AHC/WI: Neutral Czechoslovakia

What if Czechoslovakia becomes a neutral country like Austria at the end of WWII? How could this happen?

How would this affect the political dynamics of Europe in the Cold War? And how would this affect Czechoslovakia itself?
 
The Americans would have needed to drive harder into Bohemia or for the German forces there to surrender to them. Doubtful though, since the Americans mostly gave up land they got to the Soviets, so why go further and have more people die for a Soviet zone of interest? I imagine there would be border issues around Teschen though, with the Soviets preferring their puppets to keep it. I imagine the Hungarians and Germans will still be deported en masse.
 
The Americans would have needed to drive harder into Bohemia or for the German forces there to surrender to them. Doubtful though, since the Americans mostly gave up land they got to the Soviets, so why go further and have more people die for a Soviet zone of interest? I imagine there would be border issues around Teschen though, with the Soviets preferring their puppets to keep it. I imagine the Hungarians and Germans will still be deported en masse.

There were land disputes and military stand off in Tesin area anyway in summer 1945. True is Stalin pushed to calm down situation. However till 1948 Czechoslovakia was kind of neutral as last Soviet troops left Czechoslovakia in summer 1945 and in 1946 actually last democratic election took place.

As to deportation it is my understanding Hungarians were not deported. However population exchange took place. Some 80 000 Slovaks feom Hungary for app
same number of Hungarians. Here already Stalin push for less harsh treatment of Hungarians.
 
OK finally on the computer. I don't like to write to much from the phone. ;)

Maybe if Benes didn't accept coalition government demission in February 1948 it would be much harder for Gottwald and his communists to get to the power. Originally they thought they will be able to do that through elections by 1946 elections were according to some historians peak of the support they got. From there they were just sliding down the hill. they would be still some support. Maybe aka Italian and French communist parties.
OTL 1946 elections communist won only in Czech parts. In Slovakia Democratic party won the election.

Also maybe if communist didn't get Ministry of Interrior after elections...

There was timeline somebody was writing app. year ago about communist not getting to power in Czechoslovakia.
 
OK finally on the computer. I don't like to write to much from the phone. ;)

Maybe if Benes didn't accept coalition government demission in February 1948 it would be much harder for Gottwald and his communists to get to the power. Originally they thought they will be able to do that through elections by 1946 elections were according to some historians peak of the support they got. From there they were just sliding down the hill. they would be still some support. Maybe aka Italian and French communist parties.
OTL 1946 elections communist won only in Czech parts. In Slovakia Democratic party won the election.

Also maybe if communist didn't get Ministry of Interrior after elections...

There was timeline somebody was writing app. year ago about communist not getting to power in Czechoslovakia.

Here it is, Its not great, is unfinished and is my first work but none the less enjoy it! :D

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=259079
 
What if Czechoslovakia becomes a neutral country like Austria at the end of WWII? How could this happen?

How would this affect the political dynamics of Europe in the Cold War? And how would this affect Czechoslovakia itself?

I have been thinking of this issue a lot and finally decided to put it on paper. Sorry for the length.


Czechoslovakia, unlike Hungary or Poland, was not occupied by the Soviet Union which left Czechoslovakia in late 1945, along with US forces occupying the western tip of the country. It benefited from not being in the path to East Germany (as Poland was) or not being (at least the Czech part of it) belligerent to the allies as Hungary. Had Czechoslovakia managed to retain non-communist politics, it could have followed the way Finland or Austria took after the war.

In order to describe why I think the communist fate did not have to befall upon the country, I have to describe briefly the course of the communist coup.

The communist coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948 in our time line:


The piecemeal communist coup, concluded in February to May 1948, was a masterpiece of the communist party who used its opportunities to the fullest. The essential point to the communists' success was the result in the May 1946 parliamentary election (semi-free, as nazi-era compromised parties were not allowed to participate and there were only eight parties allowed to be voted for), which was won by a very narrow majority (50.9 percent, giving them 153 of 300 seats in the parliament) by a coalition of communists and communist-controlled social democrats. Despite all the parties forming a grand coalition ("Národní fronta"), the government was presided by a communist prime minister (Klement Gottwald) and he used the narrow majority to appoint communists (or their supporters) to the position of interior minister (responsible for police), defense minister (responsible for the army), and information minister (radio and press).

The freedom of information between 1945-48 was already restricted to some extent (e.g. very little critique of the Soviet Union and its armies was allowed) and the minister of interior gradually substituted politically neutral police high officials by the pro-communist one.

The ever increasing influence of communists over police was protested against in February 1948 by the non-communist members of the government who resigned in protest, hoping to bring the whole government down. However, since foreign minister Jan Masaryk (son of the pre-war president), whose participation in the resignation was vital, failed to follow suit. The president Beneš, generally rather weak and naive towards the communist, and by that time physically and probably also mentally handicapped, accepted the resignation and the communist prime minister was given a chance to replace all non-communist ministers by the pro-communist ones.

These processes in the government were accompanied by the communist lead interior ministry helping in February 1948 to form pro-communist armed militia units ("Lidové milice)", an equivalent of SA units in Germany, arming them from police and army stocks, while the pro-communist defense minister (general Ludvík Svoboda) prevented the army from getting involved, effectively giving a free hand to the communist police and the militia units.

In the months to follow, the communist controlled government, through abuse of police, harassed the parliament members to make some fundamental changes to the country's laws, such as a change of the laws regulating the parliamentary voting system. It effectively meant cancellation of the principle of plurality of political representation, since in the upcoming election in May 1948 only communist dominated "National Front" was allowed to partake. That was effectively the end of residua of democracy in Czechoslovakia.

Conclusions about the coup:

1) The coup, despite being assisted by Soviet advisers present in Czechoslovakia, was carried out without armed support of the Soviet forces.

2) Vital for the success of the coup was the control of police and their armories as well as prevention of the army from intervening. Both could have been secured only with communist or pro-communist ministers as the interior and defense ministers in the 1946-48 government.

3) The appointment of a communist interior minister and a pro-communist defense minister would be much harder, if not unacceptable, for other ministers, had the communist coalition not had the very narrow, but still a majority of 50,9 percent from the 1946 election.

My conclusion is that without the narrow majority in the 1946 parliamentary election, and the subsequent control of police and army, the communists in Czechoslovakia would not have had the ability to carry out the coup themselves.

Had there been no communist coup in 1948, would the communists have a chance to dominate the 1948 election?

If the democratic government persisted until the next scheduled free election in May 1948, I believe the chances of the communists in the 1948 election to win the necessary majority was slim for at least the following reasons:

1) Their economic policies between years 1945-1948 were not very popular.

2) They resisted the otherwise popular Marshall Plan to be applied to Czechoslovakia. In 1947 the communists rejected, upon direct order from Moscow, to participate in negotiation of the plan. However, had the 1948 election been democratic, non-communist parties would probably support Marshall Plan for Czechoslovakia and have a very strong card in their hand.

3) The communists needed to exert control over the social democratic party to win majority in our time line. However in late 1947 there was a rebellion among a part of social democrats against the communist domination and despite that not playing a major role yet in the February 1948 coup, it would probably have weakened chances to cooperate with communists in case of free 1948 election.

Would the Soviet Union intervene militarily in Czechoslovakia in support of a coup before 1948 election?

I think that a direct military intervention of the Soviet army against an autonomous and (still) friendly Czechoslovakia in 1946-48 appears little likely for the following reasons:

1) Stalin's Soviet Union had always been rather cautious of whom to attack. It didn't invade Poland in 1939 and attack Finland later that year until an agreement with Germany was reached. It didn't invade Baltic states in summer 1940 until France was defeated earlier that year. It didn't invade Finland after it was factually defeated and changed sides in 1944 and it respected Austrian neutrality after 1955 (though that only after Stalin's death).

2) The Soviet Union of 1948 was still a country trying to retain residua of acceptability to the west (one of the major breaks of ties between the west and the Soviet Union came as a consequence of the Czechoslovak coup) and this changed for worse only in 1949 (Soviet atomic bomb, repressions in eastern European countries) and 1950 (Korean war).

3) Military support of Czechoslovak communists by Soviet army in, say 1948, would probably mean an armed conflict near the border of US controlled German Bavaria and that is not what the Soviet Union wanted, especially not as in 1948 they still hadn't had a nuclear bomb putting the Soviet Union into a disadvantageous position in a possible conflict with US forces.

Assuming that the 1948 election was democratic, would communists have a chance to regain their appeal?

A few reasons against this hypothesis:

1) Their 1946 election success was to great extent a consequence of the fear still existing in Czechs after the German occupation (it was the Czechs, occupied in war by Germany, who in 1946 voted for communists, not Slovaks who cooperated with Germany during the war). It is my opinion that the public attitude of distrust towards France and UK after the Munich agreement and knowing about the US withdrawal from Europe after WWI, caused the Soviet Union to be perceived by Czechs as the only guarantee from a possible next aggression from Germany. And a vote for the communist party could have been more of an attempt to achieve security from Germany through the Soviet Union rather than an inclination towards a communist political system. After all, the communist election manifesto in 1946 was very different from its actual policies.

2) Post war economic improvement in Czechoslovakia, also stimulated by Marshall Plan (if accepted), similar to progress in other west European countries, would not benefit the communist party, which was always in essence a protest party.

3) The international situation worsened with the reputation of the Soviet Union and communism in general declining.
- A year long siege of West Berlin started in May 1948. An attempt to starve civilians would probably not be seen positively.
- Assuming that Czechoslovakia had remained democratic after 1948, it would have probably quickly become a destination of hundreds of thousands of political refugees from Poland and Hungary as for them the border of free Czechoslovakia would represent a relatively easy way to emigrate (in our time line Polish refugees had no border with non-communist states at all and Hungarian refugees had to go dangerously through either communist Yugoslavia or the still Soviet occupied eastern Austria). First hand information about communist behaviour in Poland and Hungary would not increase communist appeal in Czechoslovakia.
- Soviet Union supported invasion of South Korea in June 1950 was a major source of disagreement between the communist and free countries. It is likely it would be reflected in Czechoslovakia too.
- Information from Czechs arriving from the Soviet Union (either fleeing soldiers incarcerated in gulags before 1941 or native Czechs settled in Russia and allowed to return to Czechoslovakia after the war, would be disseminated more easily in free Czechoslovakia and would further decrease communist and pro-Soviet appeal.

My conclusion is that had the communists not carried out a coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948, they would not have had an opportunity to do so afterwards.

If Czechoslovakia remains free after 1948, what will be its strategic position in respect to the cold war blocks?

The years 1947-49 are the years of creation of alliances which lead to formation of NATO in 1949. It is likely that a non-communist Czechoslovak government after 1948 would like to participate but it would also know that any Czechoslovak flirting with US dominated military alliance, let alone presence of US forces on Czechoslovakian territory, which forms southern border with Soviet controlled East Germany and Poland, would be a mortal threat to Soviet Union's presence in Poland and East Germany, with occupation of East Germany and Polish access to that territory itself a vital strategic interest of the Soviet Union.

I believe that unlike in an intervention in an internal political affair of Czechoslovakia in 1948, any Czechoslovak approximation of military alliance with the west after that year would be much more threatening for the Soviet Union and a reason for invasion. Therefore, Czechoslovakia, bordered by Soviet armies in the north (in East Germany and Poland), east (Soviet Union) and south (Austria and Hungary), would have to play its cards extremely cautiously not to give the Soviet Union a reason to invade.
For the reasons above, and also for the reasons of the pro-Soviet part of the public not wanting to alienate the Soviet Union, a path towards neutrality the likes of Austria after 1955, albeit less militarily restricted than the Austrian one for Czechoslovakia not being considered belligerent to the Soviet Union, is a more likely outcome than a membership in NATO.
However, this period of deciding of Czechoslovak strategic position towards the west and the east, probably not ending before Stalin's death in 1953, would be still the most dangerous for Czechoslovakia as regards a possible Soviet intervention.

Best, Petr
 
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