Czechoslovak Socialist Republic

Československá socialistická republika Dickhead States, Communist Czechoslovakia, We was Kangz
Flag Coat of Arms
Motto: Pravda má krátké nohy a daleko nedojde... Truth has short legs, and that's why it's never revailed.
Anthem: Kde je domov můj? (My brother was at a protest and now I have to shovel coal because of it.)
Capital	Prague, Bratislava
Government	Communists, mostly stupid, sort of Federation since 1969 to 1990.
‑ President,Comrade	Sort of Soviet's happy doggy puppet
Declaration  of Independence	Never
Currency	Kčs (Czechoslovak Crown) until 1953, then Anarchy
Religion	Communism

Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (Czech: Československá socialistická republika, Slovak: Československá socialistická republika, Hungarian: Csehszlovák Szocialista Köztársaság, and in Brainrotese: Kélma & His Bestiesland) was a 20th-century something like a country, dressed in the costume of sovereignty, but in reality just a Soviet ventriloquist dummy with delusions of grandeur.

Economically bankrupt, politically rigid, and socially dysfunctional, ČSSR made big noises on the world stage—mostly about peace, steel, and potatoes—while quietly decaying from the inside. It survived mostly thanks to repression, forced unity, and the threat of tanks (both Soviet and domestic).

After communism collapsed (spoiler: it wasn’t missed), the country tried democracy, overdid it, and collapsed into two separate states on January 1st, 1993:

• Czech Republic – beer, ham, sarcasm, and passive racism.
• Slovak Republic – mountains, sheep, and questionable Friday night decisions.

Background and Third Republic (1945 - 1948)

Best product from Bohemia & Moravia: Hetzer.....

As the Second World War in Europe neared its messy finale in 1945, the city of Prague — often praised as Europe’s jewel (mainly by Czechs and drunk tourists) — was still proudly serving as the capital of something that no longer pretended to be a country: the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, a Nazi meatgrinder disguised as an administrative zone. Instead of parades and pride, the place specialized in building tank destroyers and watching its remaining citizens either conform, disappear, or pretend to believe in the thousand-year Reich.

Its “president,” Emil Hácha, a frail legal scholar already half-dead when the Nazis installed him, had long ceased being relevant. He hadn’t governed so much as wheezed occasionally in a government building. The only spark of defiance came with the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Hitler’s SS golden boy, by Czechoslovak operatives using a bomb, bullets, and a lucky infection caused by leather car seat mold. In retaliation, the Nazis burned down villages, shot families, and installed even worse people in charge.

But the war was ending, and Prague was liberated. Just not quite how people remember. First came the Vlasov Army — former Soviet soldiers turned Nazis turned anti-Nazis again — who briefly saved the day before they were conveniently forgotten and then handed over to Stalin to be shot or worked to death. Then came the Red Army, rolling in with tanks, vodka breath, and a permanent presence. They were not leaving. Ever.

The expulsion of the Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovakia was, of course, very humane. If the Germans were not shot outright during the deportation, the Czechs forced them to walk around dead Jews, in this case Jewish women who died during the death march under the auspices of the SS, without the Sudeten people taking any part in it.

Somewhere between the gunfire and the rubble, Edvard Beneš, the moustached exile who had spent the war giving impotent speeches from London, reappeared like an unwanted houseguest. The “exile government” was instantly legitimized — not by elections, but by fatigue and necessity. Beneš didn’t ask questions. He looked westward, saw betrayal; looked eastward, saw opportunity; and promptly bent over for Moscow.

In the following months, Beneš Decrees were signed — a series of documents that legalized what we now politely call the “transfer of Germans”, and what was, in fact, mass ethnic cleansing with paperwork. Around three million Sudeten Germans were told to pack up 25 kilograms of belongings (preferably not heirlooms), abandon everything else, and walk into the void. They were forcibly removed in cattle cars, on foot, in convoys. Some were raped. Some were shot. Some starved. Many died. But it was all declared humane by the new regime — because, of course, they said so.

This great act of postwar hygiene was followed by 1946 elections, where the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia won a suspiciously large share of the vote. Maybe it was real; maybe it was "guided." Either way, they got in, and they got busy. Over the next two years, they took control of the police, the unions, the judiciary, and the narrative.

And then, in February 1948, they made their final move: the coup that wasn’t called a coup, the "Victorious February". Communist ministers staged a constitutional tantrum, non-communists resigned in protest, and Gottwald, the Stalinist puppet, stepped in with clenched fists and smiling lies. Beneš, spineless as ever, caved completely and signed over the republic like it was a bad check.

That was the end. No more democracy, no more debate. From here on, it was “people’s democracy,” which meant obedience, propaganda, and surveillance. A new dawn had come — grey, cold, and permanent.

And Czechoslovakia, now red inside and out, marched proudly into the 20th century’s darkest circus, waving flags it didn’t choose, under slogans no one believed, ruled by men no one could touch.

Fourth Republic (1948 - 1960)

Besties

Immediately after the Victorious February of 1948, things kicked into high gear. Klement Gottwald, a short, sweaty little man with a Stalin fetish and liver issues, went from Prime Minister to President with all the subtlety of a Soviet tank driving through a library. He brought along his entourage — the Besties of Death — including Rudolf Slánský, Bedřich Reicin, Vlado Clementis, and other cheerful men who smiled in public and signed execution orders in private.

The Marshall Plan was offered. Naturally, the regime refused — or rather, they accepted it briefly, then declined it under orders from Moscow, who didn’t like the idea of Czechoslovakia climbing out of the postwar sewer without paying toll in ideology. Man of Steel gave them a good ideological spanking, and Gottwald obeyed with the enthusiasm of a kicked dog.

What followed was total nationalization. Industry, banking, farms, shoelaces — everything belonged to the people, which in practice meant it belonged to the Party, and was promptly mismanaged into the ground. Czechoslovakia, once an industrial powerhouse under Austria-Hungary with one of Europe’s most modern infrastructures, was shoved backwards into forced Five-Year Plans, tractor parades, and coal worship. The result was a controlled demolition of productivity — but very equal and very red.

Then came the purges.

First, Jan Masaryk, the foreign minister and inconveniently democratic son of the republic’s founder, “fell” out of a bathroom window in 1948. Officially, he jumped. Unofficially, he “jumped” with assistance. Then in 1949, General Heliodor Píka was discreetly hanged on pole— a fashionable humane procedure back then — for being loyal to the wrong war at the wrong time.

Oopsie, poopsie! Bestie is on a trial!

The killing machine reached its grotesque climax in 1952, when the regime turned on itself. Rudolf Slánský, once Gottwald’s bestie, was accused of Titoism, Zionism, bourgeois nationalism, and other made-up diseases, including allegedly murdering Jan Šverma in 1944 by leaving him in the snow. Slánský was tortured, humiliated, and hanged in a show trial so absurd it made Kafka look like a realist. Alongside him, other Party officials were also humanely disposed of.

Let’s not forget Milada Horáková, a democratic politician and war resistance veteran. The entire Western world begged for her life. The Pope. Einstein. Churchill. Didn’t matter. Gottwald had one master — and that master was Stalin. Milada was hanged in 1950, her trial broadcast for educational purposes. The lesson: obey or die.

"Cheerful uncle" Antonín Zápotocký

Then, in 1953, Stalin died. Gottwald rushed to Moscow to say goodbye, caught pneumonia, and promptly died himself, like a loyal dog curled up on its master’s grave. This ushered in the era of Antonín Zápotocký, a tailor by trade who nationalized accordions (seriously) and decided it was time to reform the currency by stealing everyone’s money. The 1953 monetary reform wiped out savings, pensions, and trust in the state. People were paid in nothing and thanked with silence.

Zápotocký didn't last long — in 1957, he dropped dead and was replaced by Antonín Novotný, a grey man with a grey mind, who in 1960 gave the country a new constitution. Czechoslovakia was now officially renamed the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, and communism became the state religion — no longer just implied, but explicitly inscribed in law. The previous religion, Roman Catholicism, was quietly retired, except when needed to pacify peasants or frighten children.

Novotný also issued a general amnesty, letting some prisoners go — mostly to make room for new ones.

Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (1960 - 1990)

By the 1960s, Czechoslovakia was a Soviet satellite not only in politics but in spirit — grey, obedient, heavily policed, and mostly devoid of anything resembling hope. Yet, deep beneath the crust of bureaucratic decay, something stirred.

The Thaw Era

In 1963, economic stagnation forced the regime to admit what everyone already knew: the five-year plans had failed. Industry was falling apart. Shops were empty. People were tired of being told that breadlines were a sign of prosperity. Out of this came a cautious liberalization — at first in economics, then, terrifyingly for the Party, in culture.

Art Before the Thaw

Before the 1960s thaw, Czechoslovak culture resembled a shriveled raisin trapped in a red pressure cooker. Under the rule of Antonín Novotný and his ideological predecessors, art wasn’t art — it was didactic construction material.

This era, known euphemistically as the time of “socialist realism”, was not about realism and certainly not about socialism in any human sense. It was about one thing: glorifying the state. Every film, every painting, every novel had to say the same thing:

• Work is life.
• The factory is your church.
• The capitalist is a pig.
• The Party is your mother, father, teacher, and blood type.

Children’s fairy tales were turned into political sermons. In The Proud Princess, the central theme was that capitalist arrogance is bad, but falling in love with a laborer and picking potatoes is good. If you didn’t like it, you were either bourgeois or mentally ill. Or both.

Cinema was packed with tractor operas, steel-mill dramas, and love stories where the true romance was between a man and a combine harvester. Painters who used the wrong color palette risked never exhibiting again. Writers who got poetic instead of political found themselves stacking bricks in Ostrava. The only acceptable jazz came with approval from the secret police.

1968

Mr. Freedom

Then came Alexander Dubček in January 1968, and suddenly, everything became possible.

Dubček wasn’t stupid. He was a reformer, a Slovak, and a communist who thought communism didn’t have to be a spiritual lobotomy. Under his leadership, censorship was abolished. The press became wild. Borders started opening. People could think again.

The president at the time, Ludvík Svoboda, had the perfect name for the era: Svoboda literally means freedom. A beautifully ironic surname, considering he would soon stand silently as foreign tanks rolled into the capital under his watch. He was a war hero, yes — but by 1968, he was mostly a symbolic figure with a tragic label. He was “Freedom,” presiding over its burial.

Yikes

Operation Danube

Meanwhile, in the Kremlin, Leonid Brezhnev — a man whose eyebrows had their own zip code and whose emotional range hovered between “paranoid” and “comatose” — watched Czechoslovakia’s renaissance with rising panic.

Dubček’s reforms were seen not as hope but as a virus, threatening to spread to other obedient Soviet satellites. Brezhnev tried letters, threats, and brotherly advice. Dubček listened, nodded, and did nothing.

So the Soviets took the only step they ever took when words failed: military "dialogue."

On the night of August 20–21, 1968, the Warsaw Pact came to the party — uninvited and heavily armed. Over 500,000 troops, 6,300 tanks, and 800 aircraft from five "fraternal" nations rolled into Czechoslovakia with all the subtlety of a drunken wedding brawl.

This wasn’t called an invasion, of course. That would be imperialist language. No — this was a “fraternal intervention”, a “friendly visit”, a “brotherly assistance operation.”

Prague awoke to tank treads grinding over cobblestones, to the smell of diesel and fear. Soviet soldiers — many barely out of adolescence — stormed key sites with orders to “liberate” a city that didn’t want them. Many thought they were in West Germany. Some cried. Others shot protesters.

Civilians resisted with bare hands, cigarettes, and homemade signs. Some threw Molotovs. Most stood in silence or cried. Over 100 civilians were killed. Hundreds more wounded. Entire generations woke up, only to realize that the dream was already over.

Radio stations broadcast until tanks crushed the transmitters. Newspapers published blank front pages in protest. Students wept. Some set themselves on fire. The world watched — and sent nothing but sympathy cards.

Svoboda, the man named Freedom, stood by. Powerless. Speechless. Broken.

Normalization (1969 - 1987)

What a cheerful place....

After the shitshow with Soviet tanks August 1968 — to “protect socialism” from the dangerous threat of free thinking — the party was over. Literally. Reformers were out. The press was gagged. Borders slammed shut. People who asked questions disappeared from public life, or just disappeared, period.

The government, under gentle Soviet supervision, signed the Moscow Protocols — a document that basically said:

“We’re sorry for trying to do socialism with a human face. That was wrong. From now on, we’ll only do it with a boot.”

And thus began a new era. A calm, grey, obedient era. The era of Normalization — which was Orwellian code for:

“Forget 1968 ever happened, pretend you’re happy, and we’ll all get through this with minimal bruising.”

The top job went to Gustáv Husák, a former reformer turned Brezhnev’s lapdog. Once imprisoned for "bourgeois nationalism" during Stalin-era, now he was premier enforcer of the new order. His talent? Saying nothing, doing less, and looking very tired while doing it.

Gustáv Husák with his East German fellas: Erich Honecker and Walter Ulbricht

He replaced the leadership with obedient yes-men, including Prime Minister Lubomír Štrougal, who looked like he was born in a grey suit and had never seen music. The president, Ludvík Svoboda was kept around for a while as a human paperweight, until Husák took over that job too.

Life settled into a kind of bureaucratic coma — a slow-motion drowning in paperwork, propaganda, and Polička beer.

What Normalization Looked Like

• Art? Only if it was about tractors, steel mills, or heroic farm girls falling in love with men who loved tractors and steel mills.
• Music? You could listen to Western pop — if it had Czech lyrics about road safety or recycling. (Elton John’s “I’m Still Standing” became “Mám styl Čendy” — a cultural crime.)
• TV? State-run, joyless, and mostly featuring folk songs, puppet shows with hidden political messages, and reruns of factory documentaries.

• Freedom of speech? Sure — as long as your speech said things like:

“The Soviet Union is our eternal friend.” “Capitalism is the disease, socialism is the cure.”

• Careers? Controlled by party loyalty. You could be a brilliant scientist, but if your cousin signed a protest letter in 1971, you were cleaning windows for the next 20 years.

• The secret police? Everywhere. StB (State Security) had files on students, writers, musicians, priests, philosophers — even people who wore too much denim.

Charta 77

Something like modern Job Application

In 1977, a group of intellectuals, artists, and general troublemakers dared to publish a simple document: Charta 77, a manifesto calling on the Czechoslovak government to respect basic human rights.

You’d think this was reasonable. The regime thought it was treason.

State TV and newspapers (which were basically the same thing) exploded in righteous fury. The signatories were branded:

“Traitors, bankrupt politicians, imperialist agents, international adventurers, and self-appointed lunatics.”

State media didn’t skimp on the insults. These were “wreckers,” “parasites,” and “enemies of the people.”

Of course, the response was very humane. StB agents just politely knocked on doors, invited people in for "friendly chats," and occasionally harassed them into early graves.

Take philosopher Jan Patočka, one of the main spokespeople for Charta 77. After several hours of “questioning,” he conveniently died. Officially of "natural causes." Naturally.

The genius of Normalization wasn’t brutality — it was slow, numbing pressure. A kind of soul-deep resignation where:

• If you shut up, you got a job, a vacation in Bulgaria, and a color TV (eventually).
• If you spoke up, you got surveillance, a dead-end job, and maybe a jail cell.
• If you left the country, you were erased from public records, as if you had never existed.

People adapted. They learned to talk in whispers. They made jokes behind closed doors. They developed a national skill for doublethink — outward loyalty, inner cynicism. They drank a lot.

Collapse (1987 - 1990)

Miloš Jakeš: last Stalinist 1.st Secretary of Communist Party

By the late 1980s, Czechoslovakia was a walking corpse—morally bankrupt, economically ruined, politically irrelevant. The Communist Party (KSČ) was falling apart in Jakeš’s hands, and obedience evaporated.

Škoda Favorit

In 1987, the regime rolled out the Škoda Favorit with all the fanfare of a small-state rocket launch. A front-wheel-drive hatchback that West had since 1959—with the Mini. To the East, it was a miracle. To everyone else, just another outdated box on wheels nobody wanted.

Suddenly, Western currency started trickling in. But the factories still churned out junk nobody wanted—only cheap enough for Soviet-style economies.

• Young Czechs started listening to Pink Floyd, The Cure, and Michael Jackson—illegally. It wasn’t just a beat—it was a middle finger to the establishment.
• The regime hit back with police batons. People bled. Anger grew. The system shook—not because it was strong, but because it wasn’t.

However in July 17, 1989, at Červený Hrádek: Miloš Jakeš took the stage, desperate to rally the faithful. Instead, he became a national punchline.

He rambled something like:

“A proto je tak důležitá ta podpora zespodu… aby my jsme tam byli sami jak kůl v plotě neměli jediného slova podpory.” (“That’s why we need grassroots support… so we’re not left there like a post in a fence with not a single word of support.”)

He confused boilers with brawlers, brought up random farm stories, slurring about bank clerks in Hungary, “iron horses,” and Hana Zagorová—who supposedly made 600 000 crowns a year—and sneered at artists calling for protest.

Instead of inspiring, Jakeš’s speech was laughing stock. Tapes leaked—Václav Havel and others queued up to broadcast it on Radio Free Europe.

Jakeš became the perfect metaphor—a fence-post, abandoned by those it was supposed to support.

Hope burst through the cracks in that absurd tragedy, seeded by cigarettes at protests, mixed tapes of Western hits, and the endless sharing of that comically tragic speech.

One Big Punchline, Loaded with Consequence The joke wasn’t just on Jakeš—it was on thirty‑five years of officially scheduled mediocrity. From Gottwald in 1948 to the final boneheaded monologue in 1989, the system limped forward until logic itself refused to cooperate.

And then, in November 1989, the dam broke.

Velvet Revolution

Take me, to the magic of the moment........On a glory night......

It started with students.

As usual, the regime miscalculated. They assumed the students were like ferns — decorative, harmless, and prone to wilting in winter. On November 17, 1989, a peaceful student march in Prague was met not with dialogue, but with the time-honored tool of Czechoslovak diplomacy:

Answer:

the white rubber police baton.

They called them “gentle persuasion sticks”. But they left bloody welts, broken noses, and cracked skulls. Very persuasive.

“Calm Down, It’s Just Democracy Bleeding Out” The regime’s response was pure vintage Normalization:

• “It was a misunderstanding.”
• “No one was beaten.”
• “If they were, they deserved it.”

Unfortunately for the state, people now had camcorders, and Radio Free Europe. Word spread faster than a Škoda Favorit could stall in winter.

Suddenly, the streets filled. Students, artists, workers, priests, punks, grandmas — everyone showed up.

The banners said things like:

• “We’re not afraid anymore.”
• “Free elections now.”
• “Jakeš to trash.”

As the regime panicked, Czech society exploded with everything it had buried for 20+ years:

• Protest songs.
• Political jokes.
• Homemade signs that insulted the Party more creatively than decades of samizdat.

This is collapse of Communism in Czechoslovakia. At least for now...

The voice of the underground, Karel Kryl, returned from exile. His song “Bratříčku, zavírej vrátka” — banned for two decades — now echoed across city squares, guitar in hand, people in tears.

Within weeks:

• Jakeš resigned (not that anyone noticed).
• The “leading role of the Party” was removed from the Constitution.
• Václav Havel, playwright-turned-prisoner-turned-president, was elected.
• The police stopped hitting people — mostly.

No one thought it would work. Then it did.

The same streets where tanks rolled in '68 now saw cheering crowds, jingling keys — a metaphor for unlocking the regime’s death cell.

The same country that once banned jazz and called Lennon a subversive now had The Plastic People of the Universe playing at national events.

By 1990, Czechoslovakia needed a rebrand. So they swapped one letter — from ČSSR to ČSFR (Czechoslovak Federative Republic).

Aftermath

Czechoslovakia, reborn as the ČSFR (Czechoslovak Federative Republic), looked great on paper.

But like every band that reunites after a messy breakup, the chemistry was gone.

By 1993, the state quietly split into two:

• Czech Republic
• Slovak Republic

It was dubbed the Velvet Divorce, because apparently, even when we’re dismantling a country, we like our metaphors soft and ironically polite.

From Brohers to Enemies

The idea was: two brother nations, peacefully going their separate ways.

But lately? The brothers aren’t even on speaking terms.

Mostly because:

• Slovakia elected Robert Fico, who discovered there’s a lucrative market in paranoia, conspiracy theories, and raw homophobia.
• He took “retro” too seriously and dragged Slovakia back to 1984, just without the Soviet discount fuel.

Meanwhile, Czechia sits awkwardly at the family reunion, sipping beer and pretending it doesn’t notice Slovakia texting Putin at the table.

Flash Sale on the Country

The 1990s brought freedom... and also the largest garage sale in Eastern Europe.

• State-owned companies? Privatized.
• National industries? Dismantled.

• Factories, power plants, hotels, and even toilets? Sold to the highest bidder (or the closest Party cousin).

It was called “voucher privatization,” which sounds cute — like collecting cereal box coupons — until you realize it turned former apparatchiks into instant millionaires.

Welcome to Oligarchy Lite™ — same great taste, fewer gulags.

Crime Time

Under communism, crime was censored.

If someone got stabbed in a tram, officially it didn’t happen — or it was blamed on Western jazz.

But democracy brought open media, and suddenly:

• Every murder, bank robbery, or gas explosion was primetime content.
• Organized crime became organized business.

• And the police? They were busy learning how laws actually work.

You could now get mugged and read about it in the same day. Progress.

Rise of the “Dezolé”

The fall of censorship meant everyone could speak freely. Unfortunately, some people took that way too literally.

Enter the “Dezolé” — a local species of internet user defined by:

• Loving conspiracy theories more than their children.
• Sharing photos of chemtrails.
• Believing COVID was a NATO mind-control experiment.
• Yelling online that “life was better under communism” — while typing on a capitalist iPhone made in China.

These are the spiritual children of “Normalization,” now radicalized by Facebook, Russian bots, and rage against the modern world.

Even today, a worrying number of people still romanticize the old regime:

• “At least there was order.”
• “You had a job, even if it was meaningless.”
• “There were no homeless people, just people waiting for an apartment... for 25 years.”

Some miss the uniformity, the silence, the illusion of safety.

Others just miss being told what to do, because freedom is exhausting.

Good things

Lovely. 1971. And late 30's howitzers are still used....

A Massive People’s Army™

• Who needs modern healthcare when you can have the fourth largest army in Europe?
• A million men ready to defend socialism by marching in perfect formation until NATO died of boredom.
• Equipped with tanks that could maybe still start in winter (with a priest’s blessing).
• Constant drills ensured that every citizen could die patriotically within the first 72 hours of nuclear war.

Glorious!

Ok, this thing is missed by many Czechs....

Tatra Automobiles

• Tatra: the luxury car built for comrades, not commoners.
• Sleek, space-age bodies, air-cooled rear engines, and dangerously sexy handling.
• Drove like a spaceship, crashed like a guillotine.
• Only for party officials, diplomats, and people who never, ever stood in a queue for toilet paper.

A triumph of socialism — just not for you.

Least uselful piece of Czechoslovak engineering...

Intellectuals

Communism had a funny habit of producing brilliant minds and then punishing them for thinking.

• Invented contact lenses, semtex, artificial kidneys, and some of the best existential despair known to man.
• Wrote literature so beautiful, it had to be smuggled out in shoe soles.
• Occasionally allowed to live in peace — if they shut up and wrote poems about steelworkers kissing smokestacks.

Science and suffering: a Czechoslovak love story.

Bad things

Economy

• Factories built tractors that broke down before harvest, and shoes that lasted half a parade.
• Produced 1,000 units of something, only for 999 to go directly to Albania, Cuba, or the bin.
• Wages were symbolic. So were the goods in stores.

Yaaaay, oh.....

Culture

• 24/7 propaganda with the excitement of a funeral on repeat.
• Music? Mostly stolen Western hits
• Films? Heroic welders falling in love with socialist harvest quotas.

Entertainment for the whole family!

StB

These weren’t monsters. No.

• These were gentlemen in leather trench coats, offering unsolicited dental work and free underground lodging.
• They didn’t interrogate — they "engaged in dialogue." A dialogue where you bled, fainted, and eventually agreed that you were, in fact, a CIA operative. Sometimes you even died. But politely. In a chair. After falling down 87 stairs.

And the best part?

You didn’t even have to do anything wrong.

Everything Else

• Housing crisis? Solved with concrete boxes that looked like someone lost a bet.
• Toilet paper? Occasionally sighted. Mythical, like unicorns.
• Food quality? Let’s just say the word “meat” had... range.
• Freedom of speech? As long as you spoke in your sleep and your pillow wasn’t wired.

See also

• Czech Republic
• Slovak Republic
• Communism