Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR

The article is a translation of an expanded version of a paper given at the conference ‘The Memory of Communism in the Czech Republic’, which was organized by the Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, and the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Vienna, and held in Prague, in October 2001. One of the characteristic features of coming to terms with the Communist past in central and Eastern Europe has been, according to Rupnik, a plurality of approaches, whose framework in the international context is represented by the South African model of the ‘politics of reconciliation’ and, on the other hand, the Hague model of the ‘politics of justice’ towards the former Yugoslavia. The Czech Republic constitutes a double paradox. First, in no comparable state has de-Communization gone so far, at either the rhetorical or the legislative level, and yet the unreformed Communist Party in this country still enjoys considerable support, and none of the important leaders responsible for the crimes of the former regime has been sentenced to a jail term. Second, in no other Communist country in the region during the last twenty years was historiography so badly hit by thorough-going purges as in Czechoslovakia, and yet no far-reaching social discourse on the place of Communism in Czech history and the Czech present has taken place. Such a debate and historiography itself are therefore faced with questions closely connected with coming to terms with the past – namely, whether Communism in Czechoslovakia was predominantly the work of external or internal factors, whether it was merely a detour from the mainstream or a deep-rooted social process, whether it constitutes a continuity with the period of the Nazi German Protectorate in the sense of ‘two regimes, one totalitarianism’ or whether it was a specific, internally differentiated phenomenon. In connection with the screening process (known in Czech as lustrace) Rupnik states that it was neither a ‘witch-hunt’, as had been claimed by its radical critics, nor the sole means of salvation, as was claimed by its proponents; he points out, too, that Václav Havel and Václav Klaus – despite the general conception among the public – did not belong to opposite camps in the search for ways to come to terms with the past. In so far as de-Communization, embodied by the screening law and the law on the illegality of the Communist regime, was raised as a banner of the Civil Democratic Party, the reason was probably to use it as a means of distancing the party from political competitors in the election campaign rather than for ideological reasons. One of the central problems in relation to the Communist past, which cannot be solved by any de-Communization legislation, is aptly expressed by the quip that it was a ‘criminal regime, not a regime of criminals’; the search for broader co-responsibility for the operation of that regime includes pointing the finger at concrete culprits, but it cannot be exhausted by that act alone. In the last part of the article Rupnik asks whether the search for justice in relation to the past is a synonym for the search for historical truth. In this connection, now that the ‘Red Book’ of Communist utopia has been followed by the ‘Black Book’ of crimes committed in the name of that utopia, he calls upon historians to write the ‘Grey Book’ of the history of central-European societies in Communist bondage and of its victims and occasional accomplices, who have in widely varying circumstances moved between resistance and conformity. This task is especially relevant in the Bohemian Lands, the author adds, and he expresses surprise that during the last twelve years, since the collapse of Communism, historians here have not yet produced any synthesis of the period. He sees indications of a possible turn for the better, however, in current debates within and around the community of historians, where representatives of the young generation have come forward with criticism of the ethics and methods of their senior colleagues, thus broaching pressing questions. The current Czech Historikerstreit is perhaps also an incipient ‘Vichy syndrome’, Rupnik says, in a reference to the topic of French historical amnesia, which had been taboo for so many years.

What is to Be Done with the Communist Past?
The Polish Experience

Andrzej Paczkowski

The article is based on a paper given at the conference ‘The Memory of Communism’, which was organized by the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague, and the Institute for Human Studies, Vienna, and held in Prague last October. In considering the Polish experience of coming to terms with the Communist past, the author delineates five areas, which he then proceeds to analyze: legislative steps (transitional justice), public debate, historiography, the substitution of symbols and the attitude of the population towards the former regime. Concerning the first area, he discusses the evolution and effectiveness of legislation and the trials based on it, whose aim was to punish those responsible for Communist acts of repression. He states that despite efforts to achieve ‘revolutionary justice’ the result of the legislative continuity with the former regime and the negotiated transfer of power at the ‘roundtable’ has been the relative criminal irresponsibility of the perpetrators of political crimes. He then turns his attention to the ‘fights for the files’ of the Communist secret police, which had an adverse effect on Polish politic politics till the mid-1990s, and did not end till the introduction of a frequently amended act on screening in 1999. The highly diverse public debate about the Communist past Paczkowski categorizes into two opposite areas, one of which unconditionally condemns Communist Poland as a totalitarian state of terror, governed by foreign powers and destroying the natural composition of society and the operation of the economy, while the other emphasizes the alleged successes of the Polish peoples democracy in areas such as modernization, the economy, education and social security. Most participants in the debate, he argues, including important figures such as Adam Michnik, have moved between these two extremes, while the vast majority of the public considers the debate utterly superfluous. Nor, argues the author, was Polish historiography in relation to the recent past spared politicization. He sees its weakness in the fact that it has focused predominantly on political topics such as repression and anti-regime opposition, while ignoring other dimensions of history. An attendant feature of this trend is ‘documentomania’, which in some cases has taken the place of needed analyses and commentary. De-Communization of the public space, the author contends, occurred relatively thoroughly in Poland, with the changing of street names and other symbols, though accompanied by passionate debates. An examination of public opinion polls conducted by sociologists reveals the public’s considerably ambivalent attitude to the period of Communist rule in Poland, but that essentially Poles judge the historical role of Solidarity and Lech Wałęsa positively. In conclusion the author expresses the view that the success or failure of transformation and coming to terms with the past cannot be judged according to the short-sighted expectation of either a general reconciliation in society or the isolation of aspects connected with Communism.

Prison as the Past, Resistance as Memory:
The Confederation of Political Prisoners

Françoise Mayer

The author examines the way in which an association of former Czechoslovak political prisoners (Konfederace politických vězňů – KPV) has elaborated a vision argued from a past capable both of making the specific claims of its members (in terms of rehabilitation, reparation, indemnification) and inscribing the experience of thousands of anonymous victims (the prisoners of the first wave of Communist repression) into the Czech collective memory. The attention is on the rhetorical means mobilized by KPV members in their efforts to achieve symbolic recognition: how in this vision of the past does one pass from an image of ‘victim of Communism’ to that of ‘anti-Communist fighter’, and from the importance and the meaning accorded in this vision to the notion of the ‘Third Resistance’. The vision of the past conveyed by the KPV members is analysed here from the perspective of the sociology of memory: this is not a matter of putting forth one interpretation as more authentic or truthful than others, but a matter of examining the social, political and historical conditions in which it develops, what it projects of the past and in what terms it is projected. From this perspective, memory is comprised here not of a simple, individual or collective recollection of the past, but as a process of identification, and is, as such, inevitably influenced – in part Ä by the social context. The social context of de-Communization and of the building of a democracy favours the recognition of victim status, and allows the KPV to make the most of its claims in areas where the K231 (the predecessor of the KPV) came to naught during the ‘Prague Spring’ of 1968; but it does not particularly favour attempts to present victims of repression as ‘resistance fighters’ or ‘heroes’ in the struggle against Communism. In the context of de-Communisation, of which the rejection of Communism is so very much a part, anti-Communism loses the ‘distinctiveness’ it was able to have before 1989, and it is mainly in (negative) reference to the memory of dissent that the memory of the KPV is forged. The concept of the Third Resistance appears therefore as a means of structuring the memory of the Stalinist camps and to avoid having this experience fall into oblivion or be overshadowed by other memories of Communism.

Czech Legislation on ‘Returning the Property of the Communist Party and the Socialist Youth Movement to the People’

Petr Jarolímek

One of the pressing problems that the new regime had to solve after taking power, in December 1990, was what to do with property that was in the hands of the Czechoslovak Communist Party (CPCz) and the Union of Socialist Youth (Socialistický svaz mládeže – SSM). Under the Communist regime such organizations had acquired their property mostly with state funds. The total value, in the case of the CPCz property, was roughly 12,600,000,000 Czechoslovak crowns (Kčs or US$ 420,000,000), and, in the case of the SSM, roughly 3,300,000,000 Kčs (or US$ 110,000,000). In his article the author is concerned mainly with the legislative aspects of the transfer of property from the two organizations to the state, specifically by the passing of appropriate acts in the Federal Assembly and then their application. He states that the laws were passed with the enthusiastic consent of all parties in parliament, except, of course, the Communists, who instead pushed for a politically negotiated settlement with the state. The legislation was not passed, however, till a year after the systemic changes that had begun in November 1989. Consequently, part of the property was in the meantime transferred to private entities; even after the passing of legislation property continued to ‘disappear’, mainly by being leased out for commercial purposes. The insufficient number of government officials entrusted with the task, together with their overall lack of experience in this, their extremely limited constitutional authority, the poor state of property inventories and the unwillingness of some CPCz and SSM organizations caused further delays. The greatest losses (between 150 and 350 million Kčs) were suffered during the transfer of CPCz Central Committee property, a task that had been entrusted to a private company. The author argues that it is likely that the overall losses related to this property are actually not as high as has been generally thought, and that in particular the CPCz – considering its political and moral position – has in essence returned ‘its’ property to ‘the people’.

The Oral History Review (Miroslav Vaněk)

Bearing in mind the relative novelty of oral history for the Czech reader, the author presents this journal, which is published by the University of California, Berkeley, and provides an overview of its contents and the most interesting articles of 2001.

Potsdamer Bulletin für Zeithistorische Studien (Milan Otáhal)

The author presents a journal, which is usually published three times a year by the Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung, Potsdam, and is concerned mainly with the history of the German Democratic Republic in the context of the Cold War in Europe. The review also provides an overview of the contents, and points out the more interesting articles of the double issue 23/24 (2001).

Alexander Dubček – Great Statesman or Simply Symbol?

Jiří Suk

Antonín Benčík, Utajovaná pravda o Alexandru Dubčekovi: Drama muže, který předběhl svou dobu, Prague: Ostrov, 2001, 224 pp.

The reviewer reproaches the author of the book for an apologetic approach to the Slovak Communist politician and renowned protagonist of the Prague Spring of 1968, Alexander Dubček. The book, he argues, suffers from a considerable contradiction between the collective memory of Reform-Communists, which gives the interpretation content, and the attempt to observe the formal rules of the historical sciences. In particular, he takes issue with the authors portrayal of Dubček as a consistent proponent of the Prague Spring reforms and, after their reversal in 1969, as an active critic of the regime, who made politically important protests that met with widespread response abroad. Unlike the author, the reviewer sees Dubček’s historical significance not in his alleged political greatness, but in his role as a symbol.

Information on the Past and Present of Communism in the Bohemian Lands

Jan Měchýř

Petr Fiala, Jan Holzer, Miroslav Mareš and Pavel Pšeja, Komunismus v České republice: Vývojové, systémové a ideové aspekty působení KSČM a dalších komunistických organizací v České republice, Brno: Masaryk University and the Institute of International Political Science, 1999, 312 pp.

This book by three Brno political scientists concentrates on a description of the diverse political groupings and activities of a Communist orientation or starting point in Czechoslovakia and then the Czech Republic, after the fall of Communism in the 1990s. The volume is introduced with an overview of the Communist movement in Czechoslovakia before 1990. While the reviewer recommends the book as a substantial source of useful information, its value he contends is slightly marred by occasional shortcomings.

A Polish View of National Mythopoeia in Czech Marxist Historiography

Martin Nodl

Maciej Górny, Między Marksem a Palackým: Historiografia v komunistycznej Czechosłowacji, Warsaw: TRIO, 2001, 220 pp.

The reviewer welcomes the engaging attempt by this young Polish historian to chart out the Czech historiography of the 1950s from the point of view of the formation of a Marxist vision of national history. Though the author has not, the reviewer feels, avoided some over-simplification, the most useful chapter is the one on Hussitism as a central element of Czech national mythology under the former regime. With this work, he has also demonstrated that historical research into Czechoslovak historiography during this period has only just begun.

History according to Solzhenitsyn

Tomáš Glanc

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Trkalo se tele s dubem: Autobiografie, Prague: Academia, 2001, 570 pp. Trans. by Ludmila Dušková.

The historical value of Solzhenitsyn’s memoirs The Oak and the Calf (1975; Eng. trans. 1980), now in Czech translation, the reviewer believes, lies in five points: as a history of the Soviet system, a description of Soviet policy on the arts and culture, political persecution in the USSR, individual figures in relation to the supra-personal operation of totalitarian power, and foreign policy. In these respects the memoirs can be fruitfully used as a remarkable source. The reviewer also considers Solzhenitsyn’s contribution as an interpreter of history, and states that it is problematical, because his method is an aestheticized, ideologized version of the truth about the past, not historical analysis. In this connection he points to the ideological roots of Solzhenitsyn’s approach to history and to criticism of his self-projection and as an arbiter of historical truth in Russia today.

A Grand Edition Concerning the Expulsion of the Germans of Poland after WW II.

Jiří Pešek

Włodzimierz Borodziej and Hans Lemberg (eds), ‘Unsere Heimat ist uns ein fremdes Land geworden…’: Die Deutschen östlich von Oder und Neiße 1945–1950. Dokumente aus polnischen Archiven. Vol. 1, Zentrale Behörden (ed. by W. Borodziej), Wojewodschaft Allenstein (ed. Claudia Kraft). (Quellen zur Geschichte und Landeskunde Ostmitteleuropas, 4/1). Marburg: Herder-Institut, 2000, 728 pp.

The book under review is the first volume of an extraordinarily large edition in Polish and German. It is the most detailed documentation to date of the resettlement of Germans from Polish territory after World War II. The reviewer considers it to be truly modern in its approach, which is free of nationalist views and takes into consideration the cultural-historical aspects of the question. Apart from documents from 1945–50, the first volume includes a comprehensive introduction. One serious shortcoming, however, is its lack of footnotes.

The Truth Does Not Consist in Gall

Michal Stehlík

Hanns Herfl, Erich Pillwein, Helmut Schneider and Karl Walter Ziegler (eds), Němci ven! – Die Deutschen raus! Brněnský pochod smrti 1945, Prague: Dauphin, 2001, 278 pp.

The publication, the reviewer maintains, is marked by a highly one-sided approach to the topic of the resettlement (or expulsion) of Czechoslovak Germans, in which the expellees memory is unacceptably conflated with a historiographical presentation. The erratic preface by the Slovak historian Ján Mlynárik is criticized.

An Israeli Historikerstreit

Blahoslav Hruška

Barbara Schäfer (ed.), Historikerstreit in Israel: Die ‘neuen Historiker’ zwischen Wissenschaft und Öffentlichkeit, Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2000, 283 pp.

This volume of essays, the reviewer argues, represents a remarkable contribution to current debates in Israeli historiography over topics closely connected with national and state identity, in particular Zionism and the Shoah.

Harmony as a Danger

Vlastimil Hála

John Laughland, Znečištěný pramen: Nedemokratické počátky evropské ideje. Trans. by Miloš Calda, Prague: Prostor, 2001, 344 pp.

The reviewer puts the book under review, The Tainted Source: The Undemocratic Origins of the European Idea (Boston, 1997), into the context of a philosophical dispute between Liberalism and Communitarianism, which is exhibited at various levels in connection with the project of European unification. Of conservative ilk and a clear supporter of the Liberalism, Laughland is among the prominent critics of the conception of the European Union, and is considered an inspiration for Czech Euro-sceptics. The book, the reviewer contends, is provocative reading, which, despite considerable weaknesses caused by its ideological over-simplification, is imbued with a proclivity for freedom of individual spirit and opinion.

A Meeting with Dubček, Vienna, November 1988

Michal Reiman

The Czech historian Michal Reiman, an expert on the history of the Soviet Union, presents here an edited record of his private meeting with Alexander Dubček in Vienna in November 1988. Dubček was returning from Italy, where he had just been conferred an honorary doctorate by the University of Bologna. From the interview we learn his views of the political situation in Czechoslovakia at the time and his own current position at home. According to Reiman, Dubček did not consider using his growing renown to assume a more important political role; instead, he remained convinced of the necessity of reform of the Czechoslovak Communist Party from within as a means to rectify the situation, and was somewhat preoccupied with a desire for the rehabilitation of both the ‘Prague Spring’ of 1968 and his own reputation.

The Teaching of History and Historical Research at University:
A Report on the IV History Forum

Vladimír Urbánek

The author reports on the IV History Forum, which was held in Prague, on 7 November 2001, to discuss problems of the teaching of history and historical research in post-secondary schools. (See also the material from the II History Forum, published in Soudobé dějiny, no. 1/2001.)

‘Scholarship in Czechoslovakia during Normalization, 1970–75’:
A Conference Report

Antonín Kostlán

The conference ‘Scholarship in Czechoslovakia during Normalization, 1970–75’ took place on 21–22 November 2001. It was organized by the Centre for the History of Science and Scholarship and the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague, as the fifth in the series ‘Czech Science and Scholarship in the Twentieth Century’. The introductory papers by Oldřich Tůma and Petr Vopěnka were devoted to defining the term ‘Normalization’, and were followed by a paper on changes in post-secondary education and the Academy of Sciences in the period, with a discussion of the administrative interventions by the anti-reform political leadership, after August 1968, in the life of academic institutions and in the lives of scholars who were forced to leave their professions. The conference also examined changes in individual areas of academia and some of the figures in the Ministry of Education during those years (including the philosopher Jan Patočka, the historians Zdeněk Kalista, Josef Macek and Milan Hübl, and the politician Jiří Hájek).

‘The CPCz and Radical Socialism in Czechoslovakia, 1918–89’:
A New Project (Zdeněk Kárník)
This grant-funded project is headed by Professor Zdeněk Kárník. It began in 2001 and will run till 2005, under the auspices of the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague. Further information can be obtained at www.usd.cas.cz.

‘The History of Nazi Concentration Camps’:
Another New Project (Anna Hájková)
The project is taking place in the Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung at the Technical University in Berlin, and is headed by Angelika Königseder koenig@zfa.kgw.tu-berlin.de, and co-organized by Anna Hájková, from whom further information can be obtained by writing to ahajkova@zfa.kgw.tu-berlin.de.

Contributors

Tomáš Glanc (1969) is Director of the Institute of Slavonic and East European Studies, Charles University. Prague. He specializes in the theory of literature and culture, predominantly Russian, and has published widely, including Videnie russkich avangardov [The Revelation of the Russian Avant-garde](Prague, 1999).

Vlastimil Hála (1951) is a senior researcher in the Institute of Philosophy, at the Academy of Sciences, Prague. His primary academic interest is ethics in the history of philosophy, and his publications include Impulsy Kantovy etiky [The Impulses from Kant's Ethics] (Prague, 1994) and articles on the history of philosophy (including thinkers such as Bolzano, Brentano, Hösle and Habermas).

Blahoslav Hruška (1976) is a postgraduate in the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, specializing in German and Austrian history.

Petr Jarolímek (1977) read history and geography at Charles University, Prague. His chief research interest is the social post-WW II Czechoslovak history.

Antonín Kostlán (1955) is Head of the Centre for the History of Science and Scholarship, at the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague. He is the chief organizer of regular conferences on the history of science and scholarship in Czechoslovakia. Among his publications are Druhý sjezd československých historiků (5.–11. října 1947) a jeho místo ve vývoji českého dějepisectví [The II Congress of Czechoslovak Historians, October 1947] (Prague, 1993) and, with Dagmar Moravcová and Vratislav Vaníček, Encyklopedii dějin Německa [An Encyclopaedia of German History] (Prague, 2001).

Françoise Mayer (1957) is Assistant Professor at Paul Valéry University, Montpellier. Her chief area of research is the history of Communism, and she is currently writing a book on Communism and anti-Communism in the Czech collective memory after 1989.

Jan Měchýř (1930) is Docent in the Institute of Economic and Social History, Charles University, Prague. His focus is the history of Czechoslovakia since the end of World War II. His most recent book examines the fall of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia – Velký převrat či snad revoluce sametová? [A Great Change or a Velvet Revolution?] (Prague, 1999).

Martin Nodl (1968) is an historian in the Centre for the History of Science and Scholarship, at the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague. He specializes in social and cultural history of the Late Middle Ages and the history of Czech historiography after World War II.

Milan Otáhal (1928) is a senior researcher in the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague, whose primary professional interest is the policy of ‘Normalization’ and its effects in Czechoslovakia, 1970–89. His most recent publications include Sto studentských revolucí: Studenti v období pádu komunismu [Students during the Fall of Communism] (Prague, 1999), co-authored with Miroslav Vaněk, and Podíl tvůrčí inteligence na pádu komunismu [The Part of the Artists among the Intelligentsia in the Fall of Communism] (Brno, 1999).

Andrzej Paczkowski (1938) is Director of the Institute of Political Studies, at the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw. He has published widely on Polish political history in the twentieth-century, particularly the years after World War II. One of his books has been translated into Czech as Půl století dějin Polska [A half-century of Polish history] (Prague, 2000).

Jiří Pešek (1954) is Professor of History and Head of the Department of German and Austrian Studies, the Institute of International Studies, at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University. He has written several books and many articles, mainly on 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 Freie Universität Berlin. He is now a researcher in the Institute of International Studies, the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University. He specializes in world history and the history of the Soviet Union, and his most recent publication is O komunistickém totalitarismu a o tom, co s ním souvisí [Communist Totalitarianism] (Prague, 2000).

Jacques Rupnik (1950) is Professor of Political Science in the Centre d´Etudes et de Recherches Internationales, Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, Paris. He specializes in the history of Communism, modern nationalism and the transformations in central and Eastern Europe. In the mid-1990s he headed an international commission on the countries of the former Yugoslavia. He has published numerous scholarly articles and several books, of which The Other Europe (London, 1988) was translated as Jiná Evropa (Prague, 1992) and Histoire du parti communiste tchécoslovaque (Paris, 1981) is forthcoming in Czech translation.

Michal Stehlík (1976) read history and Slavonic studies at Charles University, and is currently employed at the National Museum, Prague. His research includes regional history and Czech-Slovak relations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He is the author of Židé na Dačicku a Slavonicku 1670–1948 [The Jews of the Dačice and Slavonice regions] (Dačice, 2002).

Jiří Suk (1966) read history and archive studies at Prague, and is now Senior Research in the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague, where he is concerned with Czechoslovak history from 1948 to 1990, especially the period of systemic change from Communism to parliamentary democracy.

Vladimír Urbánek (1963) is a senior researcher in the Philosophical Institute, at the Academy of Sciences, Prague. His research is in the Early Modern Period, particularly the life and work of Comenius in emigration after the Battle of the White Mountain, and he is a co-organizer of a seminar series.

Miroslav Vaněk (1961) is a senior researcher in the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague, where he heads the Oral History Centre. His focus is the Normalization period in Czechoslovakia (1969–89), focusing on dissent and environmental activism among the youth. His publications include Nedalo se tady dýchat: Ekologie v českých zemích v letech 1968–1989 [Environmentalism in the Bohemian Lands, 1968–89] (Prague, 1996) and, with Milan Otáhal, Sto studentských revolucí: Studenti v období pádu komunismu [Students during the fall of the Communist regime] (Prague, 1999).

Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR

No. I.

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