ATimeofIronandFire 177
Within Czechoslovakia, now Europe’s lone democracy east of the Rhine,
even Castle stalwarts expressed considerable doubt about the virtue and
security of Czechoslovakia’s democratic system. Prominent National Social-
ist Emil Franke noted, “our democracy is suitable for normal conditions,
quiet times, and relative wealth. If conditions are extraordinary, one cannot
exclude equally extraordinary measures.”
14
Similarly, Václav Klofá
ˇ
c, Beneš’s
coleader of the Czechoslovak National Socialist Party, argued on September
30, 1933 that the “parliamentary system, and everything connected with it,
needs a thorough revision, because ...itisarelicoftheoldcapitalist/liberal
trends.” Josef Schieszl, political chief of Masaryk’s chancellery, wrote in a per-
sonal letter dated from mid-1933 that “liberalism can work only in a liberal
society...andliberalism is on its last legs.”
15
At one of Karel
ˇ
Capek’s Friday
meetings in 1934, the attendees argued about Czechoslovakia’s problematic
relationship with Poland. Josef Šusta blamed Beneš for it, and for his blind
confidence that Mussolini and fascism would disappear. “We are completely
isolated,” he despaired.
16
Beyond the Castle, readiness to move rightward
was even more widespread.
By the 1930s, the Czechoslovak parliamentary system had remade itself as
a “disciplined democracy,” willing to suspend the constitution in the name
of the state.
17
In 1933, Parliament passed a zmocˇnování zákon or Enabling
Law, allowing the government to make economic policy by decree during
the crisis years of the Great Depression. Crafted by the Agrarians, who
used it to harass the Social Democrats, the scope of the law gradually grew
beyond economic policy and was used to rule by decree, even to replace
existing legislation; many experts believed this violated the constitution.
18
Other means of bypassing full parliamentary sessions had been in place
since the republic’s birth, such as the stálý výbor (Permanent Committee)
of sixteen representatives and eight senators, granted power to deal with
parliamentary matters when Parliament was not in session and used fre-
quently, especially in the 1930s.
19
In 1935, Masaryk’s designated successor
Beneš won the presidency with difficulty. In the initial voting, the Czechoslo-
vak and German Agrarians, the National Union (the National Democrats,
Ji
ˇ
rí St
ˇ
ríbrný’s National League, and the semifascist National Front led by
Prof. Frantíšek Mareš), and the Fascists united against Beneš, denying him
a majority. Beneš refused to turn to the SdP for the necessary votes. Milan
Hodža, prime minister and a former foe of the Castle, placed the Slovak
Agrarians in Beneš’s camp; thanks to Hodža’s suasion, the Slovak Populists
joined them, tipping Parliament toward the Castle. In the final vote, Beneš
won by a substantial majority. But the negotiation process—the open split
within the Agrarian Party, the Agrarian right wing opposing the Castle, the
Slovak autonomists’ increasing importance—was unnerving.
20
The Castle
had claimed for seventeen years to represent democracy itself, and Beneš