Editing Czechoslovakia (section)

===Third and Fourth Republics===
{{main|Third Czechoslovak Republic|History of Czechoslovakia (1948–1989)|Czechoslovak Socialist Republic}}
[[File:Coat of arms of Czechoslovakia (1960–1990).svg|thumb|upright|Socialist [[Coat of arms of Czechoslovakia|coat of arms]] in 1960–1989]]
After World War II, pre-war Czechoslovakia was reestablished, with the exception of Sub[[carpathian Ruthenia]], which was annexed by the [[Soviet Union]] and incorporated into the [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic]]. The [[Beneš decrees]] were promulgated concerning ethnic Germans (see [[Potsdam Agreement]]) and ethnic Hungarians. Under the decrees, [[citizenship]] was abrogated for people of German and Hungarian [[ethnic origin]] who had accepted German or Hungarian citizenship during the occupations. In 1948, this provision was cancelled for the Hungarians, but only partially for the Germans. The government then confiscated the property of the Germans and [[Expulsion of Germans after World War II|expelled about 90% of the ethnic German population]], over 2&nbsp;million people. Those who remained were [[Collective accountability|collectively accused]] of supporting the Nazis after the [[Munich Agreement]], as 97.32% of Sudeten Germans had voted for the [[NSDAP]] in the December 1938 elections. Almost every decree explicitly stated that the sanctions did not apply to antifascists. Some 250,000 Germans, many married to Czechs, some antifascists, and also those required for the post-war reconstruction of the country, remained in Czechoslovakia. The Beneš Decrees still cause controversy among nationalist groups in the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria and Hungary.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.law.nyu.edu/eecr/vol11num1_2/special/rupnik.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130515002848/http://www.law.nyu.edu/eecr/vol11num1_2/special/rupnik.html|url-status=dead|title=East European Constitutional Review|archive-date=15 May 2013|access-date=8 April 2020}}</ref>

Following the expulsion of the ethnic German population from Czechoslovakia, parts of the former [[Sudetenland]], especially around Krnov and the surrounding villages of the Jeseníky mountain region ([[Nízký Jeseník]] and [[Hrubý Jeseník]]) in northeastern Czechoslovakia, were settled in 1949 by Communist refugees from [[Northern Greece]] who had left their homeland as a result of the [[Greek Civil War]]. These [[Greeks in the Czech Republic|Greeks]] made up a large proportion of the town and region's population until the late 1980s/early 1990s. Although defined as "Greeks", the Greek Communist community of Krnov and the Jeseníky region actually consisted of an ethnically diverse population, including [[Greek Macedonians]], [[Slavo-Macedonians|Macedonians]], [[Vlachs]], [[Pontic Greeks]] and Turkish speaking [[Urums]] or [[Caucasus Greeks]].<ref name="autogenerated1&quot;">{{Cite web |date=2020-12-17 |title=The Story of Greeks in Czechia |url=https://english.radio.cz/story-greeks-czechia-8703203 |access-date=2022-10-24 |website=Radio Prague International}}</ref>

[[File:Spartakiáda - 1960.JPG|thumb|left|''[[Spartakiad (Czechoslovakia)|Spartakiad]]'' in 1960]]

[[Carpathian Ruthenia]] (Podkarpatská Rus) was occupied by (and in June 1945 formally ceded to) the Soviet Union. In the 1946 parliamentary election, the [[Communist Party of Czechoslovakia]] was the winner in the [[Czech lands]], and the [[Democratic Party (Slovakia, 1944)|Democratic Party]] won in Slovakia. In [[1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état|February 1948 the Communists seized power]]. Although they would maintain the fiction of political pluralism through the existence of the [[National Front (Czechoslovakia)|National Front]], except for a short period in the late 1960s (the [[Prague Spring]]) the country had no [[liberal democracy]]. Since citizens lacked significant electoral methods of registering protest against government policies, periodically there were street protests that became violent. For example, there were riots in the town of [[Plzeň uprising of 1953|Plzeň in 1953]], reflecting economic discontent. Police and army units put down the rebellion, and hundreds were injured but no one was killed. While its economy remained more advanced than those of its neighbors in Eastern Europe, Czechoslovakia grew increasingly economically weak relative to Western Europe.<ref name=":0">{{cite journal |last=Mares |first=Vaclav |title=Czechoslovakia under Communism |journal=Current History |date=June 1954|volume=26 |issue=154 |pages=347–354 |doi=10.1525/curh.1954.26.154.347 |s2cid=249083197 }}</ref>

The currency reform of 1953 caused dissatisfaction among Czechoslovak laborers. To equalize the wage rate, Czechoslovaks had to turn in their old money for new at a decreased value. The banks also confiscated savings and bank deposits to control the amount of money in circulation.<ref name=":0" /> In the 1950s, Czechoslovakia experienced high economic growth (averaging 7% per year), which allowed for a substantial increase in wages and living standards, thus promoting the stability of the regime.<ref>Chris Harman, ''A People's History of the World'', 1999, p 625</ref>

[[File:Czechoslovakia.png|thumb|Czechoslovakia after 1969]]

In 1968, when the reformer [[Alexander Dubček]] was appointed to the key post of First Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, there was a brief period of liberalization known as the [[Prague Spring]]. In response, after failing to persuade the Czechoslovak leaders to change course, five other [[Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia|members of the Warsaw Pact invaded]]. Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia on the night of 20–21&nbsp;August 1968.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/Audio/Events-of-1968/N.-Korea-Seize-U.S.-Ship/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110831120907/http://www.upi.com/Audio/Year_in_Review/Events-of-1968/N.-Korea-Seize-U.S.-Ship/12303153093431-9/#title|url-status=dead|title=N. Korea Seize U.S. Ship - 1968 Year in Review - Audio - UPI.com|archive-date=31 August 2011|website=UPI|access-date=8 April 2020}}</ref> [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Soviet Communist Party General Secretary]] [[Leonid Brezhnev]] viewed this intervention as vital for the preservation of the Soviet, socialist system and vowed to intervene in any state that sought to replace [[Marxism-Leninism]] with [[Capitalism (Marxism)|capitalism]].<ref>John Lewis Gaddis, ''The Cold War: A New History'' (New York: The Penguin Press), 150.</ref>

In the week after the invasion, there was a spontaneous campaign of [[civil resistance]] against the occupation. This resistance involved a wide range of acts of non-cooperation and defiance: this was followed by a period in which the Czechoslovak Communist Party leadership, having been forced in Moscow to make concessions to the Soviet Union, gradually put the brakes on their earlier liberal policies.<ref>Philip Windsor and [[Adam Roberts (scholar)|Adam Roberts]], ''Czechoslovakia 1968: Reform, Repression and Resistance'' (London: Chatto & Windus, 1969), pp. 97–143.</ref>

Meanwhile, one plank of the reform program had been carried out: in 1968–69, Czechoslovakia was turned into a federation of the [[Czech Socialist Republic]] and [[Slovak Socialist Republic]]. The theory was that under the federation, social and economic inequities between the Czech and Slovak halves of the state would be largely eliminated. A number of ministries, such as education, now became two formally equal bodies in the two formally equal republics. However, the centralized political control by the Czechoslovak Communist Party severely limited the effects of federalization.

The 1970s saw the rise of the dissident movement in Czechoslovakia, represented among others by [[Václav Havel]]. The movement sought greater political participation and expression in the face of official disapproval, manifested in limitations on work activities, which went as far as a ban on professional employment, the refusal of higher education for the dissidents' children, police harassment and prison.

During the 1980s, Czechoslovakia became one of the most tightly controlled Communist regimes in the [[Warsaw Pact]] in resistance to the mitigation of controls notified by Soviet president [[Mikhail Gorbachev]].