No velvet divorce
- Thread starter Frige
- Start date
Streach
This is a streach. The Checz or the Slavs settle somewere else during verry early times. Since they were joined against their will after world war 1 something could be different then. Souviet Union makes Vaclav Havel disappear so there's no leader for the seperation. Even then someone else might lead it. Maby not as well.
This is a streach. The Checz or the Slavs settle somewere else during verry early times. Since they were joined against their will after world war 1 something could be different then. Souviet Union makes Vaclav Havel disappear so there's no leader for the seperation. Even then someone else might lead it. Maby not as well.
Maybe instead of Havel a Slovak leads the movement to free themselves from the Soviet Yoke? Then the Slovaks could be happier in Czechoslovakia maybe.
Or you could have a horribly Stalinist leader mix the populations together so instead of a Czech/Slovak regional dichotomy, everywhere would be more mixed.
Or you could have a horribly Stalinist leader mix the populations together so instead of a Czech/Slovak regional dichotomy, everywhere would be more mixed.
Velvet Divorce was a Good Thing, Guys
Vaclav Havel was a playwright dedicated to peace, justice, and freedom from oppression. He took one look at the horror show going on in Yugoslavia between the Croats, Serbs, and Bosnians and wanted no part of that.
The cultural divide between the Czechs (Catholic, urban, spoke some German and favored Slavics of the A-H Empire) and Slovaks (Orthodox, rural, and considered by the Czechs barely fit to be cannon fodder or brute labor) wasn't going to be bridged with heavy-handed police-state tactics.
I don't know of any Slovak politicos that might have stuck with Czechoslovakia, but that's total ignorance on my part. IIRC the Slovaks didn't want territory or redress of ancient wrongs, just room to be Slovaks w/o the Czechs hogging the good jobs and assuming cultural superiority.
Compare that to the Balkan powder keg and numerous minorities seething to be rejoined with their ethnic brethren (Hungarians in Transylvania, Albanian Macedonians with Greeks, the Albanian Kosovars vs the Serbs, etc.)
You've got about the best-case scenario with the Velvet Divorce.
Vaclav Havel was a playwright dedicated to peace, justice, and freedom from oppression. He took one look at the horror show going on in Yugoslavia between the Croats, Serbs, and Bosnians and wanted no part of that.
The cultural divide between the Czechs (Catholic, urban, spoke some German and favored Slavics of the A-H Empire) and Slovaks (Orthodox, rural, and considered by the Czechs barely fit to be cannon fodder or brute labor) wasn't going to be bridged with heavy-handed police-state tactics.
I don't know of any Slovak politicos that might have stuck with Czechoslovakia, but that's total ignorance on my part. IIRC the Slovaks didn't want territory or redress of ancient wrongs, just room to be Slovaks w/o the Czechs hogging the good jobs and assuming cultural superiority.
Compare that to the Balkan powder keg and numerous minorities seething to be rejoined with their ethnic brethren (Hungarians in Transylvania, Albanian Macedonians with Greeks, the Albanian Kosovars vs the Serbs, etc.)
You've got about the best-case scenario with the Velvet Divorce.Perhaps if Vaclav Havel had been Slovak instead? he takes one look at the Yugoslavian mess, reckons Slovak irredentism and Czech nationalism could lead the nation to tragic years, and he works diligently with like-minded Czech politicians to build a binational identity aimed at overcoming narrow nationalist tripe and prejudice.
My recollection at the time was that neither the Czechs nor the Slovaks wanted to split, basically. However, their concepts of what their federation ought to look like were so irreconciliably different that they couldn't keep it together.
Actually, the divorce wasn't inevitable and largely happened because the Czech prime minister Vaclav Klaus, a right-wing libertarian, and the authoritharian Slovak prime minister had respectively no interest in giving money to underdeveloped Slovaksn and in giving up powers to someone else. Had Vaclav Havel managed to weaken Klaus, and Dubcek survived his car accident, it's much possible that Czechoslovakia could have survived as a confederacy. BTW, it's not like all of Czechia is inhabited by sophisticated city-dwellers, there are also huge and outdated industrial centers and rural areas.
I am sorry for bumping this thread, but I've just accidentally found it and I feel obliged to comment (especially since some of the comments here are based on pure ignorance).
Oh Gods... This paragraph is basically totally false. Nothing in it is factually correct.
For starters, in 1990, Czechs were mostly agnostic/atheist and Slovaks have NEVER been Orthodox, but Catholic. In any case, religion played no part in the split. The cultural divide at the end of the communist rule was far narrower than most people think.
The split happened not out of feat of a Yugoslav scenario. Nobody EVER considered a possibility of a civil war between Czechs and Slovaks. It was as unthinkable then as it is today.
Hi there, I think we've met on the Paradox forums
Václav Havel was mostly a passive observer - he wanted the federation to stay, but he had no power over the politicians on both sides. He was also very... naive politically, if you understand what I mean. Most Czech politicians were oblivious to the brewing trouble until it was too late.
This is partially correct, although I dispute the part where you claim the concepts of future development were irreconcilably different.
This is probably the closest to the truth.
Now here's what really happened:
when Communism collapsed, the new democratic leadership inherited political institutions which were only workable in a one-party system for which they'd been designed in 1968 when the previously unitary Czechoslovakia was made into a federation (which in practice meant little since the Communist party still dominated the political life). Under the old rules, a tiny majority of deputies in the Federal Assembly (the federal parliament of Czechoslovakia) could easily block any bill, any proposal, any resolution. This, together with the lack of political experience on the side of the new democratic leaders, led to sidetracking of the Federal Assembly and the Federal Government by the two National Assemblies (then called the Czech National Council and the Slovak National Council) and the respective national governments. It also gave the nationalists a great tool to stir up trouble, since it took just a few deputies to block any reforms on the federal level.
When the time came (after new democratic elections) to form a new Federal Government, the divergence between the leading political forces in both republics was already too big. The Slovak assembly was dominated by left-leaning and centrist parties with strong national agendas, whereas the Czech assembly was now clearly right-wing and liberal minded. The math dictated the need of a coalition between Václav Klaus (a stubborn pro-reform market liberal determined to launch a "shock therapy" of the economy) and Vladimír Mečiar (a populist nationalist who didn't know squat about economy). The two were unable to reach a deal, so they decided to split the federation - against the will of most people.
If the federal political system hadn't been so absurd, the moderates would have been able to sidetrack the nationalists who never had a majority support and the federation would have survived in one form or another.
So, if you're looking for a good PoD, I think 1968 is a good one. Let's say Czechoslovakia doesn't become a federation back then (the invading Soviets don't allow it, or something along these line). This will force the democratic politicians in 1989/1990 to come up with their own model of a federal political system, which will likely be a great deal more effective than the OTL one.
This will allow for decentralization without separation. Both Czechia and Slovakia will have parliaments and governments taking care of most areas of policy, while the federal institutions will handle foreign policy, defence and other stuff of shared interests. This will satisfy vast majority of Slovaks and Czechs, while the nationalists will remain on the fringes of the political system.
After all, if Belgium has survived to this day, I see no reason why Czechoslovakia couldn't have lasted if the circumstances of the post-1989 situation had been a little different.
TxCoatl1970 said:
Oh Gods...
This paragraph is basically totally false. Nothing in it is factually correct.For starters, in 1990, Czechs were mostly agnostic/atheist and Slovaks have NEVER been Orthodox, but Catholic. In any case, religion played no part in the split. The cultural divide at the end of the communist rule was far narrower than most people think.
The split happened not out of feat of a Yugoslav scenario. Nobody EVER considered a possibility of a civil war between Czechs and Slovaks. It was as unthinkable then as it is today.
Altantic Friend said:
Hi there, I think we've met on the Paradox forums
Václav Havel was mostly a passive observer - he wanted the federation to stay, but he had no power over the politicians on both sides. He was also very... naive politically, if you understand what I mean. Most Czech politicians were oblivious to the brewing trouble until it was too late.
Dathi THorfinnsson said:
This is partially correct, although I dispute the part where you claim the concepts of future development were irreconcilably different.
Manfr said:
This is probably the closest to the truth.
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Now here's what really happened:
when Communism collapsed, the new democratic leadership inherited political institutions which were only workable in a one-party system for which they'd been designed in 1968 when the previously unitary Czechoslovakia was made into a federation (which in practice meant little since the Communist party still dominated the political life). Under the old rules, a tiny majority of deputies in the Federal Assembly (the federal parliament of Czechoslovakia) could easily block any bill, any proposal, any resolution. This, together with the lack of political experience on the side of the new democratic leaders, led to sidetracking of the Federal Assembly and the Federal Government by the two National Assemblies (then called the Czech National Council and the Slovak National Council) and the respective national governments. It also gave the nationalists a great tool to stir up trouble, since it took just a few deputies to block any reforms on the federal level.
When the time came (after new democratic elections) to form a new Federal Government, the divergence between the leading political forces in both republics was already too big. The Slovak assembly was dominated by left-leaning and centrist parties with strong national agendas, whereas the Czech assembly was now clearly right-wing and liberal minded. The math dictated the need of a coalition between Václav Klaus (a stubborn pro-reform market liberal determined to launch a "shock therapy" of the economy) and Vladimír Mečiar (a populist nationalist who didn't know squat about economy). The two were unable to reach a deal, so they decided to split the federation - against the will of most people.
If the federal political system hadn't been so absurd, the moderates would have been able to sidetrack the nationalists who never had a majority support and the federation would have survived in one form or another.
So, if you're looking for a good PoD, I think 1968 is a good one. Let's say Czechoslovakia doesn't become a federation back then (the invading Soviets don't allow it, or something along these line). This will force the democratic politicians in 1989/1990 to come up with their own model of a federal political system, which will likely be a great deal more effective than the OTL one.
This will allow for decentralization without separation. Both Czechia and Slovakia will have parliaments and governments taking care of most areas of policy, while the federal institutions will handle foreign policy, defence and other stuff of shared interests. This will satisfy vast majority of Slovaks and Czechs, while the nationalists will remain on the fringes of the political system.
After all, if Belgium has survived to this day, I see no reason why Czechoslovakia couldn't have lasted if the circumstances of the post-1989 situation had been a little different.
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I also heard from my professor, who is interested in Czech politics, that the prospect of faster integration with the EU played a part in Klaus' push for splitting the country (without the Slovak ballast, the Czechs will join NATO and the EU faster, integrate better, and catch up with the West sooner). Some sort of declaration that countries would be admitted as a group might help keep it together, especially if the populace didn't want to split.
Definitely. After the split, Klaus promoted a naive view that the Czech Rep. was the best prepared candidate (fun fact - his gov. applied for EU membership pretty late, in 1996 IIRC) who should join the EU way before other Central European countries.
The truth is that Klaus has always been an arrogant selfish SOB who has never given damn about other people's opinions. He was stubborn and unwilling to make compromises, which is why he chose the "easier" option (break up Czechoslovakia) so fast.
But I should mention than the Slovaks too used the EEC/EU as an excuse for separatism. Even some of the moderate Slovak politicians wanted to stay as a part of Czechoslovakia only until the time comes to join the EU. On their part it was pure selfishness - they knew very well that the federal money transfers in Czechoslovakia were clearly in Slovakia's favour, even though they rarely admitted it in public.
Also significant was the confusion over the Slovak demands. Nobody really knew what their politicians wanted, and I strongly suspect that they themselves knew it. They often claimed that they supported the federation but wanted Slovakia to be 'sovereign' inside it. What the hell was that supposed to mean they never said. Sometimes it was very frustrating even for the Czechs willing to go to great lengths to save the federation - the Slovak representatives would come with a new proposal each day. Eventually, they managed to convince most Czech political leaders that a common state with these dilettantes was impossible.
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Another interesting aspect is the role of the Slovak emigrants and their organizations in the US and Canada, which were really hostile to the concept of Czechoslovakia. Many of these people saw the war-era Slovak State as totally legitimate, and so when Communism fell they began funding and supporting the nationalists in Slovakia.
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To sum it up - the federation could have survived if the politicians managed to reform the political system very early on, let's say in 1990. Also, they never should have let Dubček return to politics - he really screwed everything he touched after 1989.
When you say the war-era state, I don't suppose you mean the fascist, Nazi-allied one? Because it is difficult to conceive of that one as having any legitimacy when it was both a product and a client of the Third Reich.
(Lacking any other knowledge, am I right in presuming that these expat groups were as helpful as Irish-Americans during the Troubles?)
I am sorry for replying so late, but the flow of threads on this forum is hard to keep up with.
Yes, I mean the Nazi puppet state. You'd be surprised how many Slovaks actually referred to it as their first proper state in history. Not the majority, of course, not by any stretch of imagination. As for the Slovaks abroad, that's a different story.
Slovak national conciousness has often been undermined by the fact that they had no tradition of statehood - very much unlike their neighbours in Czechia, Poland and Hungary who all acquired statehood around the 10th century and had maintained it for many hundreds of years. For Slovaks, it is often difficult to look to the past, since for most of their history they had been a part of Hungary (from which they are unwilling to take any pride whatsoever) and then they've become part of Czechoslovakia, which many see as an essentially Czech state in which they played the role of an under-developed region under Czech patronage. Ironically, Slovaks had the greatest influence in post-1968 Communist Czechoslovakia, but they can hardly be proud of that either.
So the war-era Slovak State is all that's left. Some people tend to overlook the nasty parts (like paying Germany to exterminate their Jews, or expelling Czechs to the Protectorate) and construct a picture of this entity as the first truly Slovak state.
(Fun fact: the previous Socialist Prime Minister of Slovakia had a statue of Svatopluk* erected in front of Bratislava Castle. On his shield is a symbol that closely resembles the symbol of WW2-era Slovak state...
* A ruler of the 9th century Greater Moravia which some Slovaks see as their proto-state, despite it being a much larger Slavic principality encompassing most of today's Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Slovakia and parts of Austria and Hungary.)
Yes, I mean the Nazi puppet state. You'd be surprised how many Slovaks actually referred to it as their first proper state in history. Not the majority, of course, not by any stretch of imagination. As for the Slovaks abroad, that's a different story.
Slovak national conciousness has often been undermined by the fact that they had no tradition of statehood - very much unlike their neighbours in Czechia, Poland and Hungary who all acquired statehood around the 10th century and had maintained it for many hundreds of years. For Slovaks, it is often difficult to look to the past, since for most of their history they had been a part of Hungary (from which they are unwilling to take any pride whatsoever) and then they've become part of Czechoslovakia, which many see as an essentially Czech state in which they played the role of an under-developed region under Czech patronage. Ironically, Slovaks had the greatest influence in post-1968 Communist Czechoslovakia, but they can hardly be proud of that either.
So the war-era Slovak State is all that's left. Some people tend to overlook the nasty parts (like paying Germany to exterminate their Jews, or expelling Czechs to the Protectorate) and construct a picture of this entity as the first truly Slovak state.
(Fun fact: the previous Socialist Prime Minister of Slovakia had a statue of Svatopluk* erected in front of Bratislava Castle. On his shield is a symbol that closely resembles the symbol of WW2-era Slovak state...
* A ruler of the 9th century Greater Moravia which some Slovaks see as their proto-state, despite it being a much larger Slavic principality encompassing most of today's Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Slovakia and parts of Austria and Hungary.)
Being Canadian, I see strong parallels with the Quebec situation. The view of Canada held by a majority of Quebecois and that held by a majority outside the province are irreconciliably different. However, the Indépendentistes have never yet convinced a majority of Québecois that being outside Canada was better than (what they consider to be) a suboptimal status within Canada.
I wasn't actually trying to say that the Velvet Divorce was inevitable, I don't think. I hope I wasn't, anyway.
However, I do think that all it really took was the wrong parties/personalities in power, as happened. And I'm not entirely sure how you could keep that kind of combination from happening at some point.
The advantage countries like Canada or Belgium have over Czechoslovakia are obvious - they haven't gone through forty years of totalitarian rule, they haven't inherited an unworkable communist-designed federal system and they have a long tradition of modern democratic statehood.
Czechoslovakia in the early 1990s was overwhelmed by a multitude of problems - the collapse of the Communist bloc and its whole system of trade, the necessary transformation of the socialist economy into a modern market economy (and the disagreements over how that should be accomplished), the sudden arrival of freedom of speech and free media (which exaggerated the problem of nationalism), the inexperience of the new political elite (most of whom were somewhat naive intellectuals who had spent most of their adult life fighting the government - when suddenly they became the government) - all of this created a perfect storm in which it was difficult to maintain the unity of the country.
Fortunately, there have never been the same vicious ethno-centric tensions between Czechs and Slovaks that caused the bloodbath in the Balkans. That's an entirely different culture in this respect.
Czechoslovakia in the early 1990s was overwhelmed by a multitude of problems - the collapse of the Communist bloc and its whole system of trade, the necessary transformation of the socialist economy into a modern market economy (and the disagreements over how that should be accomplished), the sudden arrival of freedom of speech and free media (which exaggerated the problem of nationalism), the inexperience of the new political elite (most of whom were somewhat naive intellectuals who had spent most of their adult life fighting the government - when suddenly they became the government) - all of this created a perfect storm in which it was difficult to maintain the unity of the country.
Fortunately, there have never been the same vicious ethno-centric tensions between Czechs and Slovaks that caused the bloodbath in the Balkans. That's an entirely different culture in this respect.
