A democracy at the crossroads: the Czech extreme right in the 1935 Czechoslovak elections

By the mid‐1950s, Czechoslovakia occupied an increasingly insecure geopolitical position within Europe. Surrounded by states that had switched to authoritarian or totalitarian governments, most notably Nazi Germany, it also faced the threat of native fascist movements (Czech, Slovak, and German) on its own territory. The 1935 parliamentary and presidential elections were, to some degree, referenda on whether the country should shift to an authoritarian system. Thanks to the skillful political maneuvering of Edvard Benes and the ineptitude of the Czech right wing, the country preserved a democratic system until the Munich Agreement of fall 1938.