Page:NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE SURVEY 18; CZECHOSLOVAKIA; GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110010-2.pdf/53

 APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110010-2

1946
 * May
 * Communists receive 38%, National Socialists 18%, Social Democrats 13%, and Slovak Democrats 14% of votes in first postwar general election. Three other parties share remaining 17% of votes.
 * June
 * Eduard Benes is unanimously elected President.
 * July
 * Klement Gottwald (Communist) forms government.

1947
 * July
 * Under Soviet pressure Czechoslovak cabinet reverses its decision to participate in Marshall Plan.

1948
 * February
 * Communists seize power in bloodless coup and formally establish "people's democracy."
 * June
 * Benes resigns presidency.
 * Gottwald becomes President and Antonin Zapotocky Prime Minister.

1949
 * January
 * First Five Year (Economic) Plan (1949-53) begins.

1951
 * March
 * Roman Catholic Archbishop Beran is banished from Prague.
 * November
 * Rudolph Slansky is arrested and charged with conspiracy against state.

1952
 * November
 * Slansky and 10 other former officials are sentenced to death for treason.

1953
 * March
 * Gottwald dies; Zapotocky becomes President and Viliam Siroky Prime Minister.
 * September
 * Antonin Novotny becomes party First Secretary.

1955
 * May
 * Warsaw Pact is established.

1956
 * January
 * Second Five Year Plan (1956-60) begins.

1957
 * November
 * President Zapotocky dies; Novotny becomes President, retaining post of party First Secretary.

1960
 * July
 * Newly elected National Assembly proclaims achievement of socialism in Czechoslovakia, ratifies new "socialist" constitution, and changes country's name to "Czechoslovak Socialist Republic."

1961
 * January
 * Third Five Year Plan (1961-65) begins.
 * June
 * Judicial law tightens party control over simplified court system.

1962
 * August
 * Third Five Year Plan is scrapped as economic situation deteriorates.
 * December
 * 12th Party Congress agrees to review 1949-54 purges and to begin de-Stalinization in earnest.

1963
 * May
 * Intellectual ferment reaches point of public criticism of party and state leaders.
 * June
 * Regime announces liberalization of cultural policies at writers and journalists unions' congress.
 * Novotny moves to reassert his control as de-Stalinization gains momentum.
 * Verdicts of 1949-54 purge trial are revised and victims partially rehabilitated.
 * September
 * Premier Siroky is fired and cabinet shuffled; Jozef Lenart becomes Premier; party commissions for ideology, economy, standard of living, and agriculture are established.
 * Americans still in Czechoslovak prisons are released and returned to United States in gesture to improve relations.

1964
 * March
 * Experiments in economic decentralization and "market socialism" begin.
 * October
 * Youth demonstrations occur in Prague.
 * November
 * Novotny is reelected President for 5-year term.

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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110010-2