En.wikipedia.org-1948 Czechoslovak Coup Détat

8/20/2019 En.wikipedia.org-1948 Czechoslovak Coup Détat

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en.wikipedia.org https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Czechoslovak_coup_d'état

1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état

1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état

Part of the Cold War

Resignation of the democratic ministers in February 1948

Belligerents

Czechoslovak Government (non-Communist members) Communist Party of Czechoslovakia

Supported by : Soviet Union

Commanders and leaders

Edvard BenešJan Masaryk †

Klement GottwaldRudolf Slánský

The 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état (often simply the Czech coup) (Czech: Únor 1948 , Slovak: Február 1948 ,both meaning "February 1948") – in Communist historiography known as "Victorious February" (Czech: Vítězný únor , Slovak: Víťazný február ) – was an event late that February in which the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, with Soviet backing, assumed undisputed control over the government of Czechoslovakia,marking the onset of four decades of Communist dictatorship in the country.

The coup’s significance extended well beyond the country’s boundaries, however, as it was a clear marker along

the already well-advanced road to full-fledged Cold War . The shock with which the West greeted the event—which bore distinct echoes of Munich—helped spur quick adoption of the Marshall Plan, the creation of a state inWest Germany, vigorous measures to keep Communists out of power in France and especially Italy, and stepstoward mutual security that would, in little over a year, result in the establishment of NATO and the definitivedrawing of the Iron Curtain until the fall of Communism in 1989.

Contents

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Background[edit]

In the aftermath of World War II, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) was in a favourable position. Itspowerful influence on Czechoslovak politics since the 1920s, its clean wartime record and cooperation with non-Communist parties, its identification with the Soviet Union, the country's liberator, and its determination to becomethe country's leading political force without alarming the West (a strategy followed too by Communist parties in

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Pro-Communist demonstrations before the coup

Italy and France) dovetailed with popular opposition to Nazi rule, the longing for real change that followed it, andthe new political realities of living within the Soviet orbit to produce a surge in membership from 40,000 in 1945 to

1.35 million in 1948.[1]

Nonetheless, party leader Klement Gottwald said in 1945 that "in spite of the favourable situation, the next goal isnot soviets and socialism, but rather carrying out a really thorough democratic national revolution", thereby linkinghis party to the Czechoslovak democratic tradition (he even claimed to be a disciple of Tomáš Masaryk) and to

Czech nationalism by capitalizing on popular intense anti-German feelings. [1] During the early postwar period,

working with the other parties in a coalition called the National Front, the Communists kept up the appearance of being willing to work within the system.

Thus, in the 1946 election, the KSČ won 38% of the vote. This was the best-ever performance by a EuropeanCommunist party in a free election, and was far more than the 22% won by their Hungarian counterparts thefollowing year in the only other free and fair postwar election in the Soviet area of influence. President EdvardBeneš, not himself a Communist but very amenable to cooperation with the Soviets, and who hoped for restraintby the Allied powers, thus invited Gottwald to be prime minister. Although the government still had a non-Communist majority (nine Communists and seventeen non-Communists), the KSČ had initial control over thepolice and armed forces, and came to dominate other key ministries such as those dealing with propaganda,

education, social welfare and agriculture; they also soon dominated the civil service.[2]

However, by the summer of 1947 the KSČ had alienated whole blocs of potential voters. The activities of thepolice—headed by Interior Minister Václav Nosek, a Communist—were acutely offensive to many citizens;farmers objected to talk of collectivization, and some workers were angry at Communist demands that theyincrease output without being given higher wages. The general expectation was that the Communists would be

soundly defeated in the May 1948 elections.[2][3] That September, at the first Cominform meeting, Andrei Zhdanovobserved that Soviet victory had helped achieve "the complete victory of the working class over the bourgeoisie in

every East European land except Czechoslovakia, where the power contest still remains undecided."[3] Thisclearly implied the KSČ should be accelerating its own efforts to take complete power. That notion would be

reinforced during the Prague Spring, when party archives were opened and showed that Stalin gave up the wholeidea of a parliamentary path for Czechoslovakia when the Communist parties of France and Italy stumbled in

1947 and 1948.[3]

The KSČ's number-two leader, General Secretary Rudolf Slánský, represented the KSČ at the meeting. Hereturned to Prague with a plan for the final seizure of power. Slánský remarked, "as in the international field, we

have gone on the offensive on the domestic front as well."[3] The KSČ pursued a two-pronged strategy. The partyknew it had to maintain the façade of working within the democratic political system and was aware that a violentcoup would be unacceptable. It desired to gain an absolute majority at elections scheduled for 1948, but thefracturing of the left-wing coalition made this unrealistic. This pushed the party into extra-parliamentary action.The organization of "spontaneous" demonstrations to "express the will of the people" and continuous visits to

parliament by workers' delegations were meant to ensure "mobilization of the masses".[4]

The coup[edit]

During the winter of 1947–48, both in the cabinet and in parliamenttension between the Communists and their opponents led to

increasingly bitter conflict.[5] Matters came to a head in February 1948,when Nosek illegally extended his powers by attempting to purgeremaining non-Communist elements in the National Police Force. Thesecurity apparatus and police were being transformed into instruments

of the KSČ, endangering basic civic freedoms.[5]

On 12 February, the non-Communists in the cabinet demandedpunishment for the offending Communists in the government and anend to their subversion. Nosek, backed by Gottwald, refused to yield.

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He and his fellow Communists threatened to use force and, in order to avoid defeat in parliament, mobilisedgroups of their supporters in the country. On 21 February, twelve non-Communist ministers resigned in protestafter Nosek refused to reinstate eight non-Communist senior police officers despite a majority vote of the cabinet

in favour of doing so.[3]

The non-Communists assumed that Beneš would refuse to accept their resignations, keeping them in a caretaker government and in the process embarrassing the Communists enough to make them yield. Beneš initially insistedthat no new government could be formed which did not include ministers from the non-Communist parties.

However, an atmosphere of mounting tension, coupled with massive Communist-led demonstrations occurringthroughout the country, convinced Beneš to remain neutral over the issue, for fear the KSČ foment an insurrection

and give the Red Army a pretext to invade the country and restore order. [3]

Had Beneš held his line, the Communists would not have been able to form a government. There were only twonon-violent means of resolving the crisis—give way to the non-Communists or risk defeat in early elections whichthe KSČ would not have had time to rig. The non-Communists saw this as a moment of opportunity, needing to ac

quickly before the Communists had total control over the police and threatened the electoral process.[5]

At the same time, the non-Communist ministers seemed to behave as if this was just an old-fashioned pre-1939

governmental crisis. They did not know that the Communists were mobilizing from below to take complete power.Soviet deputy foreign minister Valerian Zorin, who had been his country's ambassador to Czechoslovakia from1945 to 1947, returned to Prague to help with the final arrangements for the coup. Armed militia and police tookover Prague, Communist demonstrations were mounted and an anti-Communist student demonstration wasbroken up. The ministries of the non-Communist ministers were occupied, civil servants dismissed and the

ministers prevented from entering their own ministries.[6] The army, under the direction of Defence Minister LudvíSvoboda, who was formally non-partisan but had facilitated Communist infiltration into the officer corps, was

confined to barracks and did not interfere.[6][7]

Communist "Action Committees" and trade union militias were quickly set up, armed, and sent into the streets, aswell as being prepared to carry through a purge of anti-Communists. In a speech before 100,000 of these people,Gottwald threatened a general strike unless Beneš agreed to form a new Communist-dominated government.Zorin at one point offered the services of the Red Army, camped on the country's borders. However, Gottwalddeclined the offer, believing that the threat of violence combined with heavy political pressure would be enough toforce Beneš to surrender. As he said after the coup, Beneš "knows what strength is, and this led him to evaluate

this [situation] realistically".[3]

On 25 February 1948, Beneš, fearful of civil war and Soviet intervention, capitulated. He accepted theresignations of the non-Communist ministers and appointed a new government in accordance with KSČdemands. Gottwald continued as prime minister of a government dominated by Communists and pro-MoscowSocial Democrats. Members of the People's, National Socialist and Slovak Democratic parties still figured, so the

government was still nominally a coalition. However, these parties had been taken over by Communistsympathizers, and the ministers using these labels were fellow travellers. The only senior minister who wasneither a Communist nor a fellow traveller was Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk, who was however found dead two

weeks later.[8] Following the coup, the Communists moved quickly to consolidate their power. Thousands were

fired and hundreds were arrested. Thousands fled the country to avoid living under Communism.[9] The National Assembly, freely elected two years earlier, gave its vote of confidence to the new government in March. The 230-0

result was unanimous, although nine MPs had resigned following the coup.[10][11]

On 9 May, a new constitution was approved by parliament. Although it declared Czechoslovakia a "people'sdemocracy," it was not a completely Communist document. However, it was close enough to the Soviet model tha

Beneš refused to sign it. At the 30 May elections, voters were presented with a single list from the National Front,which officially won 89.2% of the vote; within the National Front list, the Communists and the Social Democrats(who soon merged) had an absolute majority. Practically all non-Communist parties that had participated in the1946 election were also represented within the National Front list and thus received parliamentary seats.However, by this time they had all transformed themselves into loyal partners of the Communists. The National

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Front was converted into a broad patriotic organisation dominated by the Communists, and no political group

outside it was allowed to exist.[9][12][13][14] Consumed by these events, Beneš resigned on 2 June and was

succeeded by Gottwald twelve days later.[8][14] He died in September, bringing a symbolic close to the sequenceof events, and was buried before an enormous and silent throng come to mourn the passing of a popular leader

and of the democracy he had come to represent.[8]

Impact[edit]

Eastern Bloc

Soviet Socialist Republics[show]

Allied states[show]

Related organizations[show]

Dissent and opposition[show]

Cold War events[show]

Decline[show]

Czechoslovakia remained as a Communist dictatorship until the Velvet Revolution of 1989.[15] More immediately,the coup became synonymous with the Cold War . The loss of the last remaining democracy in Eastern Europecame as a profound shock to millions. For the second time in a decade, Western eyes saw Czechoslovakindependence and democracy snuffed out by a totalitarian dictatorship intent on dominating a small country

(though unlike in 1938-39, the KSČ did most of the "dirty work").[8][16]

The USSR seemed to have completed the formation of a monolithic Soviet bloc and concluded the partition of Europe, which appeared to vindicate and certainly crystallized the pessimistic, darkest appraisals of Soviet power in the West by people who felt certain that it was folly to try to do business with Moscow. Because its impact wasequally profound in Western Europe as in the United States, it helped unify Western countries against theCommunist bloc. It gave an air of prescience to the French and Italian governments for having forced their local

Communists out of their governments a year earlier.[8]

Additionally, it finally discredited Soviet moves to prevent the formation of a West German state and acceleratedthe construction of a West European alliance, the Treaty of Brussels, the following month; mutual security was the

new watchword.[17] Until early 1948, Western and Soviet representatives had communicated in regular meetingsat the foreign minister level; the Czech coup constituted a final rupture in relations between the two superpowers,

with the West now signaling its determination to commit itself to collective self-defence.[18] By early March, even apreviously wavering France was demanding a concrete military alliance with definite promises to help in certain

circumstances.[19]

From Moscow's point of view, the coup could not have come at a worse time. The government crisis in Praguelasted from 20 to 27 February, just when Western foreign ministers were meeting in London. From the West's

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perspective, the coup was an example of Communism in its most unacceptable form; Moscow seemed to the

West bent on ruthless expansion and the suppression of freedom.[5]

United States[edit]

The coup's impact in the United States was immediate. Opposition towards the Marshall Plan had developed inthe United States Congress, but a shocked and aroused public opinion overwhelmed this, and Congress promptly

approved over US$5 billion for the first year of the European Recovery Program.[8]

Until the Czech coup, the emphasis in Washington had been on economic containment of Communism, primarilythrough the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan and a heavy reliance on atomic power as a shield to supportit. President Harry S. Truman understood that in 1946 and 1947 the American people were not prepared for amassive conventional arms buildup or a confrontation with the Soviet Union. He was reluctant to increase themilitary budget dramatically and instead chose a gradual and balanced buildup. Expecting to spend large amountson the Marshall Plan, he sought to keep the annual defence budget below $15 billion.

However, the coup served to expose the limitations of U.S. conventional forces and its over-reliance on atomicpower. At the time of the Prague crisis, roughly ten ill-equipped and poorly trained U.S. and West European

divisions faced over thirty Soviet divisions. When taking into account Defense Department complaints that theU.S. atomic arsenal and the air power to use it were starkly inadequate, it became clear that the U.S. lacked acredible military deterrent in Europe.

The Czech coup changed the whole tone of the debate on the U.S. military budget. It helped spark a new round of Pentagon lobbying for a substantial rise in the military budget, while the NSC called for "a worldwide counter-offensive" against the Soviet bloc, including U.S. military aid to the Western European Union. Truman respondedto the crisis with a grim nationwide radio address on 17 March calling for a renewal of selective service, which hadbeen allowed to lapse the previous year. He also sought congressional approval for a programme of UniversalMilitary Training (UMT). He aimed to send a signal of determination to the Soviet Union that U.S. military posturewas strong and that the country with this expansion of military preparedness was also prepared in the future to

rearm massively if necessary. Congress rejected UMT, but did vote to resume selective service, and voted themoney for a seventy-group air force, 25% larger than the official request.[20]

Nevertheless, the change in American foreign policy in response to the crisis-like atmosphere of early 1948 wasmore symbolic than real. American willingness to consult on new security arrangements for Europe was theproduct of neither a changed estimate of Soviet intentions nor a readiness to take on a larger share of the burdenof defending Western Europe. Rather, it was a tactical maneuver intended to mitigate the effect of the coup in

Czechoslovakia and the brief but intense war scare that followed.[21]

As a result, a series of quick fixes followed to ensure that American forces would not be caught completely off

guard in the event of war. More important was the sensitivity with which American officials now treated thenervousness of their European counterparts; the Americans now became more willing to take steps to boost

morale in Europe and ease the now-widespread anxieties there.[21] The coup and the Berlin Blockade that June

made clear that constant reassurance was needed to bind the Europeans to the U.S. system;[22] hence, the

remobilization of U.S. armed forces began.[20]

Indeed, the fear of war between the Soviets and the West reached a high point after the coup. On 5 March,General Lucius D. Clay sent an alarming telegram from Berlin that advised of its likelihood: "Within the last fewweeks, I have felt a subtle change in Soviet attitude which I cannot define but which now gives me a feeling that itmay come with dramatic suddenness". General Omar Bradley later wrote that when he read Clay's "lugubrious

assessment" in Washington he was "lifted right out of [his] chair", and George F. Kennan wrote that the coup andthe telegram had combined to create "a real war scare" where "the military and the intelligence fraternity" had"overreacted in the most deplorable way". Only a week later, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended rearmament

and a restoration of the draft. [23]

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In fact, Clay's warning had more to do with a request by Army director of intelligence Lt. Gen. StephenChamberlain for material that would persuade Congress to spend more on military readiness than with any hardevidence of Soviet intent to launch a war in Europe. Still, in Europe too in February and March "war was beingcommonly, even calmly discussed in streets and cafes on the Continent", a fear exacerbated by reports on 27February that Stalin had invited Finland to sign a treaty of mutual assistance, contributing to expectations it would

be the next domino to fall;[24] pressure for a treaty was placed on Norway too.[25]

Amidst the general alarm, more sanguine voices were also raised. The Truman Administration had months earlier

written off Czechoslovakia as little more than a Soviet satellite; in November 1947 U.S. Secretary of State GeorgeC. Marshall told a cabinet meeting that the Soviets would probably soon consolidate their hold on Eastern Europeby clamping down on Czechoslovakia as a "purely defensive move", and Kennan cabled from Manila that theSoviets seemed to be consolidating their defences, not preparing for aggression. He later wrote that the Praguecoup and the Berlin Blockade were "defensive reactions" to the Marshall Plan's initial successes and to theWestern decision to press for an independent West German state. This view of the event sees Truman's reactionas him seizing on a necessary crisis to sell the Marshall Plan and the rearmament programme the Pentagon had

long been pushing.[26]

Marshall's own reaction was that "in so far as international affairs are concerned, a seizure of power by the

Communist Party in Czechoslovakia would not materially alter...the situation which has existed in the last threeyears". Even as he was holding a press conference to push his economic aid plan on 10 March, the CIA reportedthat "We do not believe...that this event reflects any sudden increase in Soviet capabilities, more aggressiveintentions, or any change in current Soviet policy or tactics...The Czech coup and the demands on Finland...do nopreclude the possibility of Soviet efforts to effect a rapprochement with the West", but the administration chose a

different course.[27]

On 2 March, CIA director Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter had also written to Truman that "the timing of the coup inCzechoslovakia was forced upon the Kremlin when the non-Communists took action endangering Communistcontrol of the police. A Communist victory in the May elections would have been impossible without such

control".[28]

Italy and France[edit]

In Italy, elections were scheduled for 18 April and the Communist-dominated Popular Democratic Front stood arealistic chance of victory. In the hysteria and foreboding that gripped Western circles following the Czech coup, itwas concluded that similar tactics could be employed in Italy, whose citizens might not even have a chance tovote. British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin and the British Cabinet saw the cooperation between the two leadingparties of the Italian left in almost apocalyptic terms, believing that once the Italian Communist Party (PCI) wonpower it would marginalise any moderating influence from the socialists. Bevin immediately concluded that the"forces of democratic Socialism" must be strengthened in Italy, and that Britain must support the Christian

Democrats, despite all of their faults.[29]

Bevin was especially alarmed by the ability of the PCI, through the use of its dominant position in the trade unionmovement, to organise industrial disturbances not only to sabotage the success of the Marshall Plan, but also tosubvert the Italian government through factory committees of action as in Czechoslovakia. The Italian foreignminister, despite his alarm over the coup's timing, remained optimistic, assuring Bevin (who saw Italy as "theimmediate danger spot") that the army and police were in excellent shape and that the coup would have an

adverse effect, turning swing voters away from the socialists.[29]

This was observed when Communist and socialist leaders in Italy defended the Czech coup as a victory for

democracy, rationalizing that the violation of civil rights was a necessary and just response to a reactionary threatposed by Western imperialist (i.e., American) interests; such discourse probably damaged the Front's credibility

and undercut its promises of moderation.[30] Kennan cabled to suggest the PCI should be outlawed and the U.S.

should intervene militarily in the likely event of a civil war, but he quickly softened his line.[31]

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The American Ambassador in Rome worried that the coup would push self-interested voters to side with what theyconsidered the winning side, and that events in Prague probably increased the PCI's prestige, "direct[ing] the

politics of the generally opportunistic Italian toward the Communist bandwagon".[32] However, the coup was one o

several factors that led a strong plurality of voters to vote for Christian Democracy and defeat the left.[33] Stalin,satisfied that America had not moved militarily after the Czech coup and unwilling to provoke war, respected the

result, considering Italy a Western country.[34]

In France, interesting political currents were also set in motion. The United States was still pushing the Frenchgovernment to support German rehabilitation. In the aftermath of the coup, foreign minister Georges Bidault wasafraid of stoking anti-German sentiment that the French Communist Party (PCF) could exploit and harness toinstigate a coup of its own. At the same time, the coup had forced the hand of PCF leader Maurice Thorez, whose

public remarks suggested that in the wake of a Soviet invasion, he would support the Red Army.[35]

The Czech coup, the PCF's failed policy of sabotage and the Marshall Plan's likely passage were all beginning tosway French public opinion. 70% of French people now believed the U.S. would do more than any other country thelp France, compared to 7% who thought the USSR would do more. Despite French concern about Germany, itwas becoming increasingly clear that the Soviet threat was greater than the German. France would still seek anadvantageous power position vis-à-vis Germany, but it was becoming reconciled to the prospect of a rehabilitated

Germany as part of postwar Europe.[35]

Along with passage of the Marshall Plan, the other far-reaching implication of the Czech coup for U.S. foreignpolicy was to heed Bevin's call for a Western defence association. He had found the Truman Administrationreluctant to accept an unambiguous and binding alliance with Western Europe even after the irretrievablebreakdown of the Council of Foreign Ministers conference in London in December 1947; Marshall was not

prepared to accept the idea in discussions with Bevin that 17 December.[36]

On 26 February Bevin again reiterated that the best way to prevent another Czechoslovakia was to evolve a jointWestern military strategy, and this time he got a more receptive hearing, especially considering American anxiety

over Italy.[36]

That spring, European leaders quietly met with U.S. defence, military and diplomatic officials at thePentagon, under Marshall's orders, exploring a framework for a new and unprecedented association for mutual

defence. The following year, NATO would ultimately be born out of these talks. [37]

Notes[edit]

1. ^ Jump up to: a b Grogin, p. 132.


3. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g Grogin, p. 134.

4. Jump up ^ Killingsworth, p.51-52.

5. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Grenville, p. 370.

6. ^ Jump up to: a b Grenville, pp. 370–71.

7. Jump up ^ Skoug, p.85.

8. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Grogin, p. 135.

9. ^ Jump up to: a b Koester, p. 18.

10. Jump up ^ Cabada and Waisová, p.53.

11. Jump up ^ Blaive, p.142-43.

12. Jump up ^ Vertzberger, p. 217.

13. Jump up ^ Waller, p. 75.

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14. ^ Jump up to: a b Europa Publications Limited, p. 304.

15. Jump up ^ Saxonberg, p. 15.

16. Jump up ^ Offner, p. 237.

17. Jump up ^ Grenville, p. 371.

18. Jump up ^ Grogin, p. 148.

19. Jump up ^ Thies, p. 32.


21. ^ Jump up to: a b Thies, pp. 32, 33.

22. Jump up ^ Hunter, p. 76.

23. Jump up ^ Matthias, p. 62.

24. Jump up ^ Thies, pp. 32–33.

25. Jump up ^ Thies, p. 34.

26. Jump up ^ Steel, p. 452.

27. Jump up ^ Kofsky, p. 127.

28. Jump up ^ Kofsky, p. 96.

29. ^ Jump up to: a b Pedaliu, p. 69.

30. Jump up ^ Ventresca, p. 6.

31. Jump up ^ Hixson, p. 75.

32. Jump up ^ Ventresca, p. 82.

33. Jump up ^ Pedaliu, p. 82.

34. Jump up ^ Ventresca, p. 232.35. ^ Jump up to: a b Behrman, p. 155.

36. ^ Jump up to: a b Pedaliu, p. 97.

37. Jump up ^ Behrman, p. 157.

References[edit]

Behrman, Greg. The Most Noble Adventure: The Marshall Plan and the Time When America Helped SaveEurope. Simon and Schuster , 2007, ISBN 0-7432-8263-9.

Blaive, Muriel, "The Danger of Over-Interpreting Dissident Writing in the West: Communist Terror inCzechoslovakia, 1948-1968", in Friederike Kind-Kovács and Jessie Labov (eds.), Samizdat, Tamizdat, and Beyond: Transnational Media During and After Socialism. Berghahn Books, 2013, ISBN 978-0-857-45586-4.

Cabada, Ladislav and Waisová, Šárka. Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic in World Politics.Lexington Books, 2011, ISBN 0-7391-6734-0.

Europa Publications Limited. Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, Volume 4.Routledge, 1999, ISBN 1-85743-058-1.

Grenville, John Ashley Soames. A History of the World from the 20th to the 21st Century . Routledge, 2005,

ISBN 0-415-28954-8.Grogin, Robert C. Natural Enemies: The United States and the Soviet Union in the Cold War, 1917–1991.Lexington Books, 2001, ISBN 0-7391-0160-9.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0739101609https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0415289548https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Routledgehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/1857430581https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Routledgehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0739167340https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780857455864https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0743282639https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_and_Schusterhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1948_Czechoslovak_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat&action=edit&section=7


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Hixson, Walter L. George F. Kennan: Cold War Iconoclast . Columbia University Press, 1989, ISBN 0-231-06895-6.

Hunter, Allen. Rethinking the Cold War . Temple University Press, 1998, ISBN 1-56639-562-3.

Killingsworth, Matt. Civil Society in Communist Eastern Europe. ECPR Press, 2012, ISBN 1-9073-0127-5.

Koester, Otto. Seeing Babies in a New Light: the Life of Hanuš Papoušek . Routledge, 2005, ISBN 0-8058-4270-5.

Kofsky, Frank. Harry S. Truman and the War Scare of 1948: A Successful Campaign to Deceive the Nation .Palgrave Macmillan, 1995, ISBN 0-312-12329-9

Matthias, Willard C. America's Strategic Blunders: Intelligence Analysis and National Security Policy, 1936–1991. Penn State Press, 2003, ISBN 0-271-02290-6.

Offner, Arnold A. Another Such Victory: President Truman and the Cold War, 1945–1953. StanfordUniversity Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8047-4774-1.

Pedaliu, Effie G. H. Britain, Italy, and the Origins of the Cold War . Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, ISBN 0-333-97380-1.

Saxonberg, Steven. The Fall: A Comparative Study of the End of Communism in Czechoslovakia, East

Germany, Hungary and Poland . Routledge, 2001, ISBN 90-5823-097-X.Skroug, Kenneth N. Czechoslovakia's Lost Fight for Freedom, 1967-1969. Greenwood Publishing Group,1999, ISBN 0-275-96622-4.

Steel Ronald. Walter Lippmann and the American Century . Transaction Publishers, 1999, ISBN 0-7658-0464-6.

Thies, Wallace J. Friendly Rivals: Bargaining and Burden-Shifting in NATO. M.E. Sharpe, 2002, ISBN 0-7656-1017-5.

Ventresca, Robert. From Fascism to Democracy: Culture and Politics in the Italian Election of 1948 .University of Toronto Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8020-8768-X.

Vertzberger, Yaacov. Risk Taking and Decisionmaking: Foreign Military Intervention Decisions. StanfordUniversity Press, 1998, ISBN 0-8047-2747-3.

Waller, Michael. The End of the Communist Power Monopoly . Manchester University Press ND, 1993,ISBN 0-7190-3819-7.

Further reading[edit]

Kaplan, Karel. Pět kapitol o Únoru. Brno: Doplněk, 1997, ISBN 80-85765-73-X.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/808576573Xhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karel_Kaplanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1948_Czechoslovak_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat&action=edit&section=8https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0719038197https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0804727473https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_University_Presshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/080208768Xhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Toronto_Presshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0765610175https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0765804646https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0275966224https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/905823097Xhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Routledgehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0333973801https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0804747741https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_University_Presshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0271022906https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_State_Presshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0312123299https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palgrave_Macmillanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0805842705https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Routledgehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/1907301275https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/1566395623https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_University_Presshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0231068956https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_University_Press

Documents

En.wikipedia.org-1948 Czechoslovak Coup Détat