Rozděleni minulostí. Československá sociální demokracie v letech 1989–1992

• Authors: Tomáš Zahradníček

Title variants

EN

The Pasts That Divide: The Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party, 1989–92

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

In the mid-1990s the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party (Československá strana sociálnědemokratická), next to the Civic Democratic Party, became the strongest political force in the country. This article is concerned with the question of why it was unable after the Changes of November and December 1989 to infl uence the Czech public and become involved in the political debates about the Communist past. The author considers who actually were the fi rst actors in Social Democratic politics, and stresses the role played by the most important initial differences between them in their attitudes towards tradition and certain personal lives before November 1989. According to these differences, the author divides the Social Democrats into three main groups: the ‘restitution group’, the ‘continuity group’, and the ‘new group’. The numerically largest group, the ‘restitution group’ (led by Slavomír Klaban, born in 1922), attempted to restore the Social Democratic Party after the forty- year break in its activity. In doing so, this group based itself on the bitter memory of the pro-Communist faction’s having taken control of the party in 1948, and on the repressive measures that followed. The ‘continuity group’, comprising exile Social Democrats (led by Karel Hrubý, born 1923, and Jiří Loewy, 1930–2004) and ‘independent Socialists’ who had signed Charter 77 (led by Rudolf Battěk, born 1924, and Jaroslav Mezník, 1928–2008) had the experience of many years of active resistance to the Communist régime. Apart from them, new activists, who previously had practically nothing in common with the party, joined the Social Democrats after the fall of the ‘ancien régime’. Amongst them were former Communists, some of whom were active in the Obroda reform club. These fundamental starting points ran up against the actual position of the Social Democrats after the Changes of late 1989. This position was determined by several external factors: the Civic Forum did not wish to see political parties develop, the public quickly and for the long-term abandoned the slogans of Socialism (even if reformed), and the Communist Party was able to survive in the new circumstances and sought to represent not just its traditional members, but all left-wing voters. This situation required political action from the Social Democrats in the space between the Civic Forum and the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, for which the nascent party was ill prepared. The first elected leadership under the former exile Social Democrat functionary Jiří Horák (1924–2003) had a weak position and many other figures of authority, from diverse political milieux, struggled for preeminence, seeking to use the Social Democratic name to assert their own views. But in fact any topic that was related to the past divided them. That changed after the election of Miloš Zeman (born 1944) as head of the party in February 1993. The new party chairman did not meet the expectations of any of the existing groups amongst the Social Democrats, which hoped that Zeman would authoritatively join in debates about the past and take sides. On the contrary, he made it part of his programme to include adherents of diverse political traditions and views in the Social Democratic Party; they balanced each other out and Zeman let a plurality of voices be heard. The article is followed by a selection of ‘The Letters of Jaroslav Mezník on the Ideas and Policies of Social Democracy’ from 1978 to 1993. (The originals are amongst the papers of the journalist Jiří Loewy, deposited in the Archive of the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague.) In these letters, addressed mostly to Loewy, the Brno historian Mezník, a key figure of the group of ‘independent Socialists’ after he signed Charter 77, ponders the possibilities of non-Communist Socialist thinking and policy in Czechoslovakia, the local traditions of the Social Democrats, and their current orientation. An important role was played here by Mezník’s efforts to achieve understanding between exiles and dissidents at home and to mediate between them, which he later did once both groups were back on the Czechoslovak political scene.

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Soudobé dějiny (Contemporary History)
• Year: 2009
• Issue: 2-3
• Pages: 333-358

Contributors

author

Tomáš Zahradníček

• Soudobé dějiny, redakce, Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, v.v.i., Vlašská 9, 118 40 Praha 1, Czech Republic