EN
The destruction of the communist system in Czechoslovakia stood on at least two pillars: 1) the moral delegitimisation of the governing Communist Party with the assistance of dissent, which preferred the assertion of civil and human rights; 2) the destruction of the prevailing economic system, something which became the objective of Václav Klaus and other participants in seminars during the 1980s which took place a number of years prior to the events of November 1989. The core group behind these seminars partially comprised young economists who had worked in the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences’ Economics Institute under Ota Šik. However, they were not his successors, but rather fundamental opponents who, led by Václav Klaus, were fundamentally convinced that the socialist economy could never be reformed. Thus, these seminars were a platform for criticism of the prevailing economic system to the extent possible within the regime at the time.