ABSTRACT
The Communist coup in Czechoslovakia in February 1948 had considerable effect upon foreign policy and public opinion in the United States and other Western nations. By creating an image of a Soviet Union girding for war or carrying out an operation that had been planned since the close of World War Two, it eased the way for the ultimate coordination of Western military planning in NATO as well as for specific diplomatic initiatives. The coup, however, is interesting in terms other than those of its consequences. It was an extremely dramatic event. A study of the coup and of the events leading up to it sheds considerable light on Czechoslovak politics, the nature of the Communist party, the mechanics of Communist take-overs, the relationship between external events and local Communist politics in a bipolar world, and relations between satellite parties and the Soviet Union during the Stalinist regime.
