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Journal articles on the topic 'Communistic party of Czechoslovakia'
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1
Lukes, Igor. "The Czechoslovak Special Services and Their American Adversary during the Cold War." Journal of Cold War Studies 9, no. 1 (January 1, 2007): 3–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/jcws.2007.9.1.3.
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U.S. intelligence officials in early postwar Czechoslovakia had access to some of the Czechoslovak government's highest-ranking individuals and plenty of time to prepare for the looming confrontation with the Czechoslovak Communist Party. Yet the Communist takeover in February 1948 took them by surprise and undermined their networks. This article discusses the activities of four Czechoslovak security and intelligence agencies to demonstrate that the scale of the U.S. failure in Prague in 1945–1948 was far greater than often assumed, especially if one considers the substandard size and quality of Czechoslovakia's Communist-dominated special services after the war.
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Hlaváček, Jiří. ""An Offer Not to Be Refused": Ideology and Communist Party Membership before 1968 in the Narratives of the Czechoslovak Officer Corps." Wrocławski Rocznik Historii Mówionej 8 (June 26, 2019): 81–105. http://dx.doi.org/10.26774/wrhm.243.
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This study focuses on the reflection of the relationship between the army and ideology in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s. The main attention is paid to the issue of membership of Czechoslovak People's Army officers in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia before 1968. Through the analysis of oral-historical interviews, the author follows the narrative and legitimizing strategies of rejecting or accepting party membership, which was one of the conditions of career growth in the military during the period under review. An important factor in (re) constructing narrators’ memories in this case is the current media image of the communist regime in Czech society.
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Gubricová, Janette. "Forming Pupils’ Positive Relationship to the Soviet Union in the Period of Socialism in Czechoslovakia Through the Lens of Chronicles." Slovenský národopis / Slovak Ethnology 69, no. 2 (June 1, 2021): 236–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/se-2021-0013.
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Abstract The cooperation of Czechoslovakia (and other socialist countries) with the Soviet Union was an important phenomenon during the period of socialism. It represented one form of building and consolidating socialism within socialist countries. Relationships with the Soviet Union affected political, ideological, economic and cultural domains, including education. This study follows points of departure and forms of building children’s positive relationship with the Soviet Union in the period of socialism. The content analysis of the Pioneer Organisation chronicles shows that the most frequently identified forms of activities were regularly organised (celebrations of memorial days and public holidays, politically motivated commitments, correspondence, games, expeditions, competitions, etc.). Some identified activities could be considered occasional, as they reflected current events in the Soviet Union (showing Soviet films, deaths of prominent politicians, anniversaries of birth/death of politicians, etc.). The proclaimed “diversity and attractiveness of content and forms” can characterise the process, and it affected many domains of children’s lives. However, the (in)direct power interest of the Soviet Union was hidden in the proclamation of “children’s well-being”, while the programme of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was implemented to reinforce the communistic ideology and actual political interests.
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Švecova, Martina. "Regime Preferences in Communist Czechoslovakia and the Narrative on the Slovak National Uprising." Political Preferences, no. 27 (December 10, 2020): 79–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.31261/polpre.2020.27.79-94.
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Most of the participants in the Slovak National Uprising (SNP) were fighting for the ideals of democracy and freedom, for the defeat of fascism and Nazism and for the new Czechoslovak Republic with equal status for the Slovak people within it. They could not have foreseen that communist totalitarianism would be established after the war, one that would try to use the Uprising as a precursor for the socialist revolution (Fremal 2010: 359). The Communist Party, with the support of historians, utilised the legacy of the SNP to justify its political actions. Czechoslovak identity was also constructed through the image of the SNP, whose annual celebrations provided the communists with the opportunity to interpret the legacy of the SNP in various forms. This work deals with the way the communists interpreted the SNP in order to convince the public that this was a people's Uprising intended to lead to social equality and the eventual acceptance of communism in Czechoslovakia in the years 1947,1948 and 1954.
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Pehr, Michal. "Josef Plojhar a rok 1968. Konec jedné ministerské kariéry." Časopis Národního muzea. Řada historická 188, no. 3-4 (2021): 55–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.37520/cnm.2019.007.
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Catholic priest and chairman of the Czechoslovak People’s Party, and supreme functionary of the Board of pro-regime organisations (e.g. long-term vice-chairman of the Association of Czechoslovak Soviet Friendship), Josef Plojhar, was a distinctive figure in the political world of Communist Czechoslovakia during the first twenty years of its existence. He was one of the historically longest serving ministers of health and spent an unbelievable twenty years and one month in this position. He survived a number of political upheavals and purges within the terms of post-February Czechoslovakia. All this makes him an indisputably interesting figure, who has been neglected by previous historic research. This study is about the end of the climactic political career of this Catholic priest and chairman of the Czechoslovak People’s Party, who was Minister of Health from 1948 to 1968. His political downfall came about in connection with the Prague Spring in 1968.
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Kudrna, Jan. "Volný mandát člena parlamentu v ústavním vývoji Československa a České republiky." PRÁVNĚHISTORICKÉ STUDIE 51, no. 2 (August 10, 2021): 89–101. http://dx.doi.org/10.14712/2464689x.2021.20.
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This article deals with the issue of the matter of the mandate of members of parliament in the constitutional history of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. Namely the article is dedicated to the problem, whether and when in the years 1918–2020 the mandate of the members of parliament was free or imperative. The detailed description shows, that in Czechoslovakia strongly prevailed the imperative mandate, irrespective of character of the political regime. The pre-war Czechoslovak constitution adopted in 1920 expressly declared the mandate as a free one and members of parliament should use them regardless of any instructions or commands. Nonetheless very quickly, in 1923, through the decision of the Election Court, the first deputies were deprived of their functions as a sanction for leaving their party policy. Thus, even in the democratic regime the mandate was transformed into the imperative form. After the WWII, the political circumstances in Czechoslovakia changed and the regime turned into a totalitarian form under the hegemony of the communist party. In these circumstances the deputies should serve as servants of the voters, to follow their instructions and they could be recalled, if not fulfilling the will of the (working) people. Nonetheless the recall system based on the public meetings of the voters was not very practical and it could fulfil the estimations only when the communist party has the situation fully under its control. In some critical moments other tools for recall had to be adopted, as it happened in the year 1969, when the political situation after the Prague Spring suppression needed to be consolidated and the will of the voters was different of the will of the conservative communist leaders. The last recalls appeared after the Velvet Revolution when democracy was re-established in Czechoslovakia. Thus, the free parliamentary mandate existed hardly in 8 years from 75 years of existence of Czechoslovakia. The last 30 years of its existence in the constitution of the Czech Republic and political practice is still quite an uncommon period in the Czechoslovak constitutional tradition.
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Giustino, Cathleen M. "Industrial Design and the Czechoslovak Pavilion at EXPO ’58: Artistic Autonomy, Party Control and Cold War Common Ground." Journal of Contemporary History 47, no. 1 (January 2012): 185–212. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022009411422371.
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The socialist industrial designs displayed in Czechoslovakia’s EXPO ’58 pavilion spoke a visual language understood on both sides of the Iron Curtain, making the pavilion a site of common ground between East and West. The showcase was also a point of convergence between Czechoslovak visual artists and Communist Party authorities who engaged in complex political negotiations in the years after Stalin’s death. Visual artists vied for liberation from socialist realism’s constraints, although they kept their demands within limits to avoid risking Party backlash. Communist Party leaders wanted domestic stability and saw improving the living standard as a tactic for insuring popular support. They increasingly perceived industrial design to be a visual-arts activity with special promise. Well-designed furniture, textiles, glass, ceramics and other consumer goods could generate state income useful for raising the living standard at home and earning hard currency abroad. The Party needed the designers’ cooperation to achieve efficient, attractive production within the command economy. In the Brussels showcase communist authorities compromised with visual artists helping to insure the latter’s support and success, demonstrating that culture in postwar Czechoslovakia was not merely imposed ‘from above’ by omnipotent authorities but could be the outcome of multidirectional negotiations between various competing interests.
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Voříšek, Michael. "In whose service? The 1960s’ Czechoslovak Sociologists and their Party." Comparative Sociology 10, no. 5 (2011): 781–806. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156913311x599070.
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Abstract This article examines the relationship between sociologists and the Communist Party headquarters in 1960 Czechoslovakia. It is based on the archives of the coordinating body of Czechoslovak sociology, the Scientific Board of Philosophy and Sociology at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. First, the article depicts the synergy between sociology and the powers: the research commissioned by the supreme Party bodies or the Party sponsorship of sociology’s institutionalization. However, instances of lacking material support to the discipline are noted as well. Second, the conflicts between social scientists and the Party headquarters are discussed: namely, the layoff of the philosopher Ivan Sviták in 1964 and the following interventions into the Institute of Philosophy. Finally, the article maps the demands for autonomy as formulated by the scholars in 1968. In concluding, it points to the fact that despite requesting independence from the Communist headquarters, the Marxist elite in the social sciences never abandoned their own claim to hegemony. They resisted both the challenge of non-Marxist scholars in 1968, and the spontaneous claims and complaints that might come from the society at large. In that respect, the sociology of the 1960s seems a perfect child of the Czechoslovak reformist movement.
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Wightman, Gordon. "The Communist Party in power: a profile of party politics in Czechoslovakia." International Affairs 64, no. 4 (1988): 702. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2626118.
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Campbell, John C., and Karel Kaplan. "The Communist Party in Power: A Profile of Party Politics in Czechoslovakia." Foreign Affairs 66, no. 4 (1988): 885. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/20043539.
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Dmytryshyn, Basil. "The Legal Framework for the Sovietization of Czechoslovakia 1941–1945." Nationalities Papers 25, no. 02 (June 1997): 255–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00905999708408502.
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Literature in many languages (documentary, monographic, memoir-like and periodical) is abundant on the sovietization of Czechoslovakia, as are the reasons advanced for it. Some observers have argued that the Soviet takeover of the country stemmed from an excessive preoccupation with Panslavism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by a few Czech and Slovak intellectuals, politicians, writers and poets and their uncritical affection and fascination for everything Russian and Soviet. Others have attributed the drawing of Czechoslovakia into the Soviet orbit to Franco-British appeasement of Hitler's imperial ambitions during the September 1938, Munich crisis. At Munich, Czechoslovakia lost its sovereignty and territory, France its honor, England its respect and trust; and the Soviet Union, by its abstract offer to aid Czechoslovakia (without detailing how or in what form the assistance would come) gained admiration. Still others have pinned the blame for the sovietization of Czechoslovakia on machinations by top leaders of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, who, as obedient tools of Moscow, supported Soviet geopolitical designs on Czechoslovakia, who sought and received political asylum in the USSR during World War II, and who returned to Czechoslovakia with the victorious Soviet armed forces at the end of World War II as high-ranking members of the Soviet establishment. Finally, there are some who maintain that the sovietization of Czechoslovakia commenced with the 25 February 1948, Communist coup, followed by the tragic death of Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk on 10 March 1948, and the replacement, on 7 June 1948, of President Eduard Beneš by the Moscow-trained, loyal Kremlin servant Klement Gottwald.
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Markham, Mira. "Světlana: Partisans and Power in Post-War Czechoslovakia." Contemporary European History 30, no. 1 (January 15, 2021): 16–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0960777320000508.
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After the renewal of national independence in 1945 former anti-fascist partisans were among the Czechoslovak Communist Party's most reliable and radical allies. Nevertheless, following the communist coup of 1948, a group of partisans in the rural region of Moravian Wallachia began to mobilise wartime networks and tactics against the consolidating party dictatorship, establishing the Světlana resistance network. Simultaneously, state authorities also drew on partisan practices to reconstitute opposition and resistance in this region as evidence of an international conspiracy that could be understood and prosecuted within the framework of official ideology and propaganda. This article analyses the case of Světlana to examine the politics of people's democracy in Czechoslovakia and explore local dynamics of resistance and repression during the early years of the communist regime.
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Nikodym, Tomáš, Lukáš Nikodym, and Tereza Pušová. "Post-War Czechoslovakia: A Theoretical Critique." Journal of Heterodox Economics 2, no. 2 (December 1, 2015): 93–112. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jheec-2015-0014.
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Abstract The paper focuses on the proposals of post-war order in Czechoslovakia and its theoretical analysis. While there exists a wide range of studies, both Czech and foreign, dedicated to the history of Czechoslovakia in the post-war period, a majority of the studies deals with political development. Then the interpretations of the failure of President Beneš’ “distinct model of socialism” are purely political – weakness of President Beneš and democratic elites, the aggressive politics of Communist party, influence of Soviet diplomacy, etc. On the other hand, economic studies are only descriptive without theoretical analysis of proposed post-war order. Our paper offers different interpretation of the fall of Czechoslovak democratic regime (1945–1948). Using the framework of Austrian school, we are trying to show the institutional incompatibility of proposed post-war order. Special emphasis is put on the relation of freedom, democracy and socialist economic planning.
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McDERMOTT, KEVIN. "Popular Resistance in Communist Czechoslovakia: The Plzeň Uprising, June 1953." Contemporary European History 19, no. 4 (September 29, 2010): 287–307. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s096077731000024x.
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AbstractThis article examines an important, but little-known, event in the history of post-war Czechoslovakia: the Plzeň uprising of June 1953. After outlining the context, processes and outcomes of the revolt, I argue that the disorders were less an expression of ubiquitous political and ideological resistance to the communist regime than a reflection of the disastrous socio-economic conditions and the breakdown in relations between party and workers at the point of production. I also maintain that the conventional wisdom of the ‘Stalinised’ Communist Party of Czechoslovakia as a fully fledged ‘totalitarian’ party is in many ways wide of the mark. Finally, the uprising prompted the party's tentative turn towards a ‘New Course’ and eventually a strategy of ‘socialist consumerism’.
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Tížik, Miroslav. "Struggles for the Character of the Roman Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia, 1948-1989." Eurostudia 10, no. 1 (July 28, 2015): 51–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.7202/1033882ar.
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After the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia came to power in 1948, power struggles followed between political parties and long-running internal struggles within the country’s Roman Catholic Church over the church’s character and organizational structure. These struggles related not only to purely theological issues, but also to the ideals of communism (and, later, socialism), the Communist Party and its program. The internal plurality within the church throughout the whole period of the people’s democracy and state socialism in Czechoslovakia calls into question the dualistic image of struggles between the church and the Communist Party, and it complicates the image of the church as a victim of the Communist regime. In particular, the crucial periods from 1948 to 1952 and from 1968 to 1969 suggest that, throughout much of the communist period there persisted tensions between the higher and lower clergy and there were diverging views on how the church should function; these tensions took on a diversity of shapes and varied in intensity.
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Jefferson, Kurt W. "Understanding Developing European Party Systems: A Case Study of Czechoslovakia." American Review of Politics 15 (November 1, 1994): 329–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.15763/issn.2374-7781.1994.15.0.329-338.
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This study focuses on an underdeveloped area in the analysis of post-Communist East-Central Europe: democratizing party systems. The transformation of party systems in this part of the world from one party-dominated to multiparty, democratic systems now impels political scientists to reorient their theoretical and conceptual approaches to reflect the winds of change. Because the Czechoslovak party system of 1990-1992 was a multiparty, segmented one with a number of destabilizing elements, Sartorrs "polarized pluralism" typology (1976) can be applied to analyze the nature of that party system and what the future may hold for the new Czech and Slovak systems. As the groundwork is laid in the analyses of Central and Eastern European party systems, further investigation using Western European party systems literature may help us focus and conceptualize the competing forces that shape the democratization process in these party systems.
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Pucci, Molly. "A Revolution in a Revolution: The Secret Police and the Origins of Stalinism in Czechoslovakia." East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures 32, no. 1 (November 16, 2017): 3–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0888325417738350.
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This article examines the origins of the Stalinist secret police force, the StB, in Czechoslovakia between 1945 and 1954. By focusing on the biographies of its officials, it argues that there was not one, but two, secret police forces in this period, each recruited from a different “generation” of local communists. In pointing to the social conflicts and ideological tensions that characterized the communist secret police force in this period, it forwards a new interpretation of the party purges and motivations of secret police officials responsible for the radical political violence in Stalinist Europe in the early 1950s.
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Abrahám, Samuel. "Early Elections in Slovakia: A State of Deadlock." Government and Opposition 30, no. 1 (January 1, 1995): 86–100. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-7053.1995.tb00435.x.
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THE EARLY GENERAL ELECTIONS IN SLOVAKIA HELD ON 30 September–1 October 1994 and resulting in the victory of populists and nationalists caught many observers by surprise, both in and outside Slovakia. Unlike in Poland and Hungary, the leftist party in Slovakia suffered decisive setbacks, receiving 10.4 per cent of the poll instead of around 20 per cent as indicated in the pre-election surveys. The Democratic Party, the latest successors to the intellectuals who took power from the communists after November 1989, did not even receive the 5 per cent necessary to enter the National Council (see Table 1). The reaction to the overall results has been one of resignation, and pessimism about the fate of democracy in this post-communist country, which, with the Czech Republic constituted Czechoslovakia until 1993.
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McDermott, Kevin. "A “Polyphony of Voices“? Czech Popular Opinion and the Slánský Affair." Slavic Review 67, no. 4 (2008): 840–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/27653027.
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The trial of Rudolf Slánský and his thirteen codefendants in Prague in November 1952 represented the culmination of Stalinist political terror in postwar central and eastern Europe. Ever since, it has attracted much scholarly attention focusing largely on the origins, processes, and outcomes of the trial. In this article, Kevin McDermott examines a crucial, but almost totally unresearched aspect of the affair: Czech popular reactions to Slánský's arrest and trial. Using documents from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and secret police reports from the Ministry of Interior archives, McDermott demonstrates that popular opinion was extremely diverse, ranging from strident and selective support of the official version of the court proceedings; to passive compliance and resigned accommodation; to apathy, guarded dissent, and overt opposition. Two findings are particularly noteworthy: first, virulent antisemitic sentiment was endemic; and second, many workers, rankand- file party members, and even lower-level functionaries were highly critical of the country's communist leaders. In conclusion, McDermott proposes that the archival record reveals the relatively broad diffusion of antisemitism in Czech society, the limits of the “Stalinization” process in the Czechoslovak party, and the failure of Stalinist terror to intimidate the population into submission and eradicate independent thinking.
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Sygkelos, Yannis. "The National Discourse of the Bulgarian Communist Party on National Anniversaries and Commemorations (1944–1948)." Nationalities Papers 37, no. 4 (July 2009): 425–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00905990902985678.
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During the early post-war years (1944–1948), the newly established communist regimes in Eastern Europe followed the Soviet example. They honoured figures and events from their respective national pasts, and celebrated holidays dedicated to anti-fascist resistance and popular uprisings, which they presented as forerunners of the new, bright and prosperous “democratic” era. Hungarian communists celebrated 15 March and commemorated 6 October, both recalling the national struggle for independence in 1848; they celebrated a martyr cult of fallen communists presented as national heroes, and “nationalized” socialist holidays, such as May Day. In the centenary of 1848 they linked national with social demands. In the “struggle for the soul of the nation,” Czech communists also extensively celebrated anniversaries and centenaries, especially in 1948, which saw the 600th anniversary of the founding of Prague's Charles University, the 100th anniversaries of the first All-Slav Congress (held in Prague) and the revolution of 1848, the 30th anniversary of the founding of an independent Czechoslovakia, and the 10th anniversary of the Munich Accords. National holidays related to anti-fascist resistance movements were celebrated in Croatia, Slovenia, and Macedonia; dates related to the overthrow of fascism, implying the transition to the new era, were celebrated in Romania, Albania, and Bulgaria.
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David, Jaroslav, Jana Davidová Glogarová, and Michal Místecký. "A Two-Man Show: Stylometric Analysis of Personal Names in Rudolf Slánský’s Staged Trial Newspaper Reports." Studies about Languages 1, no. 38 (July 13, 2021): 115–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sal.1.38.27437.
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The paper is aimed at personal names (anthroponyms) in newspaper reports on Rudolf Slánský’s staged trial, which was held against the leaders of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia – mostly of the Jewish origin – who were “uncovered” as political enemies; the trial took place in an anti-Semitic atmosphere. The examined texts were published in the period of November 21−28,1952, in Rudé právo, the main newspaper of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Proper names, mostly personal names, are analysed from several perspectives. The quantitative analysis is focused on the keywords of the studied texts and typical collocations of the names. The qualitative analysis, developing the quantitatively researched data, is aimed at the image of enemy or traitor and its presentation via thematization of personal names. The ways of language presentation of the Jewish origin of the accused are in the scope of the contribution as well. Within the scope of collocation analysis, the newspaper texts on the trial were contrasted with the ones published by Rudé právo on the occasion of Rudolf Slánskýʼs 50th birthday (July 31, 1951).
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Ziblatt, Daniel F. "Putting Humpty-Dumpty Back Together Again: Communism’s Collapse and the Reconstruction of the East German Ex-Communist Party." German Politics and Society 16, no. 1 (March 1, 1998): 1–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/104503098782487167.
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The collapse of communism did not follow any single path in eastcentral Europe. In Hungary and Poland, the transition was markedby early negotiations between opposition elites and the ruling Communistparty. In East Germany and Czechoslovakia, the regimes fellvictim to a sudden and quick implosion. In Romania and Bulgaria,internal coups replaced the ruling communist elite with other membersof the nomenklatura. The transitions away from communist rulediverged from each other in timing, manner, and degree.
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Cooke, Philip. "‘Oggi in Italia’: The Voice of Truth and Peace in Cold War Italy." Modern Italy 12, no. 2 (June 2007): 251–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13532940701362763.
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Based on archival materials in Italy and the Czech Republic, the article examines the history of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) radio programme ‘Oggi in Italia’, which was broadcast from Prague to Italy throughout the 1950s and 1960s. The programme was produced clandestinely by former partisans who had fled to Czechoslovakia in order to escape prosecution during the ‘trial of the Resistance’ (processo alla Resistenza). ‘Oggi in Italia’ was a central element in the PCI's media strategy, particularly during the Cold War, when access to the official airwaves was circumscribed. The programme was thus a key element of the long-term legacy of the Resistance movement, but also played a highly significant role in the wider process of negotiation between the Communist parties of Italy, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union.
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Lukes, Igor. "The Rudolf Slánský Affair: New Evidence." Slavic Review 58, no. 1 (1999): 160–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2672994.
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Rudolf Slánský's arrest in November 1951 by Statni bezpecnost (StB), the Czechoslovak secret police, his Kafkaesque trial a year later, and his execution caused a sensation during the early years of the Cold War. For a full week, the trial could be followed live on the radio in Prague. The transcript of the proceedings was published and widely distributed. Yet the affair remained a mystery. Slánský, until recently the general secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPC), and thirteen of his colleagues, all of them lifelong party members, confessed to crimes of high treason against the Prague government, espionage on behalf of the west, and sabotage of the socialist economy. In tired, monotonous voices, they described their lives as being motivated by their hatred of the CPC and loyalty to such sponsors as the Gestapo, Zionism, western intelligence services, and international capital. In their final speeches, all the defendants demanded that the court impose upon them the death penalty. The judge disappointed only three—they received life sentences. Slánský and ten others were executed in December 1952.
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CORANIČ, JAROSLAV. "The Liquidation of the Greek Catholic Church in Communist Czechoslovakia, 1948–50." Journal of Ecclesiastical History 72, no. 3 (February 9, 2021): 590–610. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022046920001487.
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This article examines the liquidation of the Greek Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia following the Communist takeover in February 1948. The Greek Catholic Church was to be separated from the mother Catholic Church and incorporated into the Orthodox Church. The process culminated at the irregular Sobor (synod) of Prešov held on 28 April 1950. The synod was orchestrated and headed by the ruling Communist party, which enforced its conclusions. Greek Catholics were either outlawed or compelled to become Orthodox, although their situation slightly brightened during the Prague Spring of 1968 when their Church became legal again.
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Kopeček, Lubomír. "Dealing with the communist past: Its role in the disintegration of the Czech Civic Forum and in the emergence of the Civic Democratic Party." Communist and Post-Communist Studies 43, no. 2 (May 13, 2010): 199–208. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.postcomstud.2010.04.002.
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The end of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia in 1989 has opened the thorny question of how to deal with the communist legacy. This paper focuses on important aspects of decommunization at the beginning of the 1990s and analyzes the role they played in the disintegration of the Civic Forum and in the emergence of the Civic Democratic Party. The paper shows that the decommunization agenda gradually became a significant divisive factor within the Civic Forum and served as one of the key issues through which the Civic Democratic Party defined itself. It also provided an opportunity for politicians skilled enough to grasp this issue to do so and to incorporate it into their wider political agendas.
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Kiepe, Jan. "Nationalism as a Heavy Mortgage: SED Cadres Actions between Demand and Reality*." Nationalities Papers 37, no. 4 (July 2009): 467–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00905990902985694.
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In May 1951, students at the District Party School of the Socialist Union Party of Germany (SED) in the southern Thuringian city of Suhl evaluated the agitation and propaganda assignments that they had recently completed. Such assignments were a regular exercise in the instruction of future cadres. From these discussions, the difficulties that traditional German nationalism posed to the SED become clear. One student cited words of a party comrade he had talked to on the question of befriending the Polish and the Czechoslovak peoples. Instead of sticking to the official ideological line that rejected chauvinist ideas, this comrade had responded: “[…] I will never make friends with the Czech people. To me they are not human beings.” This anger directed against the Czechs by a German communist may have arisen from the frequently brutal deportation of Germans from Czechoslovakia after 1945: the Czechs had not made exceptions for German anti-fascists. It could also be explained by continued anti-Slav sentiment dating from the Nazi years. The file does not elaborate how the incident was resolved. Nevertheless, it demonstrates that nationalist sentiments had survived the collapse of Nazism even with members of the SED. How did the SED counter this heavy national mortgage?
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Patterson, Patrick Hyder. "The Prague Spring and the Big Chill: the marketing moment in communist Czechoslovakia." Journal of Historical Research in Marketing 8, no. 1 (February 15, 2016): 120–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/jhrm-09-2015-0036.
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Purpose – This paper aims to analyze an important series of events in the history of marketing in socialist Europe and the internationalization of marketing thought and practice. Examining the reception of the marketing concept in communist Czechoslovakia, the study shows the effective blockage of the implementation of marketing approaches by orthodox communist authorities. The paper demonstrates the distinctiveness and importance of the Czechoslovak case and provides a basis for integrating that experience into the larger history of marketing under socialism. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on an extensive review of the most relevant Czech and Slovak primary sources including trade journals, manuals and textbooks in marketing and related fields, party and government documents and statements on commercial issues, and other important professional literature on domestic commerce. Findings – The paper provides insights into the use of communist political power to suppress the use of marketing as contrary to the social and ideological goals of socialism. It identifies the rise of marketing approaches during a brief “marketing moment” following market-oriented economic reforms in 1965 and lasting through the “Prague Spring” of 1968. Following the restoration of orthodox communist control, new policies of “normalization” dictated the decline of marketing, which returned to its earlier status of near-invisibility. The suppression of marketing thought and practice lasted until the end of communist rule in 1989. Originality/value – This paper analyzes an unexamined case of marketing in a socialist society and places the case in broader comparative context.
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Verdery, Katherine. "Nationalism and National Sentiment in Post-socialist Romania." Slavic Review 52, no. 2 (1993): 179–203. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2499919.
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For western observers, a striking concomitant of the end of communist party rule was the sudden appearance of national movements and national sentiments. We were not alone in our surprise: even more taken aback were party leaders, somehow persuaded by their own propaganda that party rule had resolved the so–called "national question." That this was far from true was evident all across the region: from separatism in Slovenia, Croatia, Slovakia and the Baltic and other Soviet republics; to bloodshed between Romania's Hungarians and Romanians, and between Bulgaria's Turks and Bulgarians; to Gypsy-bashing in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Poland and Bulgaria; and widespread anti-Semitism–even in countries like Poland where there were virtually no Jews.
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Frankland, E. G., and R. H. Cox. "The Legitimation Problems of New Democracies: Postcommunist Dilemmas in Czechoslovakia and Hungary." Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 13, no. 2 (June 1995): 141–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/c130141.
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After 1989 the countries of Eastern Europe embarked upon new directions away from central economies and one-party systems towards market economies and democratic systems. The courses of these political and economic transformations largely depended upon the ability of the emerging regimes to create legitimacy. In particular, those regimes which suffered from greater political divisiveness and significant economic problems were more likely to be confronted with a crisis of legitimacy. In this paper, the legitimation crisis theory is examined for post-communist Czechoslovakia and Hungary. It is found that the developments in Czechoslovakia and Hungary during this early transition period support the hypothesis, and, in addition, they hold implications for the survival of other transitional regimes as well as those in the West which have increasingly been confronted with questions of legitimacy.
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Robinson, Neil. "Party formation in east-central Europe: post-communist politics in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Bulgaria." International Affairs 71, no. 4 (October 1995): 883. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2625174.
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Vitácková, Martina. "In search of adventure: Ladislav Mikeš Parízek, a Czech in the Congo." Tydskrif vir Letterkunde 46, no. 1 (November 9, 2017): 167–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2309-9070/tvl.v.46i1.3474.
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Ladislav Mikeš Parízek’s books, articles and lectures had a large impact on the image of the Congo as it existed in communist Czechoslovakia from the 1940s till the 1970s, but this Czech traveller and writer has almost been forgotten. Through an analysis of his works and of reviews of these works published in newspapers of the 1950s, the nature of the African discourse as it was created in communist Eastern Europe, as well as the (mis)use of this discourse by the ruling party, is revealed. Special attention will be paid to the illustrations accompanying his books, articles and lectures.
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Almond, Mark. "Romania since the Revolution." Government and Opposition 25, no. 4 (October 1, 1990): 484–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-7053.1990.tb00399.x.
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THE VIOLENCE WHICH MARKED THE OVERTHROW OF Nicolae Ceaugescu's regime at Christmas 1989, and the recurrent disorders, especially in Bucharest, which have punctuated developments over the last nine months, have made Romania's experience of anti-Communist revolution strikingly different from that of its neighbours to the north and to the west. Whatever the political and social tensions emerging in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland (and whatever may be the GDR's legacy to a reunified Germany), it is unlikely that the charge of neo-communism will be central to their political debate. It is precisely that charge levelled against the government party (National Salvation Front/FSN) and against the person of Ion Ilescu by various opposition groups, and former prominent dissidents under Ceaugescu, which remains the most emotive issue in Romanian politics. The question of whether the revolution which overthrew Nicolae Ceauyescu and led to the dissolution of the Romanian Communist Party (RCP) was the result of a popular uprising or a coup d'état planned by Party members has haunted Romanian politics through the first nine months of the post-Ceauqescu period.
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Mullins, Marty Manor. "Forgotten Velvet: Understanding Eastern Slovakia's 1989." New Perspectives 27, no. 3 (October 2019): 1–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2336825x1902700304.
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By focussing on the experience of Eastern Slovakia during Czechoslovakia's 1989 Velvet Revolution, this article examines the motivations propelling local revolutionaries who opposed the Communist regime at great risk to themselves and their families. It asks what inspired those who countered the government 30 years ago and argues that, for many, ideological factors were the primary driver, rather than economic considerations. Exploring these questions through the lens of Košice provides a counterpoint to accounts of the Velvet Revolution in Prague and Bratislava, which have come to dominate understandings of Czechoslovakia in 1989 and which obscure the particularities of the revolution in other significant places across the country. The text draws on regional archival and period newspaper accounts which foreground the voices of students, steel workers, dramatists, minorities and local Communist Party leaders. These sources indicate the active but uncertain nature of civil society in those crucial November and December days. The article also underscores the urban rivalry between Bratislava and Košice, which manifested itself when Košice sided with Prague's protest organization over Bratislava's. The 30th anniversary of the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe provides a timely platform for a glimpse into the largely untold story of Eastern Slovakia's Velvet Revolution.
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Rupprecht, Tobias. "Pinochet in Prague: Authoritarian visions of economic reforms and the State in Eastern Europe, 1980-2000." Journal of Modern European History 18, no. 3 (June 1, 2020): 312–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1611894420925024.
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The ‘1989’-inspired liberal enthusiasm about Eastern Europe’s democratisation has led to an overestimation of the efficacy of liberal ideas, and to a blotting-out of decidedly illiberal strands of political thought, in the region both during and after the end of Communist rule. One such strand was a remarkable interest in different aspects of the Chilean transformation from socialism to liberal democracy via authoritarianism across (post-)socialist Europe in the 1980s and 1990s. Based on reform debates from Poland, Russia, and Czechoslovakia, this article argues that this fascination with the military dictator Augusto Pinochet is an indicator for widespread authoritarian visions among various political and intellectual elites during the transition period. For them, Pinochet served as a code and source of inspiration for a non-democratic path to an efficient economy. Before 1989, this path was laid out under the tutelage of a de-ideologised authoritarian Communist Party. After the end of planned economies and through the 1990s, the ‘Chilean model’ was used by anti-communists and liberal economists across the region as a source of legitimacy in their internal struggle against opponents of their reform ideas.
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Junek, Marek. "Výstavní politika oddělení novodobých českých dějin v letech 1973–1989." Acta Musei Nationalis Pragae – Historia 72, no. 3-4 (2020): 44–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.37520/amnph.2018.014.
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The National Museum started increasingly to engage in exhibitions devoted to twentieth-century history, subsequent to the foundation of the Department of modern Czech history. Until then, it had left this subject area to the Party museums in Prague. Individual exhibitions were particularly devoted to anniversaries marking the emergence of KSČ (the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia), the Slovak national uprising, the end of the War, the year 1948 and building socialism. They varied in standard, and were based on ideas from the document “Lessons from the evolution of the crisis in the party and society after the 13th KSČ congress of 1970” and on the associated museological methodologies. However, at the same time they were conceived in a manner that reflected the acquisition conception of the Department, and sought to present political as well as cultural, economic and social topics. They also endeavoured to portray everyday life. All these exhibitions may thus be considered a preparatory stage that culminated in the permanent exhibition on the history of the twentieth century.
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Evans, Geoffrey, and Stephen Whitefield. "The Structuring of Political Cleavages in Post-Communist Societies: The Case of the Czech Republic and Slovakia." Political Studies 46, no. 1 (March 1998): 115–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9248.00133.
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Although sharing institutions for over seventy years, and transition pathways from communism, the two successor states of the former Czechoslovakia have faced distinct challenges in state-building and divergent economic fortunes. The aim of this paper is to investigate the extent to which these differing social economic problems have influenced the ideological bases of party politics and mass electoral behaviour in the two societies. Using data from national samples of the population of each country conducted in the spring of 1994, our analysis points to the existence of distinct issue cleavages dominating party competition in the two states: in the Czech Republic, partisanship relates mainly to issues of distribution and attitudes towards the West; in Slovakia, by contrast, these issues are only secondarily important in shaping voters' choice of party, while the main focus concerns the ethnic rights of Hungarians. The distinctive nature of the issue bases to politics in the two countries suggests one reason for the greater degree of political conflict evident in Slovak politics since the split and, more generally, provides evidence of the role of social conditions in shaping new political systems.
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Postolovskyj, Ruslan, and Andrij Slesarenko. "Ukrainian Theme in the Documents of Czech Civic Initiatives During the Second Half of the 1980s." Mìžnarodnì zv’âzki Ukraïni: naukovì pošuki ì znahìdki, no. 29 (November 10, 2020): 82–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.15407/mzu2020.29.082.
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The authors analyzed the presence and content of Ukrainian theme in the documents of Czech civic initiatives during the second half of the 1980s. The development of citizens initiatives has become a catalyst of socio-political life in Czechoslovakia. The number of participants in civic initiatives increased, and their programs were politicized. In program statements the principle of the so-called leading role of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was rejected as inconsistent with the principle of equality of citizens and the code of civil and political rights. The source base of this research comprised documents and materials of human rights activists, first presented in the self-published (samizdat) bulletins of independent Czech civic initiatives: “Information on Charter 77” (“Informace o Chartĕ 77”), “The Case of the East European News Agency” (“Zprava vychodoevropske informačni agentury”) and “Bulletin of Independent Peace Commonwealth – Initiative for demilitarization of society” (“Bulletin nezavisleho miroveho sdruženi – Iniciativy za demilitarizaci společnosti”). It has been shown that the Ukrainian theme is presented in two documents of the human rights association of Charter 77: the document “Before the Chernobyl Accident” (May 6, 1986) and the telegram of Czechoslovak human rights activists to Lviv, addressed to the group “Dovira” (“Trust”) (April 22, 1989). Czech “Independent Peace Commonwealth – Initiative for demilitarization of society” and Ukrainian, Lviv, “Dovira” Group, exchanged a letter and a telegram of solidarity. The informational reasons for creating the documents were the Chernobyl disaster – man-made accident on a global scale and the brutal dispersal of a peaceful demonstration in Lviv. Documents of Czech human rights activists and pacifist activists focus public attention on late Soviet realities: concealment of information from society about radioactive contamination and another human rights violation in Soviet Ukraine
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Ukielski, Paweł. "Czeskie rozliczenia z komunizmem po 1989 roku. Rozwiązania prawne i instytucjonalne." Rocznik Instytutu Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej 18, no. 2 (December 2020): 143–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.36874/riesw.2020.2.7.
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The collapse of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia in 1989 required settlement with the past on many levels. This applies especially to settlements with communism. In the first years after change of the regime, many legal solutions were adopted to align accounts with the past, but in parallel the communist party was allowed to function. Only very few communist functionaries responsible for crimes were sentenced, however, many symbolic changes were carried out. It took more time to create the institutional framework - institutions dealing with the period 1948-1989 in Czech history. In recent years, the importance of this topic in Czech public life has increased again. The purpose of this article is to analyze legal, formal and institutional solutions and their functioning in the practice of the Czech Republic. The legal acts, institutions as well as the effects of their functioning and actions in the last 30 years have been examined.
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Nalepa, Monika. "Captured Commitments: An Analytic Narrative of Transitions with Transitional Justice." World Politics 62, no. 2 (March 23, 2010): 341–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0043887110000079.
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How can outgoing autocrats enforce promises of amnesty once they have left power? Why would incoming opposition parties honor their prior promises of amnesty once they have assumed power and face no independent mechanisms of enforcement? In 1989 autocrats in a number of communist countries offered their respective oppositions free elections in exchange for promises of amnesty. The communists' decision appears irrational given the lack of institutions to enforce these promises of amnesty. What is further puzzling is that the former opposition parties that won elections in many countries actually refrained from implementing transitional justice measures. Their decision to honor their prior agreements to grant amnesty seems as irrational as the autocrats' decisions to place themselves at the mercy of their opponents. Using an analytic narrative approach, the author explains this paradox by modeling pacted transitions not as simple commitment problems but as games of incomplete information where the uninformed party has “skeletons in its closet”—that is, embarrassing information that provides insurance against the commitments being broken. The author identifies the conditions under which autocrats step down even though they can be punished with transitional justice and illustrates the results with case studies from Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary.
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Pažout, Jaroslav. "Unrest before the storm: Membership base of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia toward the end of the normalisation period." Soudobé dějiny 27, no. 3-4 (January 1, 2021): 477–524. http://dx.doi.org/10.51134/sod.2020.028.
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Patryliak, I., and A. Sliusarenko. "WAR ON THE «IDEOLOGICAL FRONT». THE YEAR 1968." Bulletin of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. History, no. 142 (2019): 43–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.17721/1728-2640.2019.142.11.
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The ideological struggle against the "counter-revolutionary manifestations" accompanied the entire history of Soviet society. However, there have been times when the war on the "ideological front" has intensified. For the most part, this was under the influence of major external shocks or during major ideological campaigns in the middle of the country. One of the episodes when foreign perturbations influenced the ideological confrontation within the USSR was the events of 1968 in Czechoslovakia. The special impact of the Prague Spring was felt in Ukraine, which was directly bordered by the Czechoslovak Republic, and had its powerful traditions of anti-Soviet ideological struggle. It is not surprising, therefore, that the State Security Committee of the USSR Council of Ministers has been particularly vigilant about the "ideological front" in Ukraine. Based on their understanding of the "ideological war" as an external sabotage, KGB analysts prepared relevant documents for top party leadership. The readers are invited to submit an archaeographic publication of the KGB document: "Memorandum. On some trends in the ideological diversion that is being carried out by the enemy in Ukraine". Separate 17-page typewritten document prepared specifically for the needs of the Communist Party Central Committee on September 11, 1968. The document contains six major challenges to the "ideological war" in Ukraine - confrontation with foreign "nationalist centers", confrontation with "internal ideological enemy", confrontation with "opposition" »Increase in the number of educated youth among anti-Soviet groups, opposition to the emergence of such phenomenon as anti-Soviet postcards, opposition to a part of the“ pro-stalinist ”society, confrontation organized strike of workers and farmers.
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Pavlaković, Vjeran. "The Spanish Civil War and the Yugoslav Successor States." Contemporary European History 29, no. 3 (August 2020): 279–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0960777320000272.
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Yugoslav scholarship about the Spanish Civil War, specifically the Yugoslav volunteers who fought in the International Brigades, was almost exclusively tied to the partisan struggle during the Second World War and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Many countries in the Soviet bloc published books about their heroes who fought fascism before Western Europe reacted and raised monuments to Spanish Civil War veterans. However, many lost their lives during Stalinist purges of the late 1940s and early 1950s since they were potentially compromised cadres who returned to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and other countries only after the Red Army's occupation. Yugoslav volunteers, however, generally had a more prominent status in the country (and historiography) since the Yugoslav resistance movement liberated the country with only minimal support from the Soviet Union.
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Amelina, Anna V. "Russian writers in the Czech environment during the first half of the 1920s: periodicals of the left political wing (newspaper “Rude pravo”)." Vestnik slavianskikh kul’tur [Bulletin of Slavic Cultures] 59 (2021): 199–212. http://dx.doi.org/10.37816/2073-9567-2021-59-199-212.
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The paper examines perceptions of Russian literature in the first half of the 1920s by a Czech literary criticism of the left-wing political orientation, namely by Rudé Právo, newspaper of the communist party of Czechoslovakia. On the one hand, at this time, the Russian classics are being rethought in terms of their usefulness for the purposes of proletarian movement, up to discrediting individual authors (for example, F. M. Dostoevsky) and adjusting ideas of other writers to the communist ideology (L. N. Tolstoy). On the other hand, much attention of the editors is paid to the modern literature of post-revolutionary Russia, whose representatives are evaluated and selected for translation and review, provided they accept and praise the revolution (first of all, this is the poem The Twelve by A. A. Blok, poetry by V. V. Mayakovsky, prose by M. Gorky and V. G. Korolenko), whereas their work is assessed one-sidedly, exclusively in the ideological aspect. The first attempts of writing generalizing materials on the contemporary literary process (for example, Peasant revolutionary poetry by I. Weil) are being made. In general, Russian literature is viewed from an ideological standpoint, only with varying degrees of categoricality by individual critics. As the author reveals it was of great importance for the shaping of the ideological position and cultural program of the Czech communists, and compared with other literatures, its role is identified as leading.
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Knyrevych, Serhii, and Olha Zubko. "Belarusians on the service of UNR: Oleksandr Maksymovych Zhykhovych (1900-1973). Post scriptum: November’s interrogation in 1953 and the last years of life." Науковий вісник Чернівецького національного університету імені Юрія Федьковича. Історія 1, no. 49 (June 30, 2019): 67–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.31861/hj2019.49.67-76.
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This article contains the material about one of the eleven Belarusian soldiers of the UNR Army, the student of the Ukrainian Economic Academy in Podebrady (CHSR). After surviving the Second World War in Czechoslovakia, Oleksandr Zhykhovych, in 1953 was summoned for questioning by the Czechoslovak-Soviet Committee of State Security, due to his ties to the Ukrainian political emigration of the interwar years. Among the questions, which were interested to the KDB agents, were: the emigration political organizations at the Academy of Economics and their anti-Soviet activities during 1921-1939; employment of Zhykhovych in Khustov Bank and his contacts with the bank employees; the presence of Belarusian political organizations in the environment of the Ukrainian emigration students of the CHSR; personal Zhykhovych’s contribution (as the chief accountant) in the activities of Transcarpathian publishing houses «UNIO» and «Proboiem». This last question was interested to the KDB agents, mostly, since, in the 1950s a brutal war continued between the Soviets and the Ukrainian nationalists. We must note that the first victim of the Soviet-nationalist confrontation personally for Oleksandr Maksymovych Zhykhovych was the arrest (on the eve of his interrogation) of his stepson – Zdenek Nekhanitskyi (10.08.1928). In 1953, he was the head’s assistant of the power plant station named after May 1 in Trshebonitsi (district of Ostrava), a member of the Communist Party of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic of 1945. It was Zdenek Nekhanitskyi, who suffered a forced arrest, the interrogation of his stepfather and investigation, and handed over to Serhii Knyrevych the interrogation protocol. And today, despite a respectable age, Zdenek Nekhanitskyi is trying to find the most precise answer to the question: how did it happen and why his stepfather, an ethnic Belarusian, spent almost his entire life in the Ukrainian political emigration, both interwar and post-war, and left a remarkable footprint there?
Keywords: Oleksandr Maksymovych Zhykhovych, Ukrainian People’s Republic, intermilitary emigration, Second World War, publishing houses «UNIO» and «Proboiem», postwar years, Czechoslovak Socialist Republic
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Kalvoda, Josef. "Karel Kaplan. The Communist Party in Power: A Profile of Party Politics in Czechoslovakia. Edited and translated by Fred Eidlin. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1987. xiii, 231 pp. $28.95 (paper)." Canadian-American Slavic Studies 23, no. 3 (1989): 378–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/221023989x01580.
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Krátká, Lenka. "Czechoslovak Seafarers’ Memories of Polish Ports as their “Second Home” during the State Socialism Period (1949–1989)." History in flux 2, no. 2 (December 23, 2020): 31–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.32728/flux.2020.2.2.
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Czechoslovakia began to develop its ocean fleet after the communist coup d’état in 1948. Prague was designated as the place of registration for these ships. From a practical point of view, however, it was necessary for the Czechoslovak fleet to reach a port located as close as possible to the Czechoslovak border. Szczecin (located 298 km from the border) became the base for the fleet not only due to the political circumstances of the Cold War but also for economic reasons. While Hamburg remained a vital harbor for international trade where “East meets West,” Polish ports were used not only for loading and unloading goods and transporting them to the republic but also to supply ships, change crews, carry out most shipyard maintenance, etc. Consequently, Czechoslovak seafarers themselves called Szczecin their “home port.” Numerous aspects of this perception as “home” will be reflected on in this paper. Specifically, the paper will touch on perceptions of Poles (mainly seafarers and dock workers), some aspects of the relationships among Czechoslovaks and Poles, including a discussion of some important historical issues (1968, the 1980s) in this area. This paper is based on archival sources, oral history interviews with former seafarers, and published memoirs. It should contribute to broader research and understanding of relationships among people living in various parts of the socialist block and show different images of life under socialism(s).
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Gordin, Michael D. "The Trials of Arnošt K." Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 47, no. 3 (June 1, 2017): 320–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/hsns.2017.47.3.320.
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The Prague-born philosopher and historian of science Arnošt Kolman (1892–1979)—who often published under his Russian name Ernest Kol’man—has fallen into obscurity, much like dialectical materialism, the philosophy of science he represented. From modest Czech-Jewish origins, Kolman seized opportunities posed by the advent of the Bolshevik Revolution to advance to the highest levels of polemical Stalinist philosophy, returned to Prague as an activist laying the groundwork for the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia in February 1948, was arrested and held for three years by the Soviet secret police, returned to work in Moscow and Prague as a historian of science, played vastly contrasting roles in the Luzin Affair of the 1930s and the rehabilitation of cybernetics in the 1950s, and defected—after 58 years in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union—to Sweden in 1976. This article argues that Kolman’s biography represents his gradual separation of dialectical materialism from other aspects of Soviet authority, a disentanglement enabled by the perspective gained from repeated returns to Prague and the diversity of dialectical-materialist thought developed in the Eastern Bloc. This essay is part of a special issue entitled THE BONDS OF HISTORY edited by Anita Guerrini.
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Dzhalilov, Teymur, and Nikita Pivovarov. "“There is such a situation that Comrade Svoboda is under pressure”. The Soviet leadership and the settlement of relations with Czechoslovakia. May 1969." Slavic Almanac, no. 1-2 (2019): 512–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.31168/2073-5731.2019.1-2.7.03.
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The published document is a part of the working record of The Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee on May 5, 1969. The employees of The Common Department of the CPSU Central Committee started writing such working records from the end of 1965. In contrast to the protocols, the working notes include speeches of the secretaries of the Central Committee, that allow to deeper analyze the reactions of the top party leadership, to understand their position regarding the political agenda. The peculiarity of the published document is that the Secretariat of the Central Committee did not deal with the most important foreign policy issues. It was the responsibility of the Politburo. However, it was at a meeting of the Secretariat of the Central Committee when Brezhnev raised the question of inviting G. Husák to Moscow. The latter replaced A. Dubček as the first Secretary of the Communist party of Czechoslovakia in April 1969. As follows from the document, Leonid Brezhnev tried to solve this issue at a meeting of the Politburo, but failed. However, even at the Secretariat of the Central Committee the Leonid Brezhnev’s initiative at the invitation of G. Husák was not supported. The published document reveals to us not only new facets in the mechanisms of decision-making in the CPSU Central Committee, the role of the Secretary General in this process, but also reflects the acute discussions within the Soviet government about the future of the world socialist systems.
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Kunz, Frank A. "Party Formation in East-Central Europe: Post-Communist Politics in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and BulgariaGordon Wightman, ed Aldershot, U.K.: 1995, pp. xxii, 270." Canadian Journal of Political Science 28, no. 4 (December 1995): 781–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0008423900019545.
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