Legislative Politics in Czechoslovakia

Abstract

Czechoslovakia was the only state created by the Paris peace treaties whose democratic form of government in the interwar period was not destroyed from within. When World War II ended in 1945, of all the European lands east of the Elbe Czechoslovakia was the most fortunate. She did not suffer any substantial war damage (unlike Poland and Yugoslavia), and neither was she treated as a defeated enemy (like Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria) to be burdened by reparations and foreign occupation. As a conspicuous exception to the rule, the Red Army left the country before the end of 1945 — to return 23 years later with the intention of a more permanent stay.