Czechoslovakia–Soviet Union relations
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Czechoslovakia–Soviet Union relations refers to the foreign relations between the former states of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union.
At the beginning of the existence of both states, their relation was bad. There was strong animosity sourcing from the armed conflict between Bolshevik authorities and Czechoslovak Legions and from the following participation of the Legions in the allied intervention against Bolsheviks. Moreover, Karel Kramář, Czechoslovak 1st Prime Minister, disliked the Bolshevik regime for personal reasons (his wife came from Russian nobility).
Czechoslovakia recognized the Soviet Union de jure not until 1934. On May 16, 1935 the Czechoslovak-Soviet Treaty of Alliance was signed between the two states as the consequence of Soviet alliance with France (which was the Czechoslovak main ally). At the insistence of the Czechoslovak government, a protocol on the signing of the treaty stipulated that the treaty would go into force only if France gave assistance to the victim of aggression. However, France did not support Czechoslovakia in 1938, having signed the Munich agreement instead.
After the German occupation of Czechoslovakia and the establishing of pro-German Slovak state in March 1939 Soviet Union quickly recognized new status quo and terminated the diplomatic relations with Czech representatives. Hundreds of the Czechoslovak refugees looking for safety in Soviet Union were sent to the labor camps, except of the Czechoslovak communist who fled to Soviet Union shortly after the Munich Agreement.
However, immediately after the German (and Slovak) attack in June 1941, Soviet government was the first who recognized the leaders of Czechoslovak resistance in London as the allied government and approved the formation of Czechoslovak armed forces from the refugees. In December 1943, new Treaty of Alliance (for next twenty years) was signed in Moscow and the Treaty of Military Cooperation followed next spring. From September 1944 to May 1945 the Red Army with joined Czechoslovak forces liberated most of the pre-Munich Czechoslovak territory, which was crowned by the liberation of its capital Prague on May 9. However, the easternmost part of Czechoslovakia, Carpathian Ruthenia, was annexed to USSR shortly after its liberation (and ceded officially to Soviet Union in 1946).
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