Jak se jedná s labouristy
Dealing with Labour

Exiled Czechoslovak Social Democrats and the Labour Party during the Second World War

Summary/Abstract: Representatives of the First Czechoslovak Republic Social Democratic Party exiled in London were generally united in the belief that the future Czechoslovakia needed to differ ‘somehow’ from the one destroyed in Munich. Yet, the history of exiled Czechoslovak Social Democracy during WWII is largely the story of a dispute between two sides: Social Democrats supporting the Czechoslovak President-in-exile Edvard Beneš, and presidential critics around Rudolf Bechyně. After the Soviet Union entered the war in the summer of 1941, the influence of the Communist Party grew accordingly, and the differing view of the two party wings became increasingly distinct in relation to Communists. The engagement of the Soviet Union also affected the way the Labour Party influenced exiled socialist parties operating on its territory, including the Czechoslovak Social Democrats. The Labour, who became the leader of world socialism after the infamous end of the Socialist Workers’ International, strove throughout the war to coordinate comrades from the occupied countries so as to maximize their potential towards the war and avoid struggles within emigrant groups.

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