Socialism, Czechoslovakism, and the Munich Complex, 1918–1948

Besides the Anglo-French policy of appeasement that allowed Nazi Germany to destroy inter-war Czechoslovakia also profoundly affected Czechoslovak political culture.1 The alienation from the West that set in after Munich is linked to the Communist seizure of power ten years later in February 1948, and to Czechoslovakia's embracing the Soviet Union as its guarantor against the possibility of renewed German aggression. The Red Army withdrew from Czechoslovakia, unlike East Germany, Hungary, and Poland, in December 1945, and partly because of the Czechoslovak Communist Party's open identification with the Soviet Union, the Communists had substantially more popular support than Communists elsewhere in eastern Europe. In the open elections held in May 1946, the Communists became the strongest party in the Czech lands, with 40.17% of the vote, and the second-strongest in Slovakia, with 30.48% of the vote. The shift in orientation from West to East marked a clear break with the