Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/84247

This article examines the Czechoslovak “People’s Democracy” during the so-called Third Republic after the Second World War. In order to understand the features of this “new democracy,” it explores the competition structure among the parties in the National Front, focusing on the visions and strategies of the National Socialist Party. The National Socialists, the most competitive rival to the Communists, accepted the National Front coalition, which expelled three important political parties in the First Republic. In marked contrast to the foundation of the party politics in the First Republic, the politicians in the National Socialist Party denied the very concept of functional representation of partial interests, that is, the interests of various vocational parts of nation, criticizing the functional representation as the cause of disease against democracy. The goal of the National Socialist Party was to transform itself into the real “people’s party,” which represented all the working people supporting the national socialist cause, including the former supporters of the prohibited Agrarian Party. While the National Socialists expected party realignment under the new regime, they believed that it would take place for those occupational groups who had lost their own parties, as their occupational collectivity persisted even in the age of people’s democracy. This assumption was not consistent with the vision of a people’s party clearly articulated by the National Socialists in their party program. The National Socialists did not see much contradiction at that point of history. The party realignment after WWII in Czechoslovakia was more profound and extensive than the National Socialists could assume, however. In contrast, the Communists adapted to the far-reaching change of party-voter relationship far better. Arguably, the Communists’ actions themselves served as a driver of this change. Their vision of the nationaldemocratic revolution deterred the existing occupational group interests and sometimes annihilated the collectivities themselves. The voters were realigned according to the completely new visions and interests. Those who saw the Communists’ actions as desirable decided to vote for the Communists despite their former affiliation to occupational groups or political parties. Based on this analysis of the party competition structure, this article illuminates predicaments in political pluralism, which is usually presumed to be an essential part of liberal democracy. Although a pluralistic party system was built in the People’s Democracy of Czechoslovakia, it did not work for plural democracy. This implies a difficulty of pluralism under conditions whereby political parties share a common social goal with their support predicated on the single social group of “people.”