[3] Following the coup d'état of February 1948, when the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia seized power with the support of the Soviet Union, the country was declared a socialist republic when the Ninth-of-May Constitution became effective.

On 10 December 1989, the National Government of Understanding was established with Marián Čalfa as Prime Minister, replacing a Ladislav Adamec led communist government, with a cabinet in which the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia held 10 of 21 seats, compared with the 15 of 20 seats they had held in the previous cabinet.

[7] While Beneš was not a Moscow cadre and several domestic reforms of other Eastern Bloc countries were not part of Beneš's plan, Stalin did not object because the plan included property expropriation and he was satisfied with the relative strength of communists in Czechoslovakia compared to other Eastern Bloc countries.

[9] Hope in Moscow was waning for a Communist victory in the 1948 elections following a May 1947 Kremlin report concluding that "reactionary elements" praising Western democracy had strengthened.

[12] Thereafter, Soviet Ambassador Valerian Zorin arranged a communist coup d'état, followed by the occupation of non-Communist ministers' ministries, while the army was confined to barracks.

[13] On 25 February 1948, Beneš, fearful of civil war and Soviet intervention, capitulated and appointed a Communist-dominated government who was sworn in two days later.

Although members of the other National Front parties still nominally figured, this was, for all intents and purposes, the start of out-and-out Communist rule in the country.

The invasion stopped Alexander Dubček's Prague Spring liberalisation reforms and strengthened the authoritarian wing of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ).

Except the Prague Spring in the late-1960s, Czechoslovakia was characterized by the absence of democracy and competitiveness of its Western European counterparts as part of the Cold War.

The movement sought greater political participation and expression in the face of official disapproval, making itself felt by limits on work activities (up to a ban on any professional employment and refusal of higher education to the dissident's children), police harassment and even prison time.

The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) led initially by First Secretary Klement Gottwald, held a monopoly on politics.

[18] Slánský and eleven others were convicted together of being "Trotskyist-zionist-titoist-bourgeois-nationalist traitors" in one series of show trials, after which they were executed and their ashes were mixed with material being used to fill roads on the outskirts of Prague.

All political parties, as well as numerous mass organizations, were grouped under the umbrella of National Front of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.

In the 1950s, Czechoslovakia experienced high economic growth (averaging 7% per year), which allowed for a substantial increase in wages and living standards, thus promoting the stability of the regime.

National health planning emphasized preventive medicine; factory and local health-care centers supplemented hospitals and other inpatient institutions.

Private ownership of any publication or agency of the mass media was generally forbidden, although churches and other organizations published small periodicals and newspapers.