ABSTRACT
The provisional Czechoslovak government ruled without any public control over its policy and actions, a normal situation in a liberated country. The situation was remedied in October 1945 with the setting-up of a provisional National Assembly of 300 members. In negotiations between the Czechoslovak government and the National Council in June 1945 a list was drawn up of twenty major all-state matters in which the Council was allowed no say, and the position of the board of commissioners was reduced to that of an executive. Nevertheless, the Council enjoyed greater power in Slovakia than any comparable body in the Czech Lands. The first Czechoslovak republic had inherited a bureaucratic tradition from the Habsburg Empire. Civil servants were powerful and patronage was fairly widespread. There was one particularly new political force in post-war Czechoslovakia whose activities had constitutional standing. Mass organisations were something of a feature of the new Czechoslovakia.
