"My dearest friend, if you could, when time comes, put through in the Council of Ministers what is needed for our joint company…" Corruption and Clientelism in the Politics of Milan Hodža

Czech and Slovak banks had a great opportunity for development in the interwar Czechoslovakia. However, following the economic expansion in the beginning of the 20´s banking industry in Czechoslovakia faced a serious crisis.
Influential political circles and their representatives used the hard position of individual banks and through promises of state support gained from them various benefits, especially political bank credits. The most active in this sense was the all-powerful Agrarian party (Agrárna strana) and its leader Milan Hodža, a minister multiple times and later the prime minister. The Agrarian party and namely Milan Hodža tried during the whole interwar period to expand their political influence at the expense of Slovak commercial bank industry. To achieve this goal they used every opportunity that came along in the economic development. Apart from legal forms of pressure they engaged in many controversial, even obviously illegal means that in the beginning had a form of clientelism.
Later, representatives of the Agrarian party switched form clientelism to real corruption in the form of enforced financial gifts for their political activities as we know it from the highest political circles nowadays.