Klement Gottwald's Second Cabinet was the cabinet and government of Czechoslovakia in office between 25 February and 15 June 1948.^[1] It was formed following the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état, and marked the onset of four decades of Communist rule in the country.

In the 1946 Czechoslovak parliamentary election the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) emerged as the largest party, winning 114 of the 300 seats in the Constituent National Assembly with 38% of the vote.^[2] Following the elections, the National Front formed a coalition government, headed by KSČ leader Klement Gottwald. Although the government still had a non-Communist majority (nine Communists and seventeen non-Communists), the KSČ had initial control over the police and armed forces through Interior Minister Václav Nosek; in addition to this, the KSČ was gradually able to fill various other positions in the security apparatus with its own candidates.^[3]

During the winter of 1947–1948, the tensions between Communists and non-Communists led to increasingly bitter conflict, both in the Cabinet and in parliament. When the non-Communist ministers protested against Nosek's transformations of the security apparatus in February 1948, the Communists responded by mobilizing groups of their supporters across the country.^[4] On 13 February, Nosek refused to reverse the recent dismissal of eight senior non-Communist police officers, despite a majority vote in the Cabinet instructing him to do so. In protest, twelve non-Communist ministers resigned from the government on 20 February, hoping that it would lead to the fall of the government and new elections. However, as the ministers of the Czechoslovak Social Democracy and Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk chose not to resign, the government remained.

Earlier during the government crisis, President Edvard Beneš had stated that he would refuse the replacement of the non-Communist ministers with KSČ members. Despite this, he accepted a new, Communist-dominated government proposed by Gottwald on 25 February, likely out of fear of civil war or Soviet intervention, or hoping to be in a position to later make deals with the KSČ.^[3]

Title	Minister			Term of office		Party
				Start	End
Prime Minister			Klement Gottwald	25 February 1948	15 June 1948	KSČ
Deputy Prime Minister			Viliam Široký	25 February 1948	15 June 1948	KSČ
			Antonín Zápotocký	25 February 1948	15 June 1948	KSČ
			Bohumil Laušman	25 February 1948	15 June 1948	ČSSD
Minister of Foreign Affairs			Jan Masaryk	25 February 1948	10 March 1948	Independent
			Vladimir Clementis	18 March 1948	15 June 1948	KSČ
Minister of National Defense			Ludvík Svoboda	25 February 1948	15 June 1948	KSČ
Minister of Foreign Trade			Antonín Gregor	25 February 1948	15 June 1948	KSČ
Minister of the Interior			Václav Nosek	25 February 1948	15 June 1948	KSČ
Minister of Finance			Jaromír Dolanský	25 February 1948	15 June 1948	KSČ
Minister of Education and Culture			Zdeněk Nejedlý	25 February 1948	15 June 1948	KSČ
Minister of Justice			Alexej Čepička	25 February 1948	15 June 1948	KSČ
Minister of Information			Václav Kopecký	25 February 1948	15 June 1948	KSČ
Minister of Industry			Zdeněk Fierlinger	25 February 1948	15 June 1948	ČSSD
Minister of Agriculture			Július Ďuriš	25 February 1948	15 June 1948	KSČ
Minister of Internal Trade			František Krajčír	25 February 1948	15 June 1948	KSČ
Minister of Transport			Alois Petr	25 February 1948	15 June 1948	ČSL
Minister of Labour and Social Welfare			Evžen Erban	25 February 1948	15 June 1948	ČSSD
Minister of Public Health			Josef Plojhar	25 February 1948	15 June 1948	ČSL
Minister of Technical Planning			Emanuel Šlechta	25 February 1948	15 June 1948	ČSNS
Minister of Food			Ludmila Jankovcová	25 February 1948	15 June 1948	ČSSD
Minister of Postal Services			Alois Neuman	25 February 1948	15 June 1948	ČSNS
Minister of Unification			Vavro Šrobár	25 February 1948	15 June 1948	SSI
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs			Vladimir Clementis	25 February 1948	18 March 1948	KSČ
Secretary of State for National Defense			Ján Ševčík	25 February 1948	18 March 1948	DS