No I.-II.
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Contents
Articles
Abadi Woldekiros
Tendentious Neutrality:
Czechoslovak Arms and the Italo-Abyssinian Conflict
Jakub Vít
Exporting the ‘Communist Cause’:
Czechoslovakia and Sub-Saharan Africa, 1948-62
Pavel Hradečný
Restrained Internationalism:
The Greek Civil War and Czechoslovak Material Assistance to the Greek Democratic Army
Blahoslav Hruška
A German Burden:
Vergangenheitsbewältigung in the Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl
Reviews
Bedřich Loewenstein
An Ambitious Attempt:
Karel Kramář in the Ideological Context of His Day
Jiří Křesťan
‘The Long March’, Czechoslovak Style:
Still a Provocative Synthesis Concerning the Communist Road to Power
Eva Hahnová
An Anatomy of Czechoslovak Torpor in 1956
Jiří Pešek
On Ethnic Cleansing in Post-World War II Central-Europe
Michal Reiman
A Remarkable Russian Contribution to the History of the Soviet Bloc
Tomáš Zahradníček
Erich, Leave Us Alone to Do Our Work
Josef Forbelský
A History of the Spanish Civil War, Freed of Ideological Dictates
Vlastimil Hála
A Vivid Portrait of the Founder of Fascism
Marian Kratochvíl
Israeli History Laxly Treated, Shoddily Translated
Discussion
Jaromír Navrátil and Jitka Vondrová
Four with One Blow
Stanislav Sikora, Miroslav Londák and Elena Londáková
Concerning a Review of Predjarie, a Book about Slovakia in the 1960s
Chronicle
Vojtech Čelko and Josef Kašpar
Jiří Pelikán and his Private Papers in Rome
Bořivoj Čelovský
A K 2001 Society Exhibition
Annotations
Concerning the Bibliography of Contemporary History
The Archive of Contemporary History
Karel Kaplan
Reports from Milada Horáková’s Cell
Summaries
Tendentious Neutrality:
Czechoslovak Arms and the Italo-Abyssinian Conflict
Abadi Woldekiros
Based on analysis of Czechoslovak arms exports the article aims to explain a lesser known chapter of Czechoslovak foreign policy in the mid-1930s – namely, Czechoslovak policy towards Abyssinia (today, Ethiopia) from just before and during the military conflict between this east-African empire and Fascist Italy. The author analyzes the activities of three Czechoslovak armaments manufacturers: Sellier & Bellot in Vlašim, Zbrojovka in Brno and Škoda in Pilsen. The largest Czechoslovak exporter of arms to Abyssinia was Zbrojovka, which supplied mainly handguns, machineguns and munitions to the country, whereas Škoda, the chief Czechoslovak arms manufacturer, tended not to react to its arms orders from there. In June 1935 Czechoslovakia imposed an embargo on arms exports to Abyssinia and Italy. In consequence, supplies of military technology to Addis Ababa, including already contracted and paid-for materiel, were halted, despite protests and pleas from Abyssinian diplomats. Although Czechoslovakia joined in the anti-Italian sanctions and lifted the arms embargo against Abyssinia after the latter was attacked by Italy in October 1935, further assistance to this African country was insignificant. Archive records, the author contends, support the claim that the policy of strict neutrality, which Prague pursued on the eve of war, was motivated by Czechoslovak interests in central Europe, seeking not to provoke Italy, and in fact eventually turning against beleaguered Abyssinia. This view is at variance with the legend of considerable Czechoslovak help for Abyssinia, which Edvard Beneš and Emperor Haile Selassie had for pragmatic reasons helped to create and which endured to a large extent for many years to come.
Exporting the ‘Communist Cause’:
Czechoslovakia and Sub-Saharan Africa, 1948-62
Jakub Vít
In this article the author is concerned with an unusual and so far little known chapter in the history of Czechoslovak foreign policy during the Communist era. With the beginning of decolonization and Soviet efforts to use countries that were becoming independent in its global competition with the USA, an important role within the Soviet bloc fell to Czechoslovakia. Owing to its highly developed economy and pre-WW II experience, Czechoslovakia became for two decades a pioneer of the ‘Communist cause’ in Sub-Saharan Africa and a proponent of Soviet foreign-policy aims in the region. It managed to develop diplomatic ties with a number of new states, participate importantly in their economic development and armament, and support various revolutionary movements. And yet, although it became relatively extensive, Czechoslovak involvement in Africa was never able to substitute for the traditional bonds between the newly created states and their former colonial powers. On the contrary, Czechoslovak involvement ran increasingly into problems caused by Communist policies, command-control economics, and ever more frequent Soviet directives, until, in the first half of the 1960s, the laboriously constructed image of Czechoslovakia as an acceptable proponent of ‘non-capitalist development’ in Africa collapsed. An essential factor in this was the loss of its gradually established areas of support in the region, as a result of pro-Western change in the political course taken by Guinea, the overthrow of friendly régimes in Ghana and Mali, and, ultimately, civil war in Nigeria. Nevertheless, by its initiative, Czechoslovakia helped to make Sub-Saharan Africa an open arena in the bi-polar confrontation.
Restrained Internationalism:
The Greek Civil War and Czechoslovak Material Assistance to the Greek Democratic Army
Pavel Hradečný
The first part of the article is an analysis of the internal and external aspects of the Greek civil war, 1946–49, which came to a head with the power struggle between left-wing forces, under the influence of the Greek Communist Party (GCP), and the royalist régime in Athens, resulting in one of the first signs of ‘hot’ conflict in the incipient ‘Cold War’. The article pays particular attention to the approach taken by the GCP leadership, with Nikos Zachariadis at the head: first, aiming to establish a ‘People’s Democracy of Greece’, it launched, in spring 1946, a so-called ‘dual strategy’ – legal political competition and, simultaneously, armed conflict, the instrument of which was the guerrilla Greek Democratic Army (Dimokratikos Stratos Elladas or DSE) which emerged in the mountains –, and, ultimately, from autumn 1947, it set out on the road to total confrontation (an expression of which was the proclamation of the government of a ‘Free Greece’). The Soviet-Yugoslav split dealt it a hard blow, since Belgrade had hitherto provided the most military assistance until the GCP came out in support of Stalin against Tito. In the summer of 1949, Athens, with the help of Great Britain and, later, the USA forced the insurgents to withdraw beyond the Albanian frontier. The article continues with an analysis of Soviet attitudes to the Greek Civil War, pointing out that Greece played a permanently marginal role in Soviet geopolitical strategy. These attitudes depended mainly on Soviet efforts both to consolidate its own post-war power gains in central and eastern Europe and to guard against possible American military intervention in the Balkans, eventually, from 1948, attempting also to isolate Tito’s Yugoslavia; this led to the variability, ambiguity and inconsistency of these attitudes. On the whole, the author argues, the Soviet Union acted with great caution throughout the period of the Greek Civil War, avoiding direct material assistance to the Greek Democratic Army, which it tried instead – under its own sponsorship, of course – to foist on the ‘fraternal parties’ and ‘friendly states’, while seeking to keep this top secret. In the second part of the article, on the basis of published sources and his own archive research using records of Czechoslovak and Greek provenience, the author considers Czechoslovak material assistance to the Greek Communists and the Greek Democratic Army. Although the Greek Communists did receive some support, both material and financial, from the Czechoslovak Communist Party as early as in 1946 and 1947 and although Prague diplomacy at the time supported positions detrimental to Athens, Czechoslovakia as a state did not join in the ‘international assistance’ to the Greek Democratic Army till after the Czechoslovak Communist takeover of February 1948. From September 1948 to the summer of 1949 the Czechoslovak Communist régime, on instructions from Moscow, coordinated its supplies to the insurgents directly with Polish, Hungarian and Romanian activity. As part of ‘Operation G’ (Akce Ř [Řecko]), Czechoslovakia gave the Greek insurgents materiel and other goods to the sum, in 1948/49 values, of about 750,000,000 Czechoslovak crowns (roughly US$ 15,000,000). The two previously unknown documents appended to the article help to clarify the picture of Czechoslovak material assistance to the Greek Democratic Army.
A German Burden:
Vergangenheitsbewältigung in the Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl
Blahoslav Hruška
The director, photographer and actress Leni Riefenstahl, who recently became a centenarian, is among the best known and most controversial figures of twentieth-century German culture, because she has systematically created her own image, one that has taken on the dimensions of something approaching that of a martyr. The present article presents the political and historical context of her propaganda films, examines the ideological background of the making of the films, and compares this with the claims made by Riefenstahl in her autobiography. It briefly also considers her work as a photographer. Another important factor is the aesthetic view of her work (the question of ‘Fascist art’), which, the author contends, can only be understood in the context of its time and cannot be properly considered at the strictly aesthetic level. Closely connected with the ‘Leni Legend’ is a consideration of questions of ethics and guilt. The author recalls the post-WW II trials of Riefenstahl, particularly in the de-Nazification courts, and accusations of complicity in the Roma Holocaust, which were made against her. Lastly, he considers the relationship between commercial culture and Riefenstahl’s strategy of self-presentation. He concludes that she has now gone from being the stereotype of the ‘greatest propagandist of the Third Reich’ to yet another figure of contemporary pop culture.
Reviews
An Ambitious Attempt:
Karel Kramář in the Ideological Context of His Day
Bedřich Loewenstein
Martina Winkler, Karel Kramář (1860-1937): Selbstbild: Fremdwahrnehmungen und Modernisierungsverständnis eines tschechischen Politikers. (Ordnungssysteme: Studie zur Ideengeschichte der Neuzeit, vol. 10.) Munich: Oldenbourg, 2002, 413 pp.
The reviewer considers the strengths and weaknesses of this work by a young German historian and the unusually broad, nuanced theoretical scope with which she approaches this important rightwing Czech politician who was active in the final years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the first Czechoslovak Republic that followed it. The reviewer acknowledges the historian’s familiarity with the material and her skill at dealing with the Weltanschauungen of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries at the level of contemporaneous discourses, but asks whether this approach is enough to understand the educated yet occasionally opportunistic Kramář.
‘The Long March’, Czechoslovak Style:
Still a Provocative Synthesis Concerning the Communist Road to Power
Jiří Křesťan
Jacques Rupnik, Dějiny Komunistické strany Československa: Od počátků do převzetí moci, translated from the French by Helena Beguivin, Prague: Academia, 2002, 285 pp.
The reviewer carefully analyzes the main theses of Rupnik’s book, which was originally written as a university dissertation more than twenty years ago and first published as Histoire du Parti communiste tchécoslovaque: Dčs origines ŕ la prise du povoir (Paris 1981). He emphasizes the numerous strong points of the work but also challenges some of its claims. Despite its being based on outmoded research, this history, he argues, remains the best monograph on the topic. Its value rests not only in its presentation of the facts, but also in the elegance of its ideas, its sense for the philosophy of history, the raising of essential questions and the formulation of conclusions that stimulate further thought.
An Anatomy of Czechoslovak Torpor in 1956
Eva Hahnová
Muriel Blaive, Promarněná příležitost: Československo a rok 1956. Translated from the French by Marcela Poučová, with an Afterword by Jiří Pernes, Prague: Prostor, 2001, 461 pp.
This work by a French historian is, in the eyes of the reviewer, an unusually inspirational contribution to the history of Communist Czechoslovakia. The book stands out for attempting to answer essential questions, shifting the traditional focus of research from the centres of power to the social mechanisms of application of that power, and brilliantly deconstructing basic and often still common interpretational models in Czech and non-Czech historiography and journalism.
On Ethnic Cleansing in Post-World War II Central-Europe
Jiří Pešek
Philipp Ther and Ana Siljak (eds), Redrawing Nations: Ethnic Cleansing in East-Central Europe 1944-1948, Lanham, Boulder, New York and Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001, 343 pp.
This volume of papers given at a conference in Gliwice, Poland, in 1997, is concerned with forced population transfers and acts of repression in post-1945 Poland and Czechoslovakia and the subsequent lives of the expellees in the two Germanys. The reviewer considers the three contributions on Czechoslovak history and concludes that the whole work is to be praised for summarizing the huge amount of literature and pointing out the continued objective and ethical relevance of the topic in the context of late twentieth-century European developments.
A Remarkable Russian Contribution to the History of the Soviet Bloc
Michal Reiman
T. V. Volokitina, G. P. Murashko, A. F. Noskova and T. A. Pokivaylova, Moskva i Vostochnaya Yevropa: Stanovleniye politicheskikh rezhimov sovetskogo tipa (1949-1953). Ocherki istorii. Moscow: Rossiyskaya politicheskaya entsiklopediya, 2002, 686 pp.
This work by four Russian authors is, according to the reviewer, a high-quality, informative contribution to the history of the Soviet bloc. He is pleased that the authors have sought to offer not merely description of the individual events but a comprehensive interpretation of political trends in connection with the administrative changes. He reports on the new facts and insights they offer, mainly in connection with the post-war purges in the individual countries, the emergence of a new system, the formation of its power mechanisms in the Soviet-bloc, and the extent and functions of repression there.
Erich, Leave Us Alone to Do Our Work
Tomáš Zahradníček
Andrzej Paczkowski, Droga do ‘mniejszego zła’: Strategia i taktyka obozu władzy, lipiec 1980 – styczeń 1982, Cracow: Wydawnictwo literackie, 2002, 329 pp.
The reviewer acquaints us with this dramatic portrayal of the ‘Solidarity era’ in Poland, which is demarcated by the worker unrest in the Gdansk shipyards and the declaration of a ’state of emergency’, as discussed by a renowned Polish historian. The author focuses on events at the tip of the Polish power pyramid and on talks with Moscow concerning a suitable approach to take towards Solidarity. According to the reviewer, the book is written in a highly engaging way and also testifies to the clearly advanced state of Polish research into recent history.
A History of the Spanish Civil War, Freed of Ideological Dictates
Josef Forbelský
Jiří Chalupa, Zápisky o válce občanské, Prague: Lidové noviny, 2002, 159 pp.
Chalupa’s book on the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39, the reviewer argues, is written as a popular history, yet fundamentally and thoroughly fills an information vacuum and corrects the ideologically deformed analyses of this topic, which had previously been dominant in Czechoslovakia.
A Vivid Portrait of the Founder of Fascism
Vlastimil Hála
Jasper Ridley, Mussolini. Translated from the English with a Foreword by Milan Dvořák, Prague: Themis, 2002, 418 pp.
The strength of this monograph by a well-known British historian and biographer is, according to the reviewer, its depiction of the beginning of the Fascist movement and revealing the distinct formation of the Fascist mode of racism, together with its overall well-balanced, nuanced approach to the material.
Israeli History Laxly Treated, Shoddily Translated
Marian Kratochvíl
Martin Gilbert, Izrael: Dějiny. Translated from the English by Josef Orel, Prague: Jiří Buchal – BB Art, 2002, 668 pp.
According to the reviewer, Martin Gilbert’s Israel: A History (1998), here in Czech translation, offers a standard work by an historian from the Anglo-Saxon world, which is based far more on memoirs than on primary sources. The overall impression is spoilt by historical errors and imprecision, as well as the incorrect Czech transcription of a number of Jewish names and titles.
Jaromír Navrátil and Jitka Vondrová
The two authors take issue with Antonín Benčík’s ‘Obrazy historie z petřínského bludiště’ [Images of History from the House of Mirrors at Petřín] (published in Soudobé dějiny, vol. 9, 2002, nos 3–4, pp. 620–38), the reply to Jiří Suk’s ‘Alexander Dubček – velký státník, nebo politický symbol?’ [Alexander Dubček – Great Statesman or Simply Symbol?] (Soudobé dějiny, vol. 9, 2002, no. 1, pp. 92–103), the review of Benčík’s book Utajovaná pravda o Alexandru Dubčekovi: Drama muže, který předběhl svou dobu [The hidden truth about Alexander Dubček: Drama of man who was ahead of his time] (Prague, 2001). Benčík’s arguments are, they contend, far from serious academic debate, reminiscent instead of the ideological pigeonholing of the Communist era. They reproach Benčík for his highly selective use of sources, tendentious interpretation conforming to the reform-Communist defence of political participants in the Prague Spring, and of having intentionally misquoted at least one his critics. They return to several moot points in the Czechoslovak developments of the late 1960s, in order to rebut Benčík’s criticism of themselves and support their argument (presented in the commentaries to the relevant volumes of the ‘Documents on the History of the Czechoslovak Crisis of 1967–70′ series) that the Party leadership’s reform process had lost momentum even in the spring of 1968.
Concerning a Review of Predjarie, a Book about Slovakia in the 1960s
Stanislav Sikora, Miroslav Londák and Elena Londáková
The authors of Predjarie: Politický, ekonomický a kultúrny vývoj na Slovensku v rokoch 1960-1967 [Before the Spring: Political, economic and cultural developments in Slovakia, 1960-67] (Bratislava, 2002) react here to Jan Pešek’s review of their book, which was published in Soudobé dějiny, vol. 9, 2002, nos 3-4, pp. 609-13. They take issue with the reviewer’s criticism of the whole conception of the book and make concrete objections to some of his points.
Jiří Pelikán and his Private Papers in Rome
Vojtech Čelko and Josef Kašpar
The authors report that the Italian parliament has purchased the private papers of the late Czechoslovak politician and journalist Jiří Pelikán (1923-1999). They also discuss the commemorative meeting organized by the Italian parliament to mark Pelikán’s eightieth birthday (which he did not live to see), and acquaint the reader with the finding aid to these papers. They outline Pelikán’s career, from his having entered politics as a radical Communist university student at the time of the February 1948 Communist putsch, to his becoming the reformist head of Czechoslovak TV during the Prague Spring, 1968, seeking political asylum in Italy in 1969, founding and running the important émigré journal Listy in Rome, and twice being elected to the European Parliament as the candidate of the Italian Socialist Party.
A K 2001 Society Exhibition
Bořivoj Čelovský
A review of a large exhibition titled ‘Czech and Slovak Émigrés of the Twentieth Century’, which was privately organized in Brno by Jan Kratochvil, the son of the émigré writer Josef Kratochvil.
Reports from Milada Horáková’s Cell
Karel Kaplan
An edition of documents compiled by Karel Kaplan (author of, among other things, a book on the Communist show trial of the politician Milada Horáková, which led to her execution in 1950) contains reports by an informer who was planted as a fellow prisoner in Horáková’s cell. Intended for investigators in the Czechoslovak State Security Forces (StB), the reports constitute a highly unusual source because few such reports on victims of the Czechoslovak show trials of the 1950s have been preserved. These particular documents constitute a record not only of Horáková’s views on socialism/Communism, her own political work and the trial itself, but also offer exceptional insight into the mental state, inner feelings, health problems, reactions, fears and concerns of an imprisoned woman and public figure, who was, above all, an extraordinary person.
Contributors Vojtech Čelko (1946) is a Senior Researcher in the Institute of Contemporary History, the Academy of Sciences, Prague. His area of professional interest is Czech and Slovak history from 1945 to the present in the context of central Europe. Bořivoj Čelovský (1923) was an émigré from 1948 to late 1989, during which time he took a degree in history and worked in various ministries of the Canada Government. His area of specialization is German foreign policy towards Czechoslovakia, 1938-45 and Czechoslovak anti-Communist émigrés. His publications include Mnichovský syndrom [The Munich syndrome] and Politici bez moci [Politicians without power] (both Šenov near Ostrava, 2000).
Josef Forbelský (1930) is a literary historian and translator, formerly Head of the Spanish Department the Institute of Romance Studies at Prague University, with which he now works externally. He is concerned primarily with the literature of the Spanish-speaking countries. His publications include Španělská literatura 20. století [Twentieth-century Spanish Literature] (Prague, 1999).
Eva Hahnová (1946) has lived in West Germany since 1968. She is currently a free-lance historian and journalist. Her chief professional interests are the history of Communism, modern nationalism, modern Czech political thought and, most recently, the history of the Sudeten Germans and their relations with the Czechs. Her publications include Sudetoněmecký problém: Obtížné loučení s minulostí [The Sudeten German Problem: A Difficult Parting with the Past] (Prague, 1996, Ústí nad Labem, 1999) and, with Hans Henning Hahn, Sudetoněmecká vzpomínání a zapomínání [Sudeten German Remembering and Forgetting] (Prague, 2002).
Vlastimil Hála (1951) is a Senior Researcher in the Philosophy Institute, the Academy of Sciences, Prague, concerned chiefly with the question of ethics in the history of philosophy. He is the author of Impulsy Kantovy etiky [Impulses of Kant's ethics] (Prague, 1994) and articles on the history of philosophy and contemporary philosophy, including that of Bolzano, Brentano, Hösle and Habermas.
Pavel Hradečný (1938) is a Senior Researcher in the Historical Institute, Academy of Sciences, Prague, concerned with modern Balkan history. He is the co-author of Dějiny Řecka [A history of Greece] (Prague, 1998).
Blahoslav Hruška (1976) is a post-graduate student at Prague University, working on aspects of German and Austrian history.
Karel Kaplan (1928) was, from 1976 to late 1989, an émigré in Germany, before becoming a Senior Research in the Institute of Contemporary History, the Academy of Sciences, Prague, with which he now works as an external researcher. A leading specialist in post-1945 Czechoslovak history, Kaplan’s many works, published in the Czech Republic and abroad, include Největší politický proces: ‘M. Horáková a spol.’ [The biggest show trial: Milada Horáková et al] (Prague and Brno, 1995), Pět kapitol o Únoru [Five chapters about February] (Brno, 1997) and the two-volume Kořeny československé reformy 1968 [The roots of Czechoslovak reform, 1968] (Brno, 2000 and 2002).
Josef Kašpar (1946) has lived in Italy since 1970, where he works for the RAI radio station. He also works with BBC radio and the Mladá fronta Dnes and Respekt newspapers.
Marian Kratochvíl (1952), a specialist on Africa, is now employed by the Institute of Contemporary History, the Academy of Sciences, Prague. He is currently concerned with Croatian-Slovene relations.
Jiří Křesťan (1957) is an archivist, historian and head of a department of the Central State Archives in Prague. He is concerned primarily with the history of Communism and Socialism in the Bohemian Lands, in particular the life and work of Zdeněk Nejedlý, about whom he wrote Pojetí české otázky v díle Zdeňka Nejedlého [The Czech Question in the Work of Zdeněk Nejedlý] (Prague, 1996).
Bedřich Loewenstein (1929) was, till 1970, a Senior Researcher in the Historical Institute at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. In 1979-94 he was Professor of Modern History at the Free University of Berlin. His area of specialization is European history from the eighteenth century to the present, chiefly civil society. His Czech publications include Projekt moderny [The Modernity Project] (Prague, 1995).
Jaromír Navrátil (1926) was, for political reasons, forced to do manual labour in the Seventies and Eighties. He has, since 1993, collaborated with the Institute of Contemporary History, the Academy of Sciences, Prague, chiefly on research into the history of the Czechoslovak armed forces and the Prague Spring (1968-69). Together with Jitka Vondrová, he has compiled and edited six volumes for the ‘Documents on the History of the Czechoslovak Crisis, 1967-70′ series.
Jiří Pešek (1954) is Professor of German Studies and Head of the Department of German Studies in the Institute of International Studies, Prague University. He is co-author of several books and author of a number of articles concerned chiefly with cultural history from the Middle Ages to the present.
Michal Reiman (1930) is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Modern East European History at the Free University of Berlin, and now teaches in the Institute of International Studies, Prague University. A specialist in world history and the history of the Soviet Union, he most recently published O komunistickém totalitarismu a o tom, co s ním souvisí [Communist totalitarianism and related matters] (Prague, 2000).
Jakub Vít (1971) is employed at the United States Embassy in Prague. He read history and political science at university. His chief professional interest is the developing countries, particularly those of Africa and Asia.
Jitka Vondrová (1953) has, since 1991, been a Senior Research in the Institute of Contemporary History, the Academy of Sciences, Prague. She is concerned mainly with the compilation and editing of volumes for the ‘Documents on the History of the Czechoslovak Crisis, 1967-70′ series.
Abadi Woldekiros (1955) was born in Ethiopia and graduated from the University of Economics, Prague. He is now a post-graduate student of international relations in the Jan Masaryk Centre for International Studies, Prague.
Tomáš Zahradníček (1971), Editor-in-Chief of the journal Dějiny a současnost, has a professional interest mainly in neglected topics of modern/contemporary history. He has published Jak vyhrát cizí válku: Češi, Poláci a Ukrajinci 1914|1918 [How to win a foreign war: Czechs, Poles and Ukrainians, 1914-18] (Prague, 2000).
