Hubert Ripka was one of the people closest to Beneš. He was experienced and smart, knew everyone in government, and was liked by most. He had served in a variety of positions and at that point was both a democratic party leader and minister of trade. My father considered him among the finest men in Prague. In a conventional political setting, Ripka would have been an effective advocate and leader, but in the Czechoslovakia of 1948 he was a flounder swimming with sharks. On February 9, he met with Gottwald in an effort to ease the anger that threatened to deadlock the government and split the country. Instead, after a few polite exchanges, the session became a shouting match as each repeatedly interrupted the other. Gottwald accused Ripka of opposing socialism, shielding traitors, and conspiring to create, as had the Nazis, an anti-Bolshevik coalition. Ripka claimed that Gottwald’s agenda, also in imitation of the Nazis, was a totalitarian state.
The next cabinet meeting, four days later, brought the government to the brink. The democrats introduced evidence in the form of a lengthy, statistics-laden report from Drtina that the Communists were attempting to establish a stronghold on the police, possibly in preparation for a coup. While the meeting was in session, word arrived that the interior minister had ordered the demotion and replacement by Communists of eight divisional police commanders—the officers authorized to distribute arms and ammunition. Drtina moved immediately to reinstate the police and to halt further hiring and firing pending a cabinet inquiry. The Social Democrats, some of whose members were among the police targeted for dismissal, joined the other non-Communist parties in supporting the motion; its approval was an embarrassment to Gottwald and escalated tensions even further. The newspapers were rife with allegations of treason, and on Sunday, February 22, thousands of trade union representatives, 90 percent of whom were Communists, were scheduled to assemble in Prague.
Ripka was convinced that the Communists had a plan and that he knew what it was. His informants had advised him that Gottwald intended to unveil a more radical economic program designed to attract support from the gathering of union delegates and probably also from Social Democrats. Ripka feared that such a maneuver would trigger an explosion of populist fervor and divert attention from the police controversy. On February 16, he proposed to the other democratic ministers that they resign as a group, thereby precipitating a showdown in advance of the Sunday mass meeting:
It is the only way to counteract the plan of the communists. . . . If it is on this question that we bring about a crisis, the Social Democrats cannot disassociate themselves from us. Once the crisis is upon us we shall without doubt have to hold immediate elections. If the date of the elections is moved forward, the communists will no longer have the necessary time to gain control of the police and the army.
Two days later, Ripka and Zenkl met at Hradčany to inform Beneš of their strategy and seek his approval. That was crucial because the president had the authority, if the government collapsed, to order new elections. Even in Ripka’s account, the discussion was not businesslike but rambling and confused. Beneš agreed that the Communists had an obligation to obey the cabinet’s instructions with respect to the police. He also stated, when asked, that a cabinet in which the democratic parties had been excluded would be unacceptable. He did not say—because no one deemed it necessary to inquire—exactly what he would do if, as planned, the democratic ministers all resigned. Ripka thought he had a clear signal to proceed as intended, but it is far from certain that Beneš shared that understanding. The president told Ripka to “stand firm” and “avoid blunders,” but that does not mean that he had focused on the incendiary consequences of what the democratic leaders were about to do.
Had he done so, he might have pointed out that the plan could not succeed without full cooperation from the Social Democrats, for in their absence the ministers lacked the majority required to bring down the government. The Social Democrats had been supportive on the police controversy but had rebuffed Ripka when he broached the idea of a group resignation. Such a dramatic move would amount to a declaration of political war, something they could not endorse without ripping apart the fabric of their organization.
The democratic ministers went ahead nevertheless, submitting their resignations on Friday, February 20, hoping to catch the Communists off guard. They did not. Gottwald immediately began to mobilize his network of loyalists. The venom of the Communist-controlled media was concentrated on the twelve ministers, who were allegedly taking orders from financial interests abroad and who had resigned in an effort to sabotage democracy and block the popular will.
The next morning, standing in front of the massive statue of Jan Hus in Old Town Square, Gottwald called upon the president to take the ministers at their word and replace them with a National Unity Front made up of “good” Czechs and Slovaks. Gottwald proceeded to Hradčany to repeat the demand. Beneš refused, instead calling on party leaders from all sides to broker a solution. The democrats were upset that he had not demanded that the remainder of the cabinet resign. Since that alternative had not been raised with him in advance and dismissing the cabinet was, in any event, beyond his constitutional authority, the complaint is hard to understand. In fact, Ripka’s failure to gain the endorsement of the Social Democrats meant that a majority of the cabinet remained in place; the government had not fallen. Gottwald was still prime minister; the president had little choice but to deal with him.
Amid all the political wheeling and dealing, the business of Cold War diplomacy ground on. My father returned from Belgrade to Prague to participate in meetings with Yugoslav and Polish representatives that had been convened—as part of Gottwald’s grand design—primarily for the purpose of denouncing the West. Receptions were held, and speakers were applauded for their criticisms of British imperialism and U.S. hegemony. To underline those points, a joint statement was proposed. My father detested the whole show but could do little to influence the proceedings. Masaryk, who as foreign minister should have been at center stage, withdrew entirely, either feigning illness or genuinely sick. He asked my father to accompany him to his flat, which was on the second floor of the Foreign Ministry. “I met him in his bedroom,” said my father. “He was lying in bed, as he often did . . . to escape . . . unwelcome visitors. He told me, ‘I can’t put my signature to such a document. Half of my life I spent among Americans and British, every bit of my soul is with them, and now I am asked to sign a declaration against them. I just cannot do it. Try to change it somehow.’ ” My father sighed; before leaving, he peered out the windows into the darkened courtyard below. He would never speak to his boss again.
THAT SUNDAY, BENEŠ was resting at his retreat in Sezimovo Ústí, fifty miles from the capital; Masaryk was still in bed; other democratic leaders were scattered about, accepting an honorary award here, visiting a women’s conference there, attending a ski championship in the Tatras, or giving speeches that urged their followers to remain calm. Gottwald, meanwhile, was in Prague addressing thousands of cheering, expectant, “Internationale”-singing representatives of the working class. By that time the full weight of his mobilization order was being felt. Around the country, party leaders were distributing guns to their militias and mobilizing agents in the security forces to confront rivals wherever they could be intimidated, detained, arrested, or beaten up. Radios and newspapers called on the rank and file to rally behind Gottwald and his demand for a new government. Workers were ordered to begin purging non–party members from their factories. Thousands of telegrams were sent to Beneš, insisting that he accept the resignations of the ministers or risk civil war. Throughout the weekend, Gottwald was in contact with his agents at the Interior, Defense, and other ministries; he also had a direct line to the Soviet Embassy, whose deputy foreign minister had suddenly arrived in the country. When Masaryk asked him why he was there, Mr. Zorin replied, “To supervise the delivery of wheat.”
On Monday afternoon, Beneš met with Ripka and three of his senior colleagues, Drtina, Str�
�nský, and Zenkl—for the first time since their resignations. The men had known one another for decades; Zenkl had spent the war as a prisoner in Buchenwald, but the others had been with Beneš in London. They were the president’s allies and, to the extent he would allow it, his friends. Yet at that crucial moment they did not communicate very well. Beneš did assure the ministers that he would neither accept their resignations nor agree to a list of replacements without their approval. Beyond that, he had nothing to offer. He had pressed Gottwald to seek a negotiated solution, but the Communists would not bargain, insisting instead that the ministers who had resigned were traitors. “And how did you respond to that?” the four democrats wanted to know. Beneš replied, “I did not react; it’s up to you to defend yourselves. As far as I am concerned I must remain above the fight, above the parties.”
That night, ten thousand students staged a march in support of democracy. Singing and chanting, they moved as one along the winding streets to the castle. The president received them and pledged to remain true to the spirit of T. G. Masaryk. It was an inspiring moment but also the only public demonstration on behalf of liberal government in the entire crisis. Ripka and his aides were convinced that they had the Constitution and the majority of people on their side; they did not, however, have a strategy for proving it.
February 25, 1948, was the day when the rule of law was mugged on the streets of Prague. Democratic leaders on their way to work were prevented from entering their offices; some had their homes searched or were handcuffed and shoved into jail. The last independent newspapers and radio stations were taken over, trashed, or closed down. Fierlinger, accompanied by police and armed thugs, reasserted control over the party that had dumped him. The Communist unions called for a nationwide one-hour strike; workers who failed to participate were tossed from their jobs. Everywhere the demands were the same: out with the old government, in with the new. Gottwald met with Beneš once more and was once again urged by the president to negotiate with the democrats; he refused.
By that time Gottwald had put together a proposed new cabinet that included Communists and some token representatives of the democratic parties. At 11 a.m., he presented the slate to Beneš with a request for its immediate acceptance. According to Eduard Táborský, who was in the room, Gottwald brandished a second list as well—of democratic supporters earmarked for arrest and possible execution if the president refused to sign. Beneš promised an answer later in the day.
My father described what happened next:
At 4 p.m. Gottwald drove to Hradčany Castle for the president’s answer. Then, a few minutes later, he drove back to Saint Wenceslas Square. He had a paper in his hands. It was the list of a new government, signed by the president of the Republic. His [Gottwald’s] head was covered by a Russian sheepskin cap. Two hundred thousand mobilized workers awaited him. Police and workers’ militia mingled with them. He announced the constitution of a new government and read the list. He expressed gratitude to President Beneš for respecting the will and wish of the people.
The mob accompanied Gottwald’s every word with frantic applause and thunderous shouts. Somewhere close to the president’s castle a few thousand university students were gathering again to march to his residence. The police fired on them. The deposed ministers listened in their homes, surrounded by the police, to Gottwald’s address. He was obviously drunk, drunk with alcohol and with success. The day was bitterly cold. Gray skies obscured the sun. In Czechoslovakia, democracy was dead.
29
The Fall
Jan Masaryk lived in a private flat in the northeast corner of Černín Palace. The long, narrow apartment, modest compared with its surroundings, could be reached by private lift. The sitting room had space for a couch and several armchairs, a writing table, and bookshelves. The radio, which is still there, was three and a half feet high and stood across from the brass bed on the same side as the door to the bath. The outside wall, punctuated by four windows, each tall and rectangular, overlooked an inner courtyard thirty feet below. Numerous passageways—some concealed and meant for servants—led into the adjacent hall. An uninvited visitor, once inside the palace, could easily have found his way to the foreign minister’s door.
Because he was not a member of a political party, Masaryk had played no direct role in the February crisis. He hadn’t been consulted about Ripka’s plan, hadn’t resigned, and may never have been asked to do so. He was not a political strategist and had been worn down, in any case, by bronchial problems. The morning after the coup, he sent a note to Marcia Davenport telling her that he would remain in the government for the time being and that, despite the shocking events, “This is not the end.”
Masaryk didn’t say much about the democratic ministers’ resignation strategy except to concede privately that it had been a mistake. He was surely right about that. By resigning, the ministers had given Gottwald the chance to seize power through what many would see as constitutional means. He had not had to rely on Soviet troops or public threats, prevailing instead through a combination of police subversion, political gamesmanship, and well-timed mob action. Even he had been surprised by how easy it had been. “I knew I’d get them in the end,” he told Masaryk giddily, “but I never thought they’d hand me their asses to kick on a platter.”
Quite possibly, the resignation plan simply accelerated a takeover that would have occurred in any case; Gottwald would surely have found some other pretext for causing trouble. But by exposing their adversary’s plot to radicalize the police, the democratic ministers had put the Communists into a tight spot. If Gottwald had been forced to move out of desperation, he might have been the one to make mistakes; the Social Democrats might have sided with the other democratic parties; Beneš might have had the confidence to rally the nation; and the army, whose loyalties were split, might have come down on the right side. Like the plethora of what-ifs that arose after Munich, these cannot be answered with certainty.
As it was, Czechoslovakia’s place in the Cold War solar system was now fixed. Shortly after the takeover, the minister of education decreed that a portrait of Stalin be displayed in every classroom and that the Soviet national anthem follow each rendition of “Where Is My Home?” The new justice minister was Gottwald’s son-in-law, under whose direction the legal system became an arm of the Communist Party, democratic activists were hauled into court on false charges, and a string of labor and reeducation camps was established. To stop prominent democrats from escaping, the country’s borders were sealed. Men such as Ripka and Drtina were shadowed by police and had their phone lines cut and mail intercepted; visitors to their homes could count on having their names and addresses recorded in the guides’ little black books.
Governments in the West condemned the coup in indignant terms. Gottwald responded that he did not need a lesson in democracy from the perpetrators of Munich.
In England in 1940, my family had lived in the same apartment house as Drtina, the deposed justice minister. Our friend had always been an optimist, even during the Nazi occupation, when he had stayed on in Prague for more than a year to help organize the resistance. Together our families had weathered the Blitz and looked forward to the war’s end and with it a second chance to fulfill the dream of Czechoslovak democracy. On the night of February 28, three days after the coup, Drtina tried to commit suicide but did not do a good job of it. Jumping from the window of his third-floor apartment house, he was seriously injured, taken to the hospital, and thrown into jail, where he would remain for a dozen years.*
Inside the government there remained but two top-level personalities: Beneš, a president without power, and Masaryk, a foreign minister without a government he wished to represent. Eleven years earlier, when T. G. Masaryk had been on his deathbed, he had asked Jan to help Beneš: “You know much of the world better than he does. Stand by him always. Promise me that you will never leave him alone.” That was one explanation for Masaryk’s fidelity, and it struc
k deep. As he told Marcia Davenport:
[Beneš] was . . . a martyr for my father’s sake. . . . Every time that any political difficulty confronted him, Beneš stood in the breach. For any mistake, he took the blame. He was the whipping boy. He got down in the ditch and did the political spadework that left my father clear of it all, to remain the saint that the people thought him and the saint he really was. For this I will be loyal to Beneš until I die.
The president no longer lived in the castle. In the wake of the February 25 disaster, he moved to his private estate in Sezimovo Ústí, a town where, coincidentally, Jan Hus had taken refuge more than five hundred years before. Why hadn’t Beneš resigned? He told Masaryk that Gottwald had threatened to unleash massive violence that would kill thousands and destroy the country. The Communists insisted that the president remain so that they could portray their coup as legal. No name in Europe was more closely associated with democracy than Beneš. The old man saw room for only one gesture, and that was to leave the castle and all it represented.
What about Masaryk; why didn’t he resign? Surely his affection toward Beneš was one reason; moreover, his job was a source of protection both for others and for him. He told Steinhardt that he had intervened on behalf of more than two hundred people, either shielding them from arrest or helping them escape. If he had a plan for his own future at that stage, it was to navigate a way out. After all, what kind of foreign minister is not allowed to travel? There is never a shortage of international conferences. Perhaps from exile he could start again. This meant, however, that he must try to convince the Communists that they had nothing to fear, that he would continue playing the good soldier Švejk—the role he had adopted, albeit with a shrug, not a smile, since Beneš had first linked Czechoslovakia’s fate to Stalin.
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