The National Front (in Czech: Národní fronta, in Slovak: Národný front) was a (permanent) coalition (or rather group) of parties – since 1948 also of various associations and mass organisations – from 1945 to 1990 in Czechoslovakia. During the Communist Era in Czechoslovakia (1948 – 1989), the existence of the National Front enabled the KSC to pretend that other political parties are allowed, and at the same time to control the participating parties and. mass organisations. Similar "coalitions" with identical names (in the German Democratic Republic) or similar names (in Poland, Bulgaria, Vietnam) existed in other Communist countries.
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2 Member parties and organisations (in the 1980s) |
History
1943 – 1948
During World War II, Czechoslovakia disappeared from the map of Europe. At the end of World War II, Czechoslovakia now found itself within the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union. Thus the political and economic organization of postwar Czechoslovakia was largely the result of negotiations between Eduard Benes and KSC exiles in Moscow. The Czechs and Slovaks supporting the re-establishment of Czechoslovakia started negotiations on the creation of the concept of a future popular anti-Nazi coalition of parties in December 1943 in Moscow. The concepts of the KSC (having contacts in Moscow) and of the non-Communist parties were different.
Finally, the National Front was founded in April 1945, when the first post-war Czechoslovak government came into being in Kosice, while the Soviet Union and Czechoslovak troops were liberating Czechoslovakia .The National Front government was a coalition of 6/8 parties:
- The four socialist parties—KSC, KSS, Czechoslovak Social democratic Party, and Czechoslovak National Socialist Party—predominated
- Certain acceptable nonsocialist parties were included in the coalition: the (Catholic) Czechoslovak People's Party, the (Slovak) Democratic Party, and later also the (Slovak) Labor Party and the (Slovak) Freedom Party.
Many quarrels arose between the KSC and the remaining parties of the National Front in the transitory period 1945 – 1948, until the KSC definitively seized the power in Czechoslovakia in Febraury 1948.
The new National Front has functioned as a conveyer of KSC policy directives to the other political parties and mass organizations. An important function of the National Front was to nominate all candidates for public office and to supervise elections. Individuals running for public office needed not be communist, but all candidates had to be approved by the National Front. Thus, National Front candidates typically received more than 99 percent of the votes (voters in Czechoslovakia had the right to refrain from marking their ballots if they did not want to vote for any of the National Front candidates; however, few voters exercised that right for fear of official reprisal).
Together with the establishment of the Czech Socialist Republic and Slovak Socialist Republic in 1969, the National Fronts of the Czech Socialist Republic and the National Front of the Slovak Socialist Republic were established as organiyations partly making up, partly supplementing the National Front of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
The National Front ceased with the Velvet Revolution in 1990.
A) Two Czech noncommunist parties and two Slovak noncommunist parties:
B) A myriad of mass organizations in the workplace, at schools, and in neighborhoods. Although mass organizations permeated nearly all aspects of social organization, the most important consisted of trade unions, women's groups, and youth organizations. Whereas in noncommunist nations such organizations act partly as political interest groups to put pressure on the government, in Czechoslovakia the mass organizations have acted as support groups for the KSC and as channels for the transmission of party policy to the population at large. This is evidenced by the fact that KSC officials directed the mass organizations at virtually every level. A few examples are:
1948 – 1990
The new National Front got rid of most non-Communist parties and various associations and mass organisations became new members. The member parties were the KSC and an internal „adaptation“ the Czechoslovak People‘s Party, the Czechoslovak Socialist Party, the Slovak Freedom Party and the Slovak Revival Party. Some of the mass organisations were the trade unions (the Revultionary Trade Union Movement), the Czechoslovak Union of Youth, the Union for Czechoslovak-Soviet Friendship and so on. For details see below. Member parties and organisations (in the 1980s)
In the 1980s, the National Front included (besides the KSC and the KSS):
The two Slovak parties were very small and drew their support from the peasant population and Roman Catholics. Each party was organized along the lines of the KSC, having a party congress, central committee, presidium, and secretariat. Other than having a small number of seats in the Czech National Council (parliament), Slovak National Council (parliament), and the Federal Assembly (parliament), these parties had little input into governmental affairs. They served as auxiliaries of the KSC and in no way represented an alternative source of political power.
