N14 - Economic History: Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations: Europe: 1913-Return

The study deals with the question of how much the post-war development of Czechoslovakia was affected by the Nazi central control model and the theory of Marxism-Leninism. The study searches for an answer through analysis of two questions: Could a different economic concept have been applied at all? Was the theory of Marxism-Leninism internally consistent and was it strong enough to solve the post-war restoration tasks? The author reaches her conclusion that Czechoslovakia's transfer to socialism was not based on the Marxist theory as a peculiar economic theory offering a new control concept, but, contrary to that, she believes that the key circumstance of the transfer was the economy with central and mandatory control applied during the Nazi occupation. As a result of that type of economy, a highly concentrated capital was transferred to the government's hands as a nationalized industry at the end of the war.

The main aim of this bibliographical essay is to analyse the major tendencies of the research in the sphere of Czech (Czechoslovak) economic and social history in the 1990s. The bibliography of key studies is divided to five chapters: 1) the surveis, synthesis, general and metodological studies; 2) the 19th century; 3) the years 1918-1938; 4) the years 1938-1948; 5) the years 1948-1989.

The Great Depression deepened problems of the Weimar Republic and contributed to the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship. However, the symptoms of weakness in the economical sphere could be already seen in the late 1920s. The indebtedness of the state and high public expenditures related to the great bulk of foreign loans became the biggest problems of this state. Political parties could not achieve unanimity in anti-crisis reforms and, as a result, in 1930 President Paul von Hindenburg appointed new Chancellor Dr Heinrich Brüning. His cabinet focused on balancing of the national budget and nullification of reparations. Consecutively, the German government adopted a wide range of drastically saving provisions with the intention of lowering state expenditures and maintaining the stability of currency. The adopted deflation policy did not take into account rapidly increasing unemployment and social instability that was reflected in the rising preferences of radical political parties - NSDAP and KPD. Economic slump reached its peak after the outbreak of the socalled Bank crisis, caused by the collapse of influential Berlin bank houses. German government continued to pursue the deflation policy which was based on an experience with the hyperinflation in the years 1923-1924 and the majority of politicians feared that new credits and state interventions would cause depreciation of currency and political unrest. Following cabinets of Franz von Papen and Kurt von Schleicher did not manage to stop the impact of the Great Depression. Only the new cabinet of Adolf Hitler started the era of state investments into armament and construction and thus contributed to the finishing of the depression.

The study preciously analyses and reconstructs the difficult process of the constitution and development of the Institute of the Economic History since its origin (1958) to the time of changes after 1989. It was the first Czech institute of the conomic history; in its head there were Professor Rudolf Olšovský, Professor Václav Průcha, Ing. Daniel Váňa and Doc. Dr. František Stellner. The study is concentrated to the research of the activities of the members of the Institute, to the pedagogical and scientific part of the work of its directors and members; the study contains the analysis of the published works of the members of the Institute, too. They published these important works: Olšovský, R. a kol., Přehled hospodářského vývoje Československa v letech 1918-1945, Praha 1961; Faltus, J., Průcha, V., Všeobecné hospodářské dějiny 19. a 20. století, Praha 1966, Průcha, V. a kol., Hospodářské dějiny Československa v 19. a 20. století, Praha 1974, Průcha, V. a kol., Hospodářské a sociální dějiny Československa 1918-1992. I. díl Období 1918-1945, Brno 2004.

The antifascist movement in Czechoslovakia during the Second World War paid considerable attention to conceptualizing economic and social policy after the liberation of the country. Between 1939 and 1945 the resistance movement consisted of several mainstreams. Czechoslovak political representation abroad was concentrated partly around President Edvard Beneš and the internationally accredited government-in-exile in London and partly around the foreign leadership of the Czechoslovak Communist Party in Moscow. In the home country the resistance movement developed differently in the Czech Lands and in Slovakia. In the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia various groups participated in resistance activities and gradually under the mounting influence of the Communist Party they radicalized and drew nearer to it. In the beginning the antifascist resistance in Slovakia was on a more modest scale. However, in December 1943 contacts between the mainstreams - Communist and bourgeois-democratic groups- led to the creation of the clandestine Slovak National Council. The climax of the resistance movement was the Slovak National Uprising between August and October 1944 and the Prague Rising in the last days of the Second World War. The article traces the major ideas and views of the separate components of the resistance movement and their increasing radicalization in the course of the War. Features common to their reflections and programmes arose from the experiences of the world economic crisis of the 1930s, from antifascist positions, from the shifting world power relations during the war and from the anticipation of far-reaching social changes in renascent Czechoslovakia. A specific feature of the Slovak resistance movement was the realization of certain of its programmatic principles during the Slovak National Uprising and in the first months of 1945. The common position of the different resistance groups became the basis of the programme of the first government on the liberated territory - the Košice Government Programme - which was approved at the beginning of April 1945.

The study describes the concept of the Czechoslovak economic reform prepared in 1964-65 and introduced gradually in 1966-68. The reform was, however, never fully implemented, and was scrapped following the political changes of 1968/69.
The brief introduction gives an outline of the causes which created the conditions favouring the elaboration of the draft of a new economic system which was subsequently accepted by the political leadership of the country.
The next section of the study summarizes the origin, development and demise of the reform, whose nature can be expressed by the motto from "decentralization to democratization". The main part of the study is the chapter devoted to the description and analysis of the major features of the proposed reform concept as it was formulated during the Prague Spring of 1968. These basic features are: (1) macro-economic planning, (2) a regulated market mechanism, and (3) the democratization of decision-making.
The concluding part of the study puts forward the view that the mentioned three features point to a system presenting an alternative to those that exist in the East and in the West. The statistical appendix lists and comments on data illustrating the economic results of the reform endeavour. A selection of literature compiled at the end is confined to studies published on the subject mainly by Czechoslovak economists living in the Western "exile".