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The 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état (often simply the Czech coup) ((チェコ語:Únor 1948), (スロバキア語:Február 1948), both meaning "February 1948") – in Communist historiography known as "Victorious February" ((チェコ語:Vítězný únor), (スロバキア語: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 the Munich Agreement—helped spur quick adoption of the Marshall Plan, the creation of a state in West Germany, vigorous measures to keep Communists out of power in France and especially Italy, and steps toward mutual security that would, in little over a year, result in the establishment of NATO and the definitive drawing of the Iron Curtain until the fall of Communism in 1989. ==Background== In the aftermath of World War II, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) was in a favourable position. Its powerful 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 become the country's leading political force without alarming the West (a strategy followed too by Communist parties in Italy and France) dovetailed with popular opposition to Nazi rule, the longing for real change that followed it, and the 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.〔Grogin, p. 132.〕 Nonetheless, party leader Klement Gottwald said in 1945 that "in spite of the favourable situation, the next goal is not soviets and socialism, but rather carrying out a really thorough democratic national revolution", thereby linking his 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.〔 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 European Communist party in a free election, and was far more than the 22% won by their Hungarian counterparts the following year in the only other free and fair postwar election in the Soviet area of influence. President Edvard Beneš, not himself a Communist but very amenable to cooperation with the Soviets, and who hoped for restraint by 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 the police 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.〔Grogin, p. 133.〕 However, by the summer of 1947 the KSČ had alienated whole blocs of potential voters. The activities of the police—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 they increase output without being given higher wages. The general expectation was that the Communists would be soundly defeated in the May 1948 elections.〔〔 That September, at the first Cominform meeting, Andrei Zhdanov observed 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."〔Grogin, p. 134.〕 This clearly 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 whole idea of a parliamentary path for Czechoslovakia when the Communist parties of France and Italy stumbled in 1947 and 1948.〔 The KSČ's number-two leader, General Secretary Rudolf Slánský, represented the KSČ at the meeting. He returned 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."〔 The KSČ pursued a two-pronged strategy. The party knew it had to maintain the façade of working within the democratic political system and was aware that a violent coup would be unacceptable. It desired to gain an absolute majority at elections scheduled for 1948, but the fracturing 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".〔Killingsworth, p.51-52.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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