Voices from Czechoslovakia
Havel, Vaclav & Svitak, Ivan & Jesenska, Z.
We print below excerpts from articles written by Czech writers during the recent revolutionary events. For us it is enormously encouraging and exciting to see that, as soon as a measure of liberty...
...Of course, political parties are included in these various associations and clubs, societies, and organizations...
...It was stated that "this" was the perfect freedom and that anyone who did not believe it was an enemy of the Czechoslovak people...
...We are indifferent to the change of cadres who were appointed by an utterly undemocratic system, but we are interested in a lasting democratization process, i.e., in the permanent transformation of totalitarian dictatorship into a European system with a democratic form of government...
...IF SOME ideas about the possible form of a political opposition in present-day Czechoslovakia give the impression of a desire "to have your cake and eat it, too," we cannot be surprised...
...The conservative forces in this country have been beaten and a simple return to the old conditions is, for the time being, impossible...
...The hierarchial concept whereby the state organs and social organizations are all directed from one center endures without change...
...By the same token, in a future federation, the Slovaks alone will not be able to judge whether they have protected the rights of the Hungarian and Ukrainian minorities...
...Such a concept presupposes a faith that the government will draw all the necessary inferences from public criticism—but democracy is a matter not of faith but of guarantees...
...the theoretically nonexistent Germans must be asked this...
...Only you who listen to me can be the absolute guarantee...
...I believe it is essential in a democracy that the greatest possible variety of societies, associations, and clubs whose origins are free and spontaneous be permitted to exist, allowing every interest its natural representation and unrestricted right to be heard...
...Let's be honest...
...Gen erally it is thought that democracy means the rule of the majority over the minority...
...And only those who are among the weaker in some sphere are entitled to say whether or not democracy exists in this country...
...One can talk seriously about democracy only when people have an opportunity to elect those who are to govern them...
...what was wrong was the fact that the period of dictatorship lasted too long...
...However, let us make no mistake—there is also no democracy where the rule of the majority is unlimited...
...It has not yet become the foundation of our social organization...
...During the past month, I have often heard that some limitation of liberties was inevitable after February 1948, as is the case in every revolution...
...In Czechoslovakia, one party still has a monopoly in political life, ana at present, there exist no procedures, such as are common in a democracy, to express the political will of the people...
...This means not only ethnic, class, or similar minorities...
...This is only half the truth...
...After all, we began by depriving these other parties of their members and programs and of everything that constitutes a political party, and everyone knew that they were merely ciphers...
...This was true in Poland and in Hungary...
...VOICES FROM CZECHOSLOVAKIA Revolt means a changing of the guard which does not affect the structure of society...
...There is only freedom of the press and some kind of hope for democratic elections and a reorganization of the power functions in the state...
...Although we have been saying for 20 years that a multiparty system exists in this country, not many were deceived...
...If the question is put, "Whence, with whom, and where...
...This [possibility] is, however, very remote, although, at present, there is a nationwide illusion [that it is close at hand], an illusion which springs from the resignation of a few officials...
...We must liquidate this dictatorship or it will liquidate us...
...The possibility of a revolt leaves us completely indifferent...
...If we examine the results of the three-monthold rebirth objectively and critically, we have to conclude that, with the exception of the temporary lapse of censorship, no structural changes have taken place in the mechanism of the totalitarian dictatorship...
...The main characteristic of the present changes is that so far no substantial changes have occurred, that the structure of totalitarian dictatorship has remained untouched...
...Antonin Novotny entered the scene as an exponent of liberalization...
...We have no reason to be enthusiastic about a change of persons...
...it is now true in Czechoslovakia...
...The atheists should not try to convince anyone that full freedom of religion exists in this country...
...This, again, presupposes the existence of at least two comparable alternatives: two equal and mutually independent political forces, both of which have the same chance of becoming the leading force in the country if the people so decide...
...only the believers can confirm this...
...The Czechs cannot be judges of whether the Slovak question was correctly settled in this country...
...This conflict is not a matter of the relationship between the two nations, but of the structure of the totalitarian dictatorship...
...In other words, as long as our country recognizes the existence of the Communist party, the demand for a second political party as its full...
...it is the citizens of socalled Jewish origin who must be asked about this...
...this question must be asked of the Slovaks...
...All sorts of guarantees: constitutional, legal, institutional, and others...
...Under the kind of socialism that we have had to date, those who were more powerful never asked the weaker who held no power how they were faring, whether they were satisfied with the conditions of life established for them...
...The totalitarian dictatorship is our number one enemy...
...They will call for moderation and will offer new economic programs instead of basic political changes...
...Their small, awkward groups of delegates spoke only VOICES FROM CZECHOSLOVAKIA on certain occasions, offering greetings to the Communist party, which they assured of their full support although, having no strength whatsoever, they had nothing to support it with...
...Among the issues critical to America and theworld discussed are legalized abortion, conscientious objection, civil disobedience, thehomosexual revolution, the Vietnam conflict, the future of integration, the role of theUnited Nations, the crisis in our schools, marijuana and the law, and church-state relations...
...If, moreover, the "competition of views" only supplements "competition for power," the door is indeed open to undemocratic processes (as, for example, if ministers are dismissed not by parliament but by television or public meetings —leaving the citizen no legal control over the executive power and hence, no prophylaxis against its misuse...
...Some of the contributors to recent and future issues are Leslie Fiedler, B. F. Skinner, A. H. Maslow, Alan Ginsberg, Sidney Hook, Willard Wirtz, Benjamin Spock, Martin Luther King, James Farmer, Staughton Lynd, Ernest Nagel, Father Groppi, Charles Frankel, Bertram Wolfe, Barbara Ward, and Louis Sohn...
...Today we face another alternative...
...Certainly there is no democracy where the minority governs...
...Polish youth must build barricades at the university against the Polish national hero of 1956...
...we can answer it briefly: "From Asia, by ourselves, toward Europe...
...We, on the contrary, must endeavor to make full use of the tolerated freedom and achieve democratic elections as a further step on the road toward a European socialist state...
...THE HUMANIST is a publication of the American Humanist Association r...
...I also consider illusory the assumption that internal democratization of the ruling party—readiness to tolerate something (continued on page 441) (continued from page 372) like internal party opposition—offers a sufficient guarantee of democracy...
...In Slovakia in particular we turned them into frauds...
...This means [we must move] from totalitarian dictatorship toward an open society, toward the liquidation of the power monopoly and effective control of the power elite by a free press and public opinion...
...On the other hand, we are very much interested in the alternative possibility of structural changes because it opens a new road toward an open socialist society, i.e., toward socialist democracy...
...What is it, then, that makes the ideas advanced up to now sound so halfhearted...
...It is as if simultaneously, and without the benefit of discussion, there has been arising throughout the world a recognition that socialism is meaningless, indeed inconceivable without full democracy, and that democracy cannot fulfill its promise without steps toward socialism.—ED...
...And so on, down to the last decimal unit...
...If, nevertheless, they go so far as to permit public discussion of this subject until recently taboo—it would seem that those with anything to say about it should seize this opportunity to discuss the matter...
...Even if we admit that public "competition of views" is the first, most important factor in democracy, its very essence—and the true source of our guarantees—is something else: public and legal "competition for power...
...In February 1948, in the name of the revolution, of unity and preparedness for action, we disrupted and destroyed all kinds of organizations, commoninterest association, and groups, such as exist in every normal society and which are continually being formed, or, as the case may be, dissolved...
...This goal can be realized only by solving the basic conflict now going on in the Czechoslovak state...
...Kulturny Zivot (Bratislava), April 5, 1968 THE HUMANIST a journal of ethical and humanist concern A forum for the discussion of contemporary ethical and social issues written from asecular and naturalistic point of view...
...That the more progressive and democratically minded in the Party seem to have won over the conservatives within a few weeks by no means signifies that the latter agree to a shift which has never been tried—changing the single-party system...
...Either we shall stop halfway and be satisfied with semidemocratization, or we shall go whole hog and install a true democracy...
...Democracy has not yet even started to be introduced in this country and what we have now are no more than intermittent flashes of it...
...Yes, every revolution is an exceptional and temporary state, but in our country no freedoms were abolished temporarily, since the Stalinist model of socialism, or in other words, the police bureaucratic system, established itself permanently...
...a government can only be made to improve itself when its existence, and not just its good name, is at stake...
...Always and everywhere, whatever the circumstances, democracy must also mean the protection of the weaker from the stronger, the protection of those who happen to be out of power from the capricious rule of those who govern —loosely expressed, this involves protection of the minority...
...The student has no reason to support these illusions...
...It is about time that we dropped this self-deception also...
...It was not said that freedoms were to be curtailed for a certain period of time...
...When all has been said, power respects power...
...on the contrary, he must be on the lookout for frauds that will show up during the period when we are deciding on the nature of the state in which we shall live...
...Finally, in the economic sphere and as regards the civic activities of the population, an independent role is played by the special-interest organizations, the bureaucracy of the apparatus, and by public opinion...
...Are they capable of confronting seriously the idea of an opposition, until recently anathema to them...
...fledged, dignified, and independent partner in the "competition for power" is also necessary...
...Revolution means structural social changes—changes in the relationship between classes, in the structure of the economy and policy, and in the mechanism of power...
...Emphasis added--ED.] --Student (Prague), April 10, 1968 WANT TO SPEAK about democracy...
...The counterattacks of the conservative forces will therefore be concentrated on it in the very near future...
...Only in the latter case shall we have what everybody is asking for— guarantees...
...To my mind, the only truly logical and, in our circumstances, effective way (until someone convinces me of a better one) to reach the ideal of democratic socialism is a regenerated and socialist social structure patterned on the twoparty model...
...At present, there is one element that justifies our hopes in the democratization process, i.e., the sincere expression of public opinion...
...Whether we are going through one or the other experience will be decided by us...
...We must move] from the bureaucratic control of society and culture by "cutthroats of the official line" (C...
...Literarni Listi (Prague), April 4, 1968 RE WE EXPERIENCING a revolution or a revolt...
...Wright Mills's phrase) to the application of the basic human and civil rights, at least to the extent that they existed in the bourgeois democratic Czechoslovakia...
...Sociologists and philosophers know that "institutions are stronger than people," that without the controlling mechanism of public opinion, every member of an elite, without exception, must degenerate...
...We hear quite often that, because of our present and future freedom of speech (said to be the essence of democracy), the natural function of opposition will be exercised merely by public opinion having access to mass communications media...
...And yet, however many gauarantees there are, a shrewd combination of the powerful will always be able to circumvent them and bring them to naught...
...Nor can the Czechs say whether the rights of the German minority are protected in Czechoslovakia, a minority which, according to the Constitution, does not exist in this country...
...The intellectuals of this country must assert their claim to lead the open socialist society toward democracy and humanism, if the irrational dialectics of despotism and power are to end...
...Indeed, the ability of a government to use its authority to influence public opinion by "freely" limiting the freedom of that opinion--either illegally or by changing the laws—grows as the capacity of public opinion to exert authority over the government diminishes...
...With whom?] With the workers' movement without its bureaucrats, with the middle-class strata without the groups of willing VOICES FROM CZECHOSLOVAKIA collaborationists, and with the intelligentsia at the head...
...only those who are not members of the Party can assert this...
...Events can still turn in either direction...
...On the level of state power, there is a reciprocal limitation of the powers of the legislative, administrative, and judicial branches (i.e., the par liament, government, and independent judiciary...
...Each of us can belong to the majority in some things and to the minority in others...
...The liquidation of totalitarian dictatorship and of totalitarian thinking is a prerequisite for the achievement of democratic socialism...
...We have enough heads and hands for the program of socialist freedom, but we are also confronted with the apparatus that obstructs it...
...The so-called Aryans cannot declare that there is no longer any antiSemitism in this country...
...It is true that the bureaucracy of this dictatorship has destroyed the Stalinist cult, but it has retained unchanged the power structure of Stalinism, including the bureaucratic apparatus and the policy of the cultural whip...
...For us it is enormously encouraging and exciting to see that, as soon as a measure of liberty becomes possible in an East European country, leading political voices speak in behalf of concepts of democratic socialism closely aligned to those which have appeared in our pages...
...On the level of ideology [in a democracy], there is competition among ideological values and among political programs...
...This is incompatible with democracy whose substance consists precisely in the fact that political decisions are formed by certain social processes in which individual components play a relatively independent role...
...The members of the Communist party have no business to declare that the so-called "partyless" have equal rights and that all posts in civil life are open to them...
Vol. 15 • September 1968 • No. 5
