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TI1E CZECIIOSLOVAK KEPUBLtC, 1918-1938

goods, cnginccring, and cvcn sonie textilc indusirics wcrc owncd by llic Czechs or, to a large dcgrcc, controllcd by Czech banks. 13cforc World War I the sharc of Czcch-owncd imlustry was cslimalcd at bctwccn twenty lo thirty pcrccnt of the tolal industrial Capital in the Habsburg empire.¹⁷

The capitnl asscts of the Czech banks and loan associations wcrc liighcr than thosc of German banks in the Czech provinccs. lt was, how-ever, difficult to dcterminc the actual ownership of tlić ovcrall Capital asscts bclonging to Czech financial institutions as Czech banks operated not only in difTerent parts of the monarchy but also in the Bałkan States and cven in Russia. In turn, the Viennesc Capital had considcrablc assets in the Czech provinccs. Combincd, German capital maintaincd ils con-trol over much of the economy of the Czech provinces.¹⁸

The third economic problem with far-reaching political rcpercussions stemmed from the naturę of Czech and Slovak agriculture which, until 1918, suffered partially from the remnants of feudalism. Almost thirty percent of agricultural land and forests belonged to a few aristocratic landowners and the Roman Catholic Church.¹" In the Czech provinccs, thirty-one predominantly aristocratic familics owncd one fifth of all land. In SIovakia and Ruthenia, the perccntage of large landowners was evcn largcr.²⁰ Furthcr discquilibrium in land ownership was caused by the fact that the majority of the rural population had only dwarf holdings or no land at all. Dwarf lots of less than two hectarcs (4.54 aeres) represented morę than one half of all agricultural holdings but only 8.8 pcrcent of all soil. While Ln the industrialized Czech provinccs owners of such lots managed to supplement their rcvcnue by industrial einploymcnt, in Slo-vakia and Ruthenia they did it by scasonal labor on larger farms and estates. In these areas chronic rural unemployment gave risc to a steady flow of emigration. Ncvertheless, cven before World War I, there existed a sizable group of economically independent farmers in the Czech prov-inces, while the same was true to a smaller degree in Slovakia.²¹

In many cases the owners of large estates had littlc interest in personal management of their property, preferring to rent a part of their land to large agricultural entreprencurs, or cven smali farmers.²² This absentcc ownership exaccrbalcd the land-hungcr characteristic of the rural pofu-

¹⁷ Ibid., p. 59.    ^1H Ibid., pp. 85-86.    ¹⁹ Prehled, iii, 51.

²⁰    Rudolf OIsovsky (ed.), Prehled hospodarskeho vyvoje Ceskoslorcnska v letech 1918-1945 [Survgy of the Economic Devclopment oj Czcclioslorakia in 1918-19451 (Prague, 1961), pp. 49-50.

21    In 1902, around 15.5 pcrccnt of all land in llic Czech piovinccs belonged to this catcgory of farmers. Scc Milan Olahal, Zapas o pozemkowu reforma | CSK [The Strupgle for Land Reform in the Czechoslovak Republic] (Prague, 1963), labie on p. 243.

²²    Antonin Pavel, “Land Reform” in Josef Gruber, Czechoslorakia: A Survey of Economic and Social Conditions (London, 1924), pp. 47-48.

DEMOCRACY AND ITS PRODLEMS, 1918-1920

lulion.^{1 2} The practicc of renting parts of llicir estates was strcngthened by the existcncc of entailed, liercditary, and inalicnablc estates (the so-callcd Fideikonunis) owncd in most cascs by the nobility, the Roman Catliolic Church, monasteries, and foundations. Prcvented by law from disposing of their land and unwilling to manage it pcrsonally, these few large landowncrs rented large tracts of land, frcijucnlly to persons who had no land of Llicir own. In Slovakia and Ruthenia the greater part of all estates was leased to smali farmers on a sharc-crop basis. The system often resultcd in ruthlcss cxploitation of the pcasants.

Thus, tlić dcmand for morę cquitablc dislribution of land played a very important role in modern Czech and Slovak liistory. During World War I this dcmand was adopted by their political leaders at homc, as well as by Lhc leader of their liberation movcment abroad, Tomas Masaryk, who, in his Washington declaration, spokc of far-reaching social and economic reforms and foreshadowed the partilioning of the large estates. This action accjuircd great popularity for historical reasons also. To de-prive the German and Hungarian aristocracy of their domains was re-gardcd as an act of historie juslice that would right the wrong donc the Cohemian Protestant noblcs, whose property was confiscatcd and distrib-uted among foreign nobles by the Habsburgs after their defcat of the Bo-hemian Protestant causc in 1620.

The First Steps

To forge a strong and slabie State out of the conglomeratc of diflcrcnt peoples locatcd in a gcographically exposed position between East and West and surrounded mostly by hostile nations, reąuired not only great skill but also time. “We need fifty years of undisturbed peace and only then shall we have acliievcd what we would like to have today,” Presi-dent Masaryk stated.²¹ lt is in the light of this statement that both suc-cesses and failures of the Czechoslovak democracy should be judged.

The Prague National Committee, headed by Kareł Kratnar, acted for a little over two wceks as Czechoslovakia’s provisional govcrnment. lt was composcd of the leaders of prewar Czech political parties, their rep-resentation being proportionate to their elcctional strength in the last Austrian elcction of 1911.³ The acceptancc of this critcrion disregarded

51

1

Olahal, Zapas o pozemkoeou reforma, p. 87.

2

-! Karci Ćapck, Iloeory s T. G. Mnsarykem [Talks willi T. G. Masaryk] (London, 1951), p. 312.

3

||Tlic Prague Nalional Commillcc, as originally conslilulcd in July, 1918, consislcd of 10 Social Dcmocrals, | Agrarians, | mcm bers of the Dcmocratic Siatę Rights party, 4 Czech Socialists, 4 members of the Populisl party, 1 member of the Old Czech party, and 1 reprcsentative of the Realist party. Sec Frantisck Soukup, 28. hjen 1918 [October 2S, 1918] (2 vols.; Prague, 1929), u, 827.