Alexander Dubček Unknown (1921–1992) E-Book

Josette Baer Hill

• Herausgeber: ibidem
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 409

Beschreibung

Alexander Dubček is well-known, so one might think; nothing new can be written about him. Is this true? Dubček is the symbol of the Czechoslovak attempt to reform communism that gained worldwide admiration in 1968. The invasion of Warsaw Pact troops in the night of August 21, 1968 set a brutal end to the Prague Spring. Josette Baer’s new biography focuses on Dubček’s early years, his childhood in Soviet Kirghizia, his participation in the Slovak National Uprising in 1944 against Nazi Germany and the Slovak clerical-fascist government, and his career in the Slovak Communist Party in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It offers new insights into the political thought of the father of ‘Socialism with a Human Face’, based on archive material available to the Western reader for the first time. Who was Alexander Dubček—a naïve apparatchik, an independent thinker, a courageous liberator, or a political dreamer?

Leseprobe

ibidem Press, Stuttgart

Table of Contents

Foreword by Jan Pešek

Abbreviations

Acknowledgements

X. Introduction

X. 1 Alexander Dubček – Naïve Apparatchik, Independent Thinker, Courageous Reformer, or Political Dreamer?

X. 2 Analytical Framework and Conceptual Matrix

X. 2. 1 Analytical Framework

X. 2. 2 Conceptual Matrix

X. 3 Method, Key Issues, Research Interest

X. 3. 1 Method: Contextual Biography

X. 3. 2 Key Issues

X. 3. 3 Research Questions

I. Childhood, Early Years and Education (1921–1939)

I. 1 Childhood in Soviet Kyrgyzia and Gorky (1925–1938)

I. 2 The Soviet Purges of the 1930s and Return to Czechoslovakia (1938)

II. Dear Sasha – A Career in the Communist Party (1939–1968)

II. 1 The Slovak National Uprising (1944)

II. 2 Political Training in Moscow (1955–1958)

II. 3 The Slovak predjarie (Pre-Spring) (1963–1967)

II. 3. 1 Currency Reform and the Consumer Goods Industry (1953–1958)

II. 3. 2 The Scientific-Technical Revolution (early 1960s)

II. 3. 3 The Rehabilitation Commissions (1955–1968)

II. 4 First Secretary of the KSS (1963–1968)

II. 4. 1 A Soviet Cosmonaut (1963)

II. 4. 2 A Rebellious Party Member (1964)

II. 4. 3 Ideological Unity and Party Discipline à la Novotný (1964)

II. 4. 4 ‘Electing’ the President and the Tasks of Loyal Journalists (1964)

II. 4. 5 Comrade Cvik (1965)

II. 4. 6 A Failed Intrigue: The Dubčeks in the SNP (1965–1967)

II. 4. 7 The Affair of the Bear (1966)

II. 4. 8 Anonymous Letters (1963, 1966)

II. 5 The Eight Months of the Czechoslovak Spring (1968)

III. Oblivion? Dubček’s Dissent and Return to Politics (1969–1992)

III. 1 Soviet Salami Tactics

III. 2 The Politics of Normalization

III. 2. 1 The Purges at Charles University (1969)

III. 2. 2 Travel Restrictions

III. 3 Everyday Life in Czechoslovakia

III. 3. 1 Fear

III. 3. 2 The Weekend, Socialization and Humour

III. 3. 3 The Underground

III. 4 Dissent and Return to Politics (1970–1989)

III. 4. 1 Dubček’s Protest Letters

III. 4. 2 The StB’s Psychological Terror

III. 4. 3 November 1989 and the Transition to Democracy

Conclusion

Oral History Interview with Pavol Dubček, MD

Oral History Interview with Professor Ivan Laluha

Oral History Interview with Mr Miloslav Liška

Appendix

Dubček in Data

Chronology

Bibliography

Copyright

This study is dedicated to my husband Peter who has been supporting my research for years, in academic and psychological terms. One could not wish for a better friend.

Foreword by Jan Pešek

This year in August, the Slovaks and Czechs remember what happened fifty years ago: the Czechoslovak Spring of 1968 and its brutal end by Warsaw Pact troops. The Czechoslovak Spring has been well researched, or so the knowledgeable Western reader might think. This latest biography of Alexander Dubček by the Swiss political scientist and historian Josette Baer, a renowned specialist on Czechoslovak and Slovak history and political thought, presents a new approach to the political history of Slovakia and Czechoslovakia. As the first non-Slovak historian, Baer investigates two crucially important chapters of Slovak history that so far have been under-researched: the years of the Pre-Spring from 1963 to 1968 and the years of the so-called Normalization (1969–1989).

The liberalization of the Czechoslovak Communist regime began in 1963 with Dubček’s election as First Secretary of the Slovak Communist Party KSS; the Czechoslovak Spring originated in Bratislava and, with Dubček’s election to First Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party KSČ in January 1968, the way for the reformers was free. Baer focuses on Dubček’s career in the KSS in the 1960s and his dissent in the 1970s. After the Communist Party had relieved him from all functions in Party and state, Dubček, the former most powerful politician of Czechoslovakia, found employment at the State Forestry in Bratislava. The State Security Service StB monitored him and his family every day, exerting psychological terror to the maximum. The Normalization regime under General Secretary KSČ and President in personal union Gustáv Husák wanted to delete Dubček and his reform course from Czechoslovak collective memory – an endeavour that was not only unsuccessful but would backfire in November 1989: the Communist Party was brought down in 10 days by the people, who had not forgotten Dubček and his attempt at Socialism with a Human Face.

Baer’s biography closes important gaps in international and interdisciplinary scholarship about the Czechoslovak Spring. Her book is a must-read for everybody interested in the history of Central Europe in the 20th Century and the history of European Communism alike.

Jan Pešek, Bratislava, August 2018

Abbreviations

Archives and libraries

ABS ÚSTRČR Archiv Bezpečnostných Složek – Ústav pro Studium Totalitních RežimůČeské Republiky – Archives of the State Security Services at the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes of the Czech Republic, Prague.

AMSNP Archív Múzeum Slovenského Národného Povstania – Archives of the Museum of the Slovak National Uprising, Banská Bystrica, Slovak Republic.

HÚ SAV Historický Ústav Slovenskej Akadamie Vied – Institute of History at the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovak Republic.

SNA Slovenský Národný Archív, Bratislava – The Slovak National Archives, Bratislava, Slovak Republic.

SNK Slovenská Národná Knižnica, Martin – The Slovak National Library, Martin, Slovak Republic.

Political parties, associations and organizations; media

CC KSČ Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party

CC KSS Central Committee of the Slovak Communist Party

COMECON Council for Mutual Economic Assistance; see RVHP

CP Communist Party

ČSNB Československá Národní Banka – Czechoslovak State Bank

ČSSD Česká Strana Sociálně Demokratická – Czech Social Democratic Party

ČSTKČeskoslovenská Tlačová Kancelária – Czechoslovak Press Chancellery

ČT Česká Televize – Czech National TV

DS Demokratická Strana ­– Slovak Democratic Party

FZ Federálne Zhromaždenie – Federal Assembly

HG Hlinkova Garda – Hlinka Guards

HSĽS Hlinkova Slovenská Ľudová Strana – Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party

HZDS Hnutie Za Demokratické Slovensko – Movement for a Democratic Slovakia

IMF International Monetary Fund

KPSS Komunističeskaia Partiia Sovetskogo Soiuza – Communist Party of the Soviet Union

ÚKRK KSČ Ústřední Kontrolní a Revízni Komise KSČ – Central Control and Revision Commission of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia

ÚKRK KSSÚstředná Kontrolná a Revízná Komisia KSS – Central Control and Revision Commission of the Slovak Communist Party

KSČ Komunistická Strana Československa – Communist Party of Czechoslovakia

KSS Komunistická Strana Slovenska – Slovak Communist Party

MP Member of Parliament

MV Ministerstvo Vnútra – Ministry of Interior, Slovakia

MZV Ministerstvo Zahraničních Věcí – Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs

NAM Non-Aligned Movement

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

NF Národní Fronta – National Front

NKVD Narodnii Kommissariat Vnutrënnikh Del – The People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs

ODS Občanská Demokratická Strana – Czech Civic Democratic Party

OFObčánské Forum – Czech Civic Forum

RVHP Rada vzájomnej hospodárskej pomoci – Council for Mutual Economic Assistance

SDSS Sociálnodemokratická strana Slovenska – Social Democratic Party of Slovakia

SPS Slovenský Poslanecký Klub – Slovak Parliamentarians Club

SĽS Slovenská Ľudová Strana – Slovak People’s Party

SNP Slovenské Národnie Povstanie – Slovak National Uprising

SNR Slovenská Národná Ráda – Slovak National Council

SNS Slovenská Národná Strana – Slovak National Party

SSl Strana Slobody – Slovak Party of Freedom

SSSR Soiuz Sovietskich Socialističeskich Respublik – Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics

StB Státní Bezpečnost – Czechoslovak State Security Service

STV Slovenská Televízia – Slovak National TV

TASR Tľačová Agentura Slovenskej Republiky – Slovak Press Agency

ÚV KSČ Ústředný Výbor Komunistická Strana Československa – Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia

ÚV KSS Ústředný Výbor Komunistická Strana Slovenska – Central Committee of the Slovak Communist Party

VPN Verejnosť proti násiliu – Slovak Public Against Violence

ZNB Zbor Národnej Bezpečnosti – Corps of National Security, Slovakia

 

Acknowledgements

Not another biography of Alexander Dubček! Surely, – all there is to say about the Prague Spring of 1968 has already been said – or so the historically informed reader might think. True, Dubček’s reform programme (akční program) and the military invasion by Warsaw Pact troops on 21 August 1968 have been widely researched and analysed. Therefore, the eight months of the Czechoslovak Spring are not the focus of this political biography, but Czechoslovakia and Slovakia’s political history prior to and after the invasion of 1968, embodied in the life of Alexander Dubček. The archive material I found in Slovak and Czech archives is available to the English reader for the first time.

Two main aspects of Dubček’s life are unknown to the Western reader; these are the gaps I aim to fill with this book. First, Dubček’s career in the Slovak Communist Party KSS in the 1960s that culminated with his election as First Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party KSČ in January 1968, providing him with the legislative, executive and judicial power to embark on his reform course. Second, his life after June 1969, when, back home after some months as Czechoslovak ambassador to Turkey, he was ousted from all functions in state and Party.

A principal goal of the Normalization regime (1969–1989) was to efface Dubček from the collective memory of the Czechoslovak people. The almighty StB (State Security Service) had him and his family under constant surveillance, but they could not silence him. After 1969, Dubček was a dissident in the truest sense of the Latin dissidere, which means ‘sitting apart’: a former insider who became an outsider, a fellow believer who dared to protest against the powers that be, among them, Gustáv Husák.

In this volume, I have tried to convey to the reader how the Cold War and the Soviet Union’s role in it affected the political history of Central Europe – and with that, the life of a leading Czechoslovak Communist who believed in Marxism-Leninism and the rightfulness of his political reforms. I have tried to probe into Dubček’s thought and activities with a dispassionate, rational and fair approach.

My thanks: The Stiftung zur Förderung der wissen­schaft­lichen Forschung of the University of Zurich UZH granted me a generous stipend, which allowed me to do research in Slovak and Czech archives. I am greatly indebted to my colleagues and friends for their interest in my research and willingness to discuss specific issues with me. In alphabetical order: Jozef Banáš, Mária Banášová, Juraj Benko, Vladimír Handl, Michael Hässig, Karen Henderson, Vlasta Jaksicsová, Lukas Joos, Marina Jozef, Juraj Kalina, Ivan Kamenec, Miloslav Liška, Miroslav Londák, Anna Mazurkiewicz, Slavomír Michálek, Delia Popescu, Francis Raska, Jaroslava Roguľová, Marc Winter and my great friend XY, whose wish for anonymity I respect.

I would like to thank Dušan Čabrak, deputy major of Uhrovec, and the lovely guide Mrs Mikušová for taking the time to show me the birthplace of Alexander Dubček in Uhrovec, now a museum, in July 2017. The ladies at the SNK Martin were, as always, professional, friendly, swift and uncomplicated: Ľudmila Šimková, Karin Šišmišová, Miroslava Pražková and everybody else who helped me with the material – thank you. Deputy director Augustin MatovčikSNK went to great lengths to help me with pressing copyright problems. Mária Zsigmondová and Marek Púčik at the Slovak National Archives SNA in Bratislava were very helpful, friendly and professional. My thanks go also to Jitka Bílková, Veronika Chroma, Juraj Kalina and Michal Kurejat the Archives of the State Security Forces at the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes (ABS ÚSTRČR) in Prague. Lisa Brun at the Institute of Philosophy at UZH took care of the financial management of this project.

The ladies at the housing office of the Slovak Academy of Sciences SAV have made my annual research stays since 2008 such a joyful and uncomplicated matter: Maria Vallová, Božena and Ľubica Konečná, thank you. Valerie Lange at ibidem publishers is an exceptionally patient, effective and supportive editor. I thank Peter Thomas Hill for proofreading my manus­cript and teaching me how to express myself in elegant and scholarly English.

This study could not have been written without Stanislav Sikora and Jan Pešek’s expertise. Stanislav was my supervisor, teaching me how the liberalization of the regime began in Slovakia, from where it spread to the Czech part. From his publications, I learnt about the Slovak Pre-Spring (predjarie). Jan Pešek, a specialist on the history of the KSS, was also extremely helpful, explaining to me the complicated relationship between the KSS and the KSČ, and the non-existent balance of power between the two political parties. Thanks to Stanislav and Jan, I was able to understand how the predjarie changed Czechoslovak society, and the citizens’ support of Dubček’s Reform Communism.

My very special thanks go to Pavol Dubček, Ivan Laluha and Miloslav Liska, who answered all my questions, thereby contributing to our Western knowledge about politics and daily life under Communism, the aftermath of the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the Velvet Divorce of 1992 and sports under the Communist regime.

Needless to say, any errors and shortcomings in this volume are my own.

Josette Baer

Zurich, Bratislava and Prague, August 2018

X. Introduction1

X. 1 Alexander Dubček – Naïve Apparatchik, Independent Thinker, Courageous Reformer, or Political Dreamer?

“From him radiated what one calls the magic of charisma. He conquered people by taking a genuine interest in them and with a pure and direct smile. From his eyes sprang kindness and benevolence. He was not ashamed to admit that he did not know a thing. He was not a convincing speaker, rather the opposite, but it was wonderful that people believed him. For the first time, a Communist leader stood before the people who, they felt, had a human heart.”2

The former most powerful politician of Czechoslovakia was a pensioner, living quietly in Bratislava, when the Velvet Revolution of November 1989 started in Prague and immediately spread to Slovakia. The mass protests of Czech and Slovak citizens, the foundation of the OF in the Czech part and the VPN in Slovakia and the country-wide general strike, in which the state media participated, led to the abdication of the KSČ. The events catapulted the 68-year-old Dubček onto the political scene of a new Czechoslovakia, a country that was about to reconnect with its democratic traditions after 41 years of Communist rule.

I wondered how Dubček began his career in the KSS and KSČ. As a young Party member, he was too insignificant to raise suspicions of ‘Slovak bourgeois nationalism’ in the early 1950s, hence was not one of the accused in the 1954 trial of elder, prominent Slovak Party members born at the turn of the 20th century. Furthermore, young Dubček was from proper proletarian stock; he was raised in a Communist family and grew up in Soviet Kyrgyzia, where his family had moved in 1925 to support the building of Socialism – in the Party’s ever watchful and powerful eyes, he was beyond suspicion.

I was curious about the origins of the idea of reforming the Socialist system: did Dubček have his own ideas about a reform course or did he follow the Soviet party line that embarked on a course of de-Stalinization, after General Secretary Nikita S. Krushchev (1894–1971) had criticized Stalin’s crimes in his secret speech to the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party on 25 February 1956? In 1956, Dubček was in Moscow, attending the Higher School of Politics of the Soviet Communist Party; because he spoke Russian fluently, he had a particular close insight into the significance of Krushchev’s speech – and what consequences the revelations about Stalin’s crimes could prompt for the states of the Soviet bloc.

Furthermore, I wanted to get a better understanding of the relationship between the Czechoslovak and Slovak Communist parties, which – to some extent – reflect the relationship between Czechs and Slovaks ever since the end of WWII. The Slovak Communist Party (KSS) was founded in 1939 as an illegal organization in the Slovak state, while the leaders of the Czech Communist Party (KSČ) fled to Moscow after the Munich Agreement in 1938. In June 1945, the KSČ, then completely under Stalin’s control, allowed the KSS some autonomy in Slovakia, hoping that the Party would emerge victorious from the parliamentary elections of 1946. When this plan did not work out – the centre-right Democratic Party (DS) won in Slovakia – the KSČ changed its strategy: it subordinated the KSS under its leadership to gather strength and discipline for the assumption of power.

Alexander Dubček is so well known, nothing new can be written about him – or so one might think. Is this true? What do we really know about the father of Czechoslovakia’s reform communism? Dubček is the symbol of Socialism with a Human Face.3 The Western reader knows about Dubček’s career in the Czechoslovak Communist Party (KSČ) only from his memoirs.4 A study of his early years, that is, before he and his followers in the Party’s top echelons launched the reform course in 1968, is more than due, especially in view of the 50th anniversary of the Czechoslovak Spring in 2018.

Up to date, there is no scholarly analysis available in an international language that informs the reader about Dubček’s early career in the Slovak Communist Party (KSS) prior to his election as First Secretary5 of the KSČ in January 1968. The Czechoslovak Spring has been subject to various historical analyses, but all studies, translations of documents and biographies6 focus on Dubček’s eight months as First Secretary, the famous action programme (akční program)7 that his government launched in April 1968, the invasion8 of the Warsaw Pact troops on the night of 21 August 1968, and his subsequent fall from Leonid I. Brezhnev’s (1906–1982) grace.

Who was the person and politician Dubček? How could he gain power in the KSS, convincing the Stalinists to go along with a reform course in the early 1960s, while the Czech comrades were suffering under First Secretary Antonín Novotný’s (1904–1975) Stalinist style of government? What were the ideological origins and intellectual inspiration of his reform course – the new Soviet thinking about the future of Socialism9 or his own reform ideas that originated in the particularly complex environment of Czech and Slovak Communism?10

Slovak historians have published several excellent studies about the predjarie, the precursor or run-up to the Czechoslovak Spring that had begun in Slovakia in 1963 in the context of the lukewarm rehabilitation of the victims of the show trials of the 1950s, a rehabilitation that Dubček as First Secretary of the KSS had initiated and presided over.11 Unfortunately, they are not available in an international language. The Institute of History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences HÚ SAV published a selection of Dubček’s speeches, newspaper articles and interviews that had appeared from 1963 to 1992.12 A bibliography of Dubček’s speeches, interviews and radio broadcasts and studies about him was published in 2007.13 A compilation of memoirs of Dubček’s relatives, friends and acquaintances was published in 1998; among the authors was the Soviet physicist and Nobel Peace Laureate Andreii D. Sakharov (1921–1989).14

In January 1968, Dubček convinced the majority of the CC of the KSČ that Novotný posed a serious threat to Czechoslovakia because he was alienating the Czechs from the Slovaks, risking the state’s sovereignty by driving a wedge between the Slovaks and Czechs, whose relations had been more than difficult since WWII. On his official visit to Slovakia in August 1967, Novotný offended the Slovak people and the KSS leadership.15 The almighty State Security Service StB wanted to get rid of Novotný too because he had ordered that they compose lists of persons to be arrested – one had to expect a new purge (čistka), a renaissance of the Stalinist terror of the 1950s. In January 1968, the CC of the KSČ elected Dubček First Secretary – and the atmosphere in the country swiftly changed: the citizens were optimistic that the times of brutal Stalinist terror were over. A new era of liberalization began. Hopes were high that Communism could not only be reformed, but also made more human and less violent.

Jo Langer (1912–1990), whose husband Oscar Langer had been arrested in 1951 to serve as a ‘witness’ in the show trial16 of the Zionist and Titoist conspiracy against the state in November 1952, described her mixed feelings at the advent of the reforms:

“It is difficult if not impossible to explain to a westerner why we sat in front of the TV in a trance of gratitude […] Total strangers exchanged smiles, listened to each other’s transistor radios in the streetcar and discussed events. […] I felt the charm of all this. I wanted to rejoice so much that there were times when I almost did. […] I felt increasingly that this ‘new socialism’ was only skin deep. The Party remained infallible.”17

My biography focuses on two under-researched aspects of or phases in Dubček’s life: first, his career in the KSS after the end of WWII, which resulted in his election as First Secretary of the KSS in 1963 and First Secretary of the KSČ in 1968; and second, his years in political oblivion after the KSČ relieved him of all functions in Party and state in April 1969. Gustáv Husák (1913–1991), who had spent almost a decade in prison (1954–1963) for his alleged ‘Slovak bourgeois nationalism’, followed him in office, establishing the course of Normalization on Moscow’s diktat.18 Note that I shall not deal with the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops, since Pauer’s superb study explains and analyses to the full the preparation, conduct and consequences of the military invasion of 21 August 1968.19

Dubček grew up in a Communist family and spent the crucially important years as a young child and teenager in the Soviet Union, hence in a strictly Communist environment. He did not experience the democratic system and civil liberties of the Czechoslovak Republic, which President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850–1937)20 had established on 28 October 1918 after four tireless years of lobbying in France, Great Britain and the USA. To Dubček, democracy both as a theory of society and a political system was unknown, if not politically alien. Owing to the fact that young Alexander was from proper proletarian stock, hence had a perfect class background and spoke Russian fluently, the Party allowed him to embark on a political career after the Communist coup d’état of 1948. In the Party’s eyes, he was the embodiment or role model of the future generation of Communists: young, loyal, modest, decent and disciplined. After the “victorious 25 February 1948” (vítězní únor)21 had ended the three years of limited democracy of the National Front (NF) under President Edvard Beneš (1884–1948), Dubček received a position in a factory and would be sent to Moscow to the Party school.

Krushchev’s secret speech prompted the thaw, the short-term liberalization in domestic affairs of the bloc states and Soviet relations with the principal class enemy, the USA. In Marxist-Leninist terms, the Stalin cult and the crimes and purges committed under the reign of the velikii vožd (the Great Leader Stalin) had been a subjective aberration, a mistaken interpretation of the legacy of Marx and Lenin. In its perennial wisdom, the Soviet CP understood the objective signs of the times, the need for social, political and economic reforms – which prompted an immediate change of the political course in the bloc states. These changes in domestic and foreign policy are commonly referred to as de-Stalinization.

Communism in Czechoslovakia collapsed in November 1989 with the VelvetRevolution; the Cold War ceased to exist in 1991 with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. Finally, after twenty years being a persona non grata to the Party and the public, Alexander Dubček experienced reverence and respect at home and abroad. The Czechoslovak parliament elected him chairman of the Federal Assembly, a position he held until his untimely death: on 7 November 1992, when the separation of Czechoslovakia into two sovereign states was already fixed in the agreement of the peaceful separation22 that would become known as the Velvet Divorce, he died of the injuries of a car accident that had happened on 1 September 1992.23 On 1 January 1993, Slovakia became a sovereign state, in spite of the fact that the separation was a violation of the democratic Federal Constitution (ČSFR).24 After some years of political difficulties – one could call them teething troubles of the new political system – the Slovak Republic joined NATO and the EU in 2004, finally firmly in the West.

Let me now present the contents of this study: In chapter I, I introduce the reader to Dubček’s childhood, upbringing, and early political activities in the KSS (1921–1939). Chapter II deals with his political activities during WWII, the SNP, and his career in the Party that peaked with the Czechoslovak Spring (1939–1968). Chapter III focuses on his dissident activities in the years of the Normalization and his comeback to Czechoslovak politics during the Velvet Revolution (1969–1992). In the conclusion, I shall answer my research questions.

X. 2 Analytical Framework and Conceptual Matrix

X. 2. 1 Analytical Framework

The biography of a politician who had held executive functions in Party and state should include various aspects: negotiations and decision-making; relations to domestic politicians, parties and interest groups; foreign policy strategy; analysis of the international situation; personal allegiances, political friends and adversaries; relations to Czech and Slovak exile communities abroad; relations to the country’s ethnic and political minorities; strategies on economic, education and social policy, to name but the most common ones. This biography cannot cover all these aspects.

I shall focus on two principal aspects of Dubček’s thought and activities: first, an analysis of his ideas about Slovakia’s constitutional status in the common state, and second, his ideasabout Czechoslovak domestic politics, that is the country’s reform course.

Note that I shall not deal with Dubček’s thought about foreign policy issues, especially the relations with the Soviet Union, since the international aspects of the Czechoslovak Spring have been abundantly analysed in the studies dealing with the invasion and occupation mentioned above. Dubček was only ever interested in Czechoslovakia’s domestic reform course; he had no intention of making his country a role model for the other bloc states to follow, let alone leave the bloc and have Czechoslovakia join NATO and the West. His position was clear: Czechoslovakia was a member of the bloc of Socialist states, loyally fulfilling her military and economic duties in the Warsaw Pact and the COMECON (RVHP) – but, as a sovereign state, she had the right to embark on a domestic reform course.

However, the Soviet leadership and all leaders of the bloc states, save for Romania’s Nicolae Ceauşescu (1918–1989),25 had quite a different perception of Dubček’s reforms. Czechoslovakia’s open borders and the free press posed a serious threat to the security of the entire bloc – the country bordering on West Germany and Austria was a gateway for Capitalist Imperialism to enter the Socialist bloc.

My analysis of Dubček’s political ideas and decisions unfolds in the area of Czechoslovak domestic politics from 1945 to 1992, that is, the years of his political career in the Party, the years of his dissident activities and comeback. The analytical framework thus involves the following historical events and contexts: the immediate post-war years of limited democracy under the guidance of the NF (1945–1948); the Stalinization of Czechoslovakia (1948–1960) that ended with the Socialist Constitution adopted in 1960 and the new name ČSSR;26 the beginning of the liberalization, the predjarie (Pre-Spring) that peaked in the Czechoslovak Spring; the Normalization under Husák (1969–1989) and the transition to democracy and rule-of-law state (1989–1992).

X. 2. 2 Conceptual Matrix

The following questions are to guide the reader through the analysis; they represent a conceptual matrix that is divided into two parts, the first focussing on Dubček’s political thought and, the second, on his political goals.

Political thought, key concepts: national identity, political identity, Czechoslovakism, Federalism, Socialism with a Human Face. What political arguments did Dubček use to legitimate his political goals? Which thinkers, politicians or philosophers inspired him? Did he develop his own ideas about politics or follow the Soviet Party line?

Political goals, key concepts: What status of Slovakia within Czechoslovakia did he project? How did he justify political liberalization within the limits of Marxism-Leninism? What should a modern Socialist society look like, and what role did civil rights and liberties play in his reform course?

X. 3 Method, Key Issues, Research Interest

X. 3. 1 Method: Contextual Biography

This study has an interdisciplinary focus: it presents an analysis of political ideas against a background of established historical facts. The combination of political theory analysis with contextual biography27 is particularly suitable for a biography of Dubček, because it is based on a specific approach to biographical and historical writing. The contextual biography method offers us a deeper insight into the historical context, presupposing that a person’s activities, thoughts and personal impressions cannot be separated from the historical circumstances he or she was subject to. The British historian Sir Ian Kershaw, FBA (Fellow of the British Academy), on the method and its relevance:

“Any attempt to incorporate such themes [technology, demography, prosperity, democratization, ecology, political violence, add. JB] in a history of twentieth-century Europe would not by-pass the role of key individualswho helped to shape the epoch. […] They are neither their prime cause nor their inevitable consequence.New biographical approaches which recognize this are desirable, even necessary. Their value will be, however, in using biography as a prism on wider issues of historical understanding and not in a narrow focus on private life and personality.”28

The method of contextual biography and the analysis of political thought as a dimensionof biographical writing affords a unique insight into Slovakia and Czechoslovakia’s political environment: Dubček’s personal views, perceptions of events and ideas render vibrant the historical context in which he thought and acted. Through the prism of his ideas and thoughts the intellectual and political atmosphere of the second half of the 20th century in Czechoslovakia is more clearly revealed. Dubček adhered to the Leninist principle that a good Communist is allowed to think on his own, that the Party, naturally within the theoretical confines and principles of Marxism-Leninism, tolerates and appreciates different views and opinions.

Note that I shall present no summary of the ideology that had captivated so many minds at the turn of the 20th century; Marxism-Leninism has been subject to countless historical, philosophical and sociological studies. Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin’s works can be found in libraries and on the Internet. For those willing to delve into the depths of Marxist-Leninist theory, I recommend Sir Isaiah Berlin’s (1909–1997) biography of Marx,29 the texts of Ernest Mandel (1923–1995),30 Neil Harding’s analysis of Leninism,31 and Leszek Kołakowski’s superb study of Marxist thought.32 Edvard Radzinsky’s biography of Stalin,33 William Taubman’s biographies of Khrushchev and Gorbachev,34The Black Book of Communism,35 François Furet’s superb historical study of Communism,36 and Tony Judt and Timothy Snyder’s debate about intellectuals in the 20th century offer excellent information.37The series of the Cold War International History Project (CWIHP papers),38 published at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C., USA, offers outstanding research about the Soviet bloc, China and international politics during the Cold War.

X. 3. 2 Key Issues

X. 3. 2. 1 Czechoslovakism and the Czechoslovak Nation

Prior to the foundation of the First Czechoslovak Republic in 1918, Czech intellectuals in the Austrian and Slovak intellectuals in the Hungarian part of the Habsburg monarchy engaged in debates about their kinship, focussing on their close cultural and linguistic features.39 For the purpose of a clear understanding of the different Slovak and Czech perceptions of the common state and each other after WWII and under the Communist regime, I shall briefly elaborate on Czechoslovakism as the principal political programme and philosophical basis of the state.

Czechoslovakism is a historical concept with two interpretations: first, it is the idea that Czechs and Slovaks form one nation, and second, it is the political programme of the state of the Czechs and Slovaks.40

On 28 October 1918, Czechoslovakia came into being as a new state in Central Europe – thanks to the efforts of the exile troika of Masaryk, Beneš and Milan Rastislav Štefánik (1880–1919).41 In a pragmatic step, Masaryk had reformulated his Czech nation-building theory into his Czechoslovak state-building theory to convince the Allies of WWI that, on the grounds of natural law,42 the Czechoslovak nation deserved sovereignty as much as Poland, whose reconstruction and sovereignty was a stipulation of US President Woodrow Wilson’s famous plan of 14 points. Masaryk conceived of the Slovaks as kin of the Czechs who spoke an eastern Czech dialect. This was clearly not the case; Slovak had been a written language since 1843, albeit neither recognized by the Hungarian government nor the international community of states.43 For reasons of political pragmatism, Masaryk conveniently ignored the efforts of the Slovak patriots in the early 19th century to gain recognition for their language. By declaring the Czechs and Slovaks one nation, he was able to convince the Czech and Slovak exile communities in the USA of his plan of founding the Czechoslovak nation state; they supported him by signing the Pittsburgh Agreement on 31 May 1918. Masaryk thus created a historically incorrect yet politically successful portrait of the Czechs and Slovaks as one nation, thereby liberating it from the Habsburg monarchy’s oppressive rule. In 1905, Masaryk had written:

“Just think how we consider Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and, finally, Slovakia as separate units! Two million Czechs [dva miliony Čechů] live in the Hungarian kingdom! […] We won’t give up a third of our nation.”44

In the decade before the war, Masaryk had pragmatically blended the historic rights of the lands of the Bohemian Crown with the natural law justification for the Czechoslovak nation.45 With natural law, he justified to the WWI Allies the Czechoslovak nation’s right to a sovereign nation state; with the historic rights of the Bohemian Crown, he legitimated the sovereignty of the Czechoslovak nation over the territory of the Czech lands with a large German minority and Slovakia with a large Hungarian minority. Masaryk shared the view of the Czech journalist Karel Havlíček (1821–1856),46 who had pursued the argument that the codification of the Slovak language in 1843 had been a breach of faith, similar to the breaking of a contract. This criticism is referred to in the literature as odtrhati se: to tear oneself away, to leave the union, or, to cut the umbilical cord. Such a union or contract, however, had never existed:

“In the historical literature, in particular the Czech literature, the concepts of ‘linguistic separation’ [jazykovej odluke] or ‘farewell’ [rozluke] have been in use for years. These concepts, however, are incorrect. The concepts of ‘separation’ and ‘farewell’ implicate a former union [jednota] that did not exist. Not even the Slovaks were at one with themselves. And only a part of the Slovaks used Czech as their written language.”47

From Masaryk’s point of view, the Czechoslovak state had a threefold legitimacy: First, the state was legitimate in ethical terms, since the people would be sovereign in a democracy and rule-of-law state that embodied the values of liberty, equality and fraternity. An important factor was Masaryk’s personal life; he was married to the American Protestant Charlotte Garrigue (1850–1923).48 Thanks to his wife, Masaryk had an insight into how US democracy worked – and why Austrian imperial and Hungarian monarchical rule did not and should not.

Second, Czechoslovakia was legitimate in terms of public international law, since the victorious Allies would dictate the terms and conditions of the peace negotiations in St. Germain and Trianon, the latter being of crucial importance for Slovakia’s independence from Hungary.

Third, the state was legitimate because of the consent of the Czech and Slovak expat communities in the USA who had emigrated from Austria-Hungary exactly because of the oppression of the feudalist and aristocratic regime. The distinguished Slovak historian Dušan Kováč about the building of the state:

“Czech politicians often said that the Slovaks would get everything they wished for. The majority of the Slovaks accepted the idea that, in the first phase, in the interest of international recognition and a smooth separation from the Hungarian administration, the centralist model of the state would be the best solution. All forces concentrated on achieving that basic goal – a plan that not too long ago had been referred to as the crazy ideas of an ageing Prague professor.”49

The distinguished Czech historian Jan Rychlík about Czechoslovakism:

“To pretend that the Czechs and Slovaks were one nation was generally accepted. While many Czechs truly believed that Czechs and Slovaks formed one nation, the Slovaks considered the Czechoslovak nation as a strategic construct that should be given up once the goal [the international recognition of the Czechoslovak Republic, add. JB] had been achieved. From a Czech perspective, the idea of one nation should form the basis of the state. […] Yet in that phase of development one should not understand the concept of Czechoslovakism in a negative fashion, since, without it, there would have been no Czechoslovakia at all.”50

Was the foundation of Czechoslovakia on 28 October 1918 legitimate in democratic terms? I think yes, for three reasons: first, on 30 October 1918, the Slovak National Council (SNR) independently expressed its wish to form a state with the Czechs;51 second, Beneš’s negotiations with Czech politicians in Geneva in October 1918;52 and third, the consent of the Czechs and Slovaks in the USA who had signed the Pittsburgh Agreement.

A crucially important factor for Czechoslovakia’s international recognition was the legia, the Czechoslovak army that Slovak and Czech soldiers who had deserted from the Austro-Hungarian army had formed during the war. The legia, fighting at the side of the Allies on all fronts, had proved the Czechs and Slovaks’ wish for independence in a common state. The Allies perceived the legia as the army of a state in the making. A third reason for the Allies’ recognition of Czechoslovakia’s new territorial borders was the politically astute and clever fait accompli in Slovakia: By November 1918, Czechoslovak troops had secured Slovakia’s borders at the Danube, and Masaryk’s associate Vavro Šrobár (1867–1950)53 had set up the Czechoslovak government in Slovakia. Šrobár and his handful of men, dedicated to implementing the common state and bringing about regime change, immediately began to replace the Hungarian administration in early November, and by the summer of 1920, when the Trianon peace negotiations with Hungary started, Czechoslovak rule was firmly established on Slovak territory.

Thanks to Masaryk’s conception of the Czechoslovak state and the continuous efforts of Štefáník and Beneš in exile and Šrobár in Slovakia, the Republic came into being. According to Masaryk’s thinking, the last phase of the historical democratization process had begun with the foundation of the sovereign state. From now on, there was only one goal the Czechoslovaks had to concentrate on: to secure the state and its institutions through the citizens’ continuous improvement of the social, economic and political conditions – their nations’ new lives in a democracy and sovereign state.

Masaryk achieved what no philosopher before him had achieved – he had created a state, his Platonic dream of the polis, yet without Plato’s authoritarian order. In the Czechoslovak Republic, the people, not a king or emperor, were the sovereign, realizing Rousseau’s sovereignty of the people. Masaryk was the spiritus rector of Czechoslovak sovereignty, following Plato’s imperative he so admired that philosophers should be kings, viz., in the 20th century, presidents and moral leaders.

The First Republic’s inherent problem that Hitler would use to carve up Czechoslovakia was Masaryk’s constitutional construct of theCzechoslovak nation, a concept Czechs and Slovaks were divided about. The Czechs conceived of the state as a unitarist one,54 a realization of the Czech programme of independence, with Slovakia as a territorial attachment and enlargement. The Slovaks, on the other hand, rejected the idea of the political nation, because they had only the worst memories of the idea and concept of ‘political nation’: the Magyar interpretation of a united Hungarian political nation had resulted in the harsh Magyarization, the cultural and linguistic assimilation of non-Magyar citizens in the Hungarian kingdom.55 Masaryk, however, did not understand the Slovak viewpoint:

“Masaryk’s personal origins made it difficult for him to understand an issue that was no problem to him. […] He felt a Czechoslovak in the truest sense of the word, that is, as Czech and Slovak in one person.”56

At the turn of the 20th century, intellectuals of the two nations had begun to promote cultural Czechoslovakism, the idea of the kinship of Slovaks and Czechs that originated in the closeness of their languages. In 1908, the annual meeting of the association Československá jednota (Czechoslovak union) in the Moravian spa town of Luhačovice57 had become a tradition of Czechoslovakism and its adherents; the meetings improved relations, since the members not only discussed themes of cultural exchange and education, but also economic and political issues.

In a survey the Slovak journal Prúdy (Currents), edited by former Hlasists,58 undertook in 1914, 39 Czech and 37 Slovak intellectuals addressed issues of political unity in terms of agriculture, politics, economy and culture; because of the war, the survey’s results were published only in 1919. But they illustrated that progressive Czech and Slovak intellectuals truly believed in the existence of a Czechoslovak nation.59 But, prior to WWI, the majority of Czech politicians considered the monarchy as a fact and could not imagine the Czech lands outside of Austria, let alone the end of the Habsburg monarchy.

The activities ofcultural Czechoslovakism formed the intellectual basis of political Czechoslovakism, the programme of and demand for a common independent state. For both Slovaks and Czechs, Czechoslovakia was a perfect political solution. The Slovaks would benefit from the political experience and economic support of the Czechs. The Czechs on their own, that is, without the argument of the Czechoslovak nation and its right to sovereignty over her territory that included Slovakia, could not have convinced the Allies to recognize the new state. The plan of a Czechoslovak state, carved out of the Habsburg Empire, attacked the essential pillar of Austro-Hungarian power: dualism, established in the Ausgleich (compromise) of 1867.

Slovak and Czech politicians conceived of Czechoslovakism as the state’s ethical legitimation. Some had a Czechoslovak political identity, considering themselves members of the Czech or Slovak nation, respectively. Others embodied a Czechoslovak national and political identity, thus believing that Czechs and Slovaks formed one nation. National and political identities were also formed along confessional lines. In general, it can be said that Czech Protestants, Catholics and Jews welcomed the common state. Slovak Lutherans and Jews were generally supportive of the common state, as it meant liberation and democratization, while, on the other hand, radical circles among the Slovak Catholics conceived of the ruling Czech liberalism as atheistic. They also felt that Czech leadership in the common state was centralistic, discriminating against their religious beliefs and way of life.

Central planning from Prague was necessary because of the different economic conditions in the Czech lands and Slovakia. While the Czech lands had experienced an industrial boom in the 19th century, Slovakia’s industrialization was protracted because Hungary’s socio-economic system had been largely based on agriculture. Industrialization in Slovakia began only in the 1920s. Czechoslovak institution building began immediately after the Prague declaration of independence on 28 October 1918; it replaced the Austrian and Hungarian administrations with the institutions of a modern representative democracy that included minority rights.60

This process of co-ordination and centralization provoked resistance mainly from Slovak Catholic circles. The new administrative institutions, schools, universities, hospitals and factories required trained personnel, which only the Czechs could provide, since the Magyar personnel refused to serve Czechoslovakia or left for Hungary after 1918. Some Slovaks, led by the Catholic priest Andrej Hlinka (1864–1938), who became a radical autonomist in the mid-1920s, felt overruled by the ‘atheist and Hussite Czechs’ in their own homeland.

From the text of the Pittsburgh Agreement, American Slovaks and autonomists at home deduced an alleged promise by Masaryk to establish Slovak autonomy. They protested against “Czech centralism”, equating Masaryk’s statements “Slovakia will have her own administration, her parliament and her courts” and “Slovak will be the administrative language in schools, in the administration and overall in public life” with a constitutionally granted autonomy, that is, self-government.61

Czechoslovakia ceased to exist with the Munich Agreement of 30 September 1938. Great Britain, Italy and France sacrificed the only democracy in Central Europe for a fickle peace in Europe. This policy of appeasement spectacularly failed; Munich only encouraged Hitler to go ahead with his megalomaniac plans of Lebensraum im Osten:

“‘Our enemies are small worms’, he would tell his generals in August 1939. ‘I saw them in Munich’”.62

The majority of the Sudeten Germans had been rallying against the Republic, supporting the Sudetendeutsche Partei led by Konrad Henlein (1898–1945). Czechoslovak politicians were trying to save what could be saved of the Republic, but the radicals of the HSĽS (Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party) used Munich as a platform to push forward the issue of Slovak autonomy. Munich prompted the Žilina Agreement (Žilinská dohoda) in October 1938, which led to Slovakia’s autonomy; the ViennaArbitration (Viedenská arbitráž) in November 1938 consigned southern and eastern parts of Slovakia to Hungary and, on 15 March 1939, the Republic ceased to exist: Nazi Germany invaded the Czech lands and established the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. On 14 March, Slovakia had to proclaim independence; she was a pseudo-sovereign state at Hitler’s beck and call.

The majority of the Slovaks had accepted the declaration of Slovak autonomy on 6 October 1938. A prominent signatory of the Žilina Agreement was Jozef Tiso,63 a former MP for the HSĽS in the First Republic. The Czechoslovak government, betrayed by its former allies and in a state of disorientation because of the resignation of President Beneš and his government, accepted the Žilina Agreement. Czechoslovakia’s status changed to a federation with a new official name for Slovakia, Slovenska krajina; the country’s new official name was the hyphenated Czecho-Slovakia. The government in Prague was responsible for international affairs, defence, currency, the state budget and customs, public traffic and the post.64

The Žilina Agreement’s rationale was that of loyalty to the Republic in exchange for autonomy. Slovak self-government would only strengthen the Republic. From the viewpoint of a Slovak citizen, the Žilina Agreement made sense: why would they want to support ‘Prague centralism’ if Prague did not acknowledge their demands for self-government within the common state? From a Czech perspective, ‘Slovak autonomism’ unnecessarily burdened the Republic at the time the state had lost the substantial territories of the Sudetenland to Germany. But in the municipal elections of May 1938, the HSĽS was no longer the strongest party in Slovakia:

“1,452 communities held elections. Slovenska Jednota [an electoral association of Agrarians, Social Democrats, the Slovak National Party and other small parties, add. JB] received the majority of the votes with 43.93%, followed by HSĽS with 26.93% and KSČ with 7.4%. […] The results of these elections were never published, but they confirm that the Slovak citizens were aware of the threat against the Republic and supported its preservation.”65

X. 3. 2. 2 Rovný s Rovným – The Three Prague Agreements (1945–1946)

To understand the impact and depth of the reform course of the Dubček government in 1968, a brief summary of the two nations’ constitutional status after WWII is required. In this subchapter, I also present the KSČ’s assumption of power on the so-called ‘victorious 25 February 1948’, the origins of the two CP’s different viewpoints and political agendas.

During WWII and after the victory, which the Czechs and Slovaks celebrated at the side of the Allies, rovný s rovným (equal among equals) was the fundamental basis of negotiations between Slovaks and Czechs: rovný s rovným was the principle and goal that expressed the Slovaks’ wish for a constitutional amendment, changing their status within the Republic. Represented by the SNR, they were pursuing constitutional equality with the Czechs in the common state. During the war, the Slovak National Council (SNR), composed of the Communists and several centre-right parties, hence reflecting the Slovak people’s political pluralism, had pushed forward rovný s rovným as a blueprint for the negotiations with the London exile government under President Beneš. Their common goal was the resistance against Tiso’s Slovak State on the one hand, and Nazi occupation in the Czech lands, on the other. The principal goal was the restoration of Czechoslovakia.

The agreement had been concluded in December 1943 in Moscow, under the auspices of the watchful eyes of the velikii vozhd. The so-called Christmas Agreement foresaw two political goals, once the war was won: First, constitutional equality of the Slovaks with the Czechs in the common state, and, second, the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans from the Czech lands and the Hungarians from southern Slovakia. Initially, the SNR had planned to drive a hard bargain, to get a reward for their support of the exile government and a reward for the Slovaks who had fought and died in the SNP, alongside the Red Army. Clearly, all Slovak political parties wanted the common state back, but in a different constitutional form. The SNR wanted self-government in Slovakia, true autonomy; Slovak administrators who were familiar with the nation’s customs and economic and political situation should govern Slovakia, not Czech civil servants like in the First Republic.

In general, it can be said that to the Slovaks, regardless of their party affiliation, rovný s rovným was an issue of democratization; to the Czechs, it was a threat to the rebuilding of the common state in the politically sensitive years after WWII. The majority of the Slovaks thought that the nation did not fight in the SNP and against Tiso to have the old Prague centralism back. The majority of the Czechs, following Beneš’s ‘stab in the back’ myth,66thought that one could not trust the Slovaks; they had betrayed Czechoslovakia with the Žilina Agreement of 1938 and were prone to Catholic authoritarianism anyway.

With the liberation in May 1945, Czechoslovakism was again the theoretical fundament of the common state, the state-building theory of Czechoslovakia’s reconstruction, but now with a different interpretation: Czechoslovakia was formally declared as the common state of two brotherly nations