Word: gottwald
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Time & again, cocky, assertive Czechoslovakian Communist Party Boss Klement Gottwald assured the Kremlin and warned the West that he intended to convert Czechoslovakia into a one-party (Communist) state. But between plan and fulfillment stood next May's elections, in which Communists have set out to win an absolute (51%) majority. Last week, with voting six months away, Gottwald's campaign was in shrill swing...
...Gottwald's party got 40% of the vote in Czechoslovakia's last election (TIME, June 10, 1946). Since then he had, in fact, been losing ground. Soviet failure to deliver promised goods, particularly bread grain, on promised schedule, increased the heat and frequency of criticism leveled at Gottwald and the Kremlin. The swing away from Gottwald reached a peak when the Social Democrats, by secret ballot, bounced their pro-Communist leader Zdenek Fierlinger out of his job and installed Bohumil Lausman in his place. No rabid antiCommunist, Lausman nevertheless believes that Czechoslovakia should come first. The seams...
...Gottwald got off a call for help to Stalin. Last week the answer came back by wire. Stalin promised Czechs that not only would they get the 200,000 tons of grain promised last summer as a bonus for boycotting the Marshall Plan but an additional 200,000 tons as well. The Russian grain would be delivered by next April-before election time...
...course, one party gains 100 percent of the seats. There are 25 ministers and 300 representatives. The party proportions in the ministry are the same as they are in the Parliament. That's a law. There are nine Communists in the ministry. And because the Communists are topdogs, Gottwald, the party chief, got to be Prime Minister. The Communists also have two key positions: Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Propaganda...
Last week only Communist Prime Minister Element Gottwald eyed the future tranquilly. Said he: "It is necessary in the interests of the Czechoslovak people and state for the Communists to obtain an absolute majority, and it is likely and possible. I am sure that developments in our country will lead to the formation of one working-class party...