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Czechoslovakia THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Founded in 1921, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
(Komunisticka strana Ceskoslovenska--KSC) was one of some twenty
political parties that competed within the democratic framework
of the Czechoslovak Republic (also known as the First Republic),
but it never gained sufficient strength to be included in that
government
(see Czechoslovak Democracy
, ch. 1). During World War
lI many KSC leaders sought refuge in the Soviet Union, where they
made preparations to increase the party's power base once the war
ended. In the early postwar period the Soviet-supported
Czechoslovak communists launched a sustained drive that
culminated in their seizure of power in 1948. Once in control,
the KSC developed an organizational structure and mode of rule
patterned closely after those of the CPSU.
Power is formally held by the National Front of the
Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, a coalition in which the KSC
holds two-thirds of the seats while the remaining one-third are
shared among five other political parties. But in fact the KSC
holds an absolute monopoly on political power, and the other
parties within the National Front are little more than
auxiliaries. Even the governmental structure of Czechoslovakia
exists primarily to implement policy decisions made within the
KSC. To ensure its monopoly on power, the KSC places its members
in all policy-making positions within the government.
Data as of August 1987
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