Volume 40, Number 1 & 2 · January 14, 1993
A New History of the Velvet Revolution
By Theodore H. Draper
Czechoslovakia is not just another little country in Eastern Europe. It differs from all the others in at least one critical respect. It is the only country between Germany and the former Soviet Union that has had an authentic democratic past. From 1918 to 1938, it was a thriving, free outpost of the West of a special type. It was a multinational state with Czechs, Slovaks, Germans, Hungarians, Ruthenians, Jews. While Poland had a military dictatorship under Marshal Pilsudski and Hungary had another under Admiral Horthy, Czechoslovakia was guided by a professor, Tomášs Garrigue Masaryk. If Czechoslovakia with the benefit of such a past cannot make the transition from communism to liberal democracy, the outlook for the other states of Eastern Europe is far bleaker.
Feature, 7030 words
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