Victorious February

JAN 01 1948 · 12:00

Klement Gottwald in 1949. The communist leader who took the balcony at the Kinský Palace on 25 February 1948. Place: Balcony of the Kinský Palace, Old Town Square Figures: Klement Gottwald, Communist Party leader · Edvard Beneš, President · Jan Masaryk, Foreign Minister (still alive, briefly) On February 20, twelve non-communist ministers resign in protest at the communist takeover of the Interior Ministry, expecting Beneš to refuse the resignations and trigger a new election. They have miscalculated. The communists control the police, the radio, the trade unions, and the People's Militia, who are armed and on the street within hours. Beneš, sixty-three, ailing, the only major politician who survived both the war and Munich, hesitates. For five days Prague is paralyzed. Students march from the Faculty of Law to the Castle in support of the President; they are turned back by police. The non-communist parties cannot agree on a counter-move. The factories vote, under militia supervision, for the workers' programme. On February 25, Beneš accepts the resignations and signs Gottwald's new all-communist cabinet. The Republic falls without a shot.