Czech Progressive Party

Czech Progressive Party

 

(Česká Strana Pokroková), a liberal bourgeois party that existed from 1900 to 1918. T. G. Masaryk was one of its founders and ideologues. Known as the Czech People’s, or Realist, Party until 1905, the party drew its support from the Czech industrial bourgeoisie, which was loyal to the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and committed to bolstering its economic and political strength. The party advocated the autonomy of the Czech lands within Austria-Hungary, and in 1907 it sent two deputies to the Austrian Reichsrat. After the creation of a bourgeois Czechoslovak state in 1918, most of the party’s members merged with the National Democratic Party, and the rest joined the National Socialist Party.