After the Second World War, the joint-stock company Česká zbrojovka was nationalized and its factory in Uherski Brod, which became independent in 1950, gradually became the main Czechoslovak producer of small arms.
Its most famous products from the immediate post-war period were Sa vz. 23 submachine guns, chambered in the common 9×19mm Parabellum cartridge (later 7.62×25mm Tokarev in vz. 24/26 after Czechoslovakia joined the Warsaw Pact).
The Sa vz. 23 were the first serial models of machine guns with a telescopic bolt, which wraps the bolt around the barrel, which made vz. 26 shorter and more compact than other machine guns at the time. By 1953, 545,000 were produced in Uherski Brod, of which 345,000 were in the Tokarev 7.62mm variant.