Memoirs of Dr. Edvard Benes (ePub)

"e;THE present volume is the first of three which the late President Dr. Edvard Benes intended to write as a continuation of his earlier Memoirs published between the two world wars. He felt it to be his duty to give the people of Czechoslovakia an account of his stewardship of their affairs while he was in exile from the time of the disaster of Munich-...The series was to have been at once a justification of his own handling of the affairs of the Czechoslovak State during this critical period and a review of the work of his colleagues and opponents so that their countrymen could see where praise and punishment were due and could also set a clear course for their Fatherland towards a prosperous and secure future."e;-Foreword"e;President of Czechoslovakia 1935-8, 1945-8. Born in Kozlany (Bohemia), he was educated in Prague and at the Sorbonne (Paris)...In 1914 he fled from Prague to Paris, where he helped Masaryk to form the Czechoslovak National Council...As Foreign Minister (1918-35) he sought to stabilize the young state through international treaties...A pragmatist as well as a nationalist, he grudgingly accepted Slovak demands for recognition of their distinctiveness, and was even prepared to surrender the Sudetenland in return for peace with Germany.Benes went into exile and taught in the USA until the outbreak of war, when he became head of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile in 1939, first in Paris, and then in London. He had no ideological prejudices against Stalin, and believed that after the war there would be a 'convergence', whereby the USSR would become more capitalist, and Western Europe more socialist. This explains his willingness to accept the growing power of the Czechoslovak Communist Party under Gottwald in his postwar government, and his failure to mobilize opposition against the Communist takeover of the state in February 1948. Indeed, he agreed to stay on as President, resigning only on 6 May 1948."e;-Oxford Ref.