N44 - Economic History: Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation: 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 establishment of the First Slovak Republic on 14 March 1939 was caused mainly by the changing geopolitical situation in Central Europe and Adolf Hitler's effort to split Czechoslovakia. Thus, once the First Slovak Republic had been established, Nazi Germany started to make attempts to obtain maximum control over the Slovak economy. The Slovak economy was supposed to fully support German army operations with supplies of raw materials needed. Germany's strong pressure on the Slovak economy was obvious throughout the existence of the First Slovak Republic. Slovak economists were trying to avoid it at least partially. Their attempts to establish relative independence, however, ended definitively in October 1944, after the repression of the Slovak National Uprising, when the Slovak economy got under Germany's direct control.

During First World War German government established 134 "war economic society" for assembling and distribution of food-stuff, consumer products, hard goods and raw materials. Germany so determined of war economy with state central bureaucratic methods. German government proclaimed nine "war money lent" for financing of army and war. At the same time the deficit of state budget was increased. In consequence of mobilization, heavy losses at war and conscription of emptiness of skilled workers was raised in war industry. The imperial parliament in Berlin legislated in December 1916 of civilian duty for all men from 17 to 60 years. That way was culminated of total militarisation of social life and economy in Germany. In the end Germany lost of war because of heavy losses at war and economic exhaustion.

Right after the establishment of Czechoslovakia, it was evident that foreign trade would play an important role in the economy of the new state. The narrow domestic market forced Czechoslovak producers to look for new foreign sales opportunities. With respect to historical ties, they were mainly interested in exports to succession states and Germany. However, the post-war conditions did not favour a considerable export expansion hampered by high tariff barriers restricting access to the markets of succession states. The second half of the 1920s became the most successful phase in the development of interwar export. To a large extent, Czechoslovak enterprises showed good adaptability to changes in foreign demand and took advantage of the contemporaneous boom in world trade. By contrast, the Great Depression disclosed the unfavourable consequences of Czechoslovakia's dependency on export results. Unfortunately, a slow reaction of both the Czechoslovak government and industry to the new situation, together with other problems, led to decreasing Czechoslovakia's share in total European exports.

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.

This article deals with the repression against private enterprise in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s and 1960s. Czechoslovakia experienced the biggest changes in relation to the private enterprise out of all countries belonging to the Soviet block. During a few years after the incorporation to this block, the legal enterprising in Czechoslovakia had almost disappeared. Private enterprise was firstly restrained by prohibition, and consecutively by the laws that, in comparison to enterprise directed by the state, entailed a big handicap to private business. Later attempts to revive private enterprise were implemented with big difficulties, owing to enduring opinions of the establishment of the Communist Party and the state. Its partial revitalisation had been thus implemented only underhandedly and under extremely restrained conditions.

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.