The First Attempt at a Common Social Emancipation

Abstract

From the social and political perspectives, the establishment of a new democratic Slavonic state in a sphere strongly influenced by Germans and Hungarians for hundreds of years was no easy task. First it was necessary to decide if the new state would be based on the principles of the proletarian revolution, expanding then from Soviet Russia, or on the principles of standard European democracy. A natural pattern for this second possibility was the system established in France, and eventually in the USA, both of which were seen to be the main victors in the First World War and principal actors in the liberation of Czech and Slovaks. The necessary decision was not simple. The extreme pauperisation of the population during the war, the extraordinarily steep differentiation in fortunes (cf. Kalinova, 1993a: p. 16) and incomes, the radical moods of the soldiers returning from the trenches, the rapid increase in the influence of the traditionally strong Social Democracy and especially of its proto-Communist wing, the direct invasion of the Hungarian Red Army — all these made a radical solution more possible. The first parliamentary elections (Table 11.1) clearly showed the increasing influence of the left.