth it. Meanwhile, the record of capitalism as a vehicle for growth seemed decidedly questionable comparable to the promise of a Communism that, in the Soviet Union of Czechoslovakia's Slavic allies, did end up saving everyone from the Nazis.

Austria could end up neutralized and democratic because the Soviets had no serious local allies worth justifying the costs of a Communized Austria. Finland could end up neutralized and democratic because, once the Soviet claims against a Finland that had proved compliant had been satisfied, the Soviets were not interested in anything like a Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic. Czechoslovakia did not end up neutralized and democratic because the Czechs, by and large, were sufficiently disinterested in the West as a partner and in democratic capitalism as an ideology. For just enough Czechs, the Soviet Union and its model were sufficiently attractive.
 
Apologies for putting words in @Japhy's mouth, but I think the objection is that you've developed a habit of popping into threads, linking to the posts of a commentator on another forum and then not bothering to really paraphrase them or bring any analysis of your own.

While I do think you tend to rely too heavily on David T's posts- and some of them are very well argued, and some of them are not- the problem is that what you're doing here is saying 'David T argues no.'

That's not contributing anything.

Whereas if you'd said: 'On the other site, David T argues A, which I will link to but also paraphrase here. Now, I find that of his argument A, points B, D, and E are well argued, but I'm not sure that C holds up because of my argument here.

But if we assume, for the sake of the argument, that his analysis is correct, then this leads to conclusion F which is interesting and relevant to this discussion because...'

Then it moves the conversation along.

But can you see how 'Here's a one sentence link to another person, on another site, who isn't actually a verifiable source, making an argument I won't sum up in any detail, and to which I won't add my own thoughts' doesn't move the discussion along?

You've got your own thoughts, Ricardolindo. Share them! It doesn't matter if they're wrong, or get knocked down. Most people here have that happen all the time! That's part of the fun of debate.
 
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