Historical Background and Legal Changes

Abstract

As less is generally known in the West about Czechoslovakia than about the USSR, I think it important to provide a somewhat lengthier introduction to this section. Czechoslovakia as an independent state arose in 1918 after the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Of all the states newly created after the First World War, Czechoslovakia was the richest and economically the most highly developed, as the Czech lands inherited two-thirds of the industrial base of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Czechoslovakia was a democratic republic, the only Western-type liberal state in the whole of Eastern and Central Europe. The first president was Professor T. G. Masaryk, a humanistic philosopher and a supporter of women’s equality.