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Josef Stalin sent the Red Army of the Soviet Union to fight for the liberation of Czechoslovakia from the Germans. Stalin, however, quickly went back on his promise to offer free elections in the liberated countries and the Czechoslovak government was flooded with Communist propaganda and taken over by Communist party officials. Czech Communist leaders closely followed the example of Josef Stalin and tightened party control. Czechoslovakia joined the Warsaw Pact and the country was characterized by heavy industry, collectivization of agriculture and political terror. The collection includes publications by the Communist government, explaining the programs and the government operations. Nové Ceskoslovensko, New Czechoslovakia (1954) is representative of propaganda published by the Communists to remind the Czechs that the conditions had become increasingly closer to a worker's paradise within the Soviet controlled Czechoslovak State. The cover and pictures inside emphasize the growth of heavy industry and the prosperity of the state. Also included is KSC (Komunistické Strany Ceskoslovenska) translated as Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Foundations of Political Schooling: 11 Slavic politics in the past and today, (1946). |
 New Czechoslovakia |
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After Stalin's death in 1953, Czechoslovakia began to gently pull away from the grip of the Soviet Union In 1968, the revisionist attempts ended in failure as Soviet troops rolled into Prague and crushed the liberating movement that had become known as Prague Spring. Strict party leaders replaced the revisionists and Communism took an even firmer hold on the country until the fall of Communism in all of Eastern Europe in 1989. |
