Eroze diktatury v době přestavby. Krize vládnoucích elit a rozpad ideologického konsenzu v Československu (1986–1989)

• Authors: Michal Pullmann

Title variants

EN

The Erosion of Dictatorship in the Perestroika Years: The Crisis of the Ruling Elites and the Disintegration of Ideological Consensus in Czechoslovakia, 1986–89

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

This article is concerned with the crisis of the ruling élites in Czechoslovakia in the later years of the period known as ‘normalization’ (ending with the Changes of mid-November 1989). It provides evidence of the élite’s inability to formulate shared interests and to find points in common amongst their gradually diverging values, aims, and strategic approaches. After outlining the international contexts (particularly the Soviet), the author seeks to explain why the Communist élites of the late phase of the régime in Czechoslovakia were so helpless when faced with the political and economic project of perestroika. The disintegration of their self-confidence is examined by the author using the example of the debate about the 1987 legislation on state-owned enterprises, in which the various interests of individual groups of the Communist establishment in this phase were revealed probably for the first time, and the example of the thematization of the ‘enemy within’, demonstrating the élites’ declining ability to stigmatize the opposition groups effectively and to justify persecuting them. The author argues that the gradual deterioration of official Communist language, together with the advocacy of values based on individual performance and productivity, had its own particular consequences. Because the representatives of the ruling élites, who were accustomed to accepting authoritarian decisions, lacked the ability to react to sudden changes, the destabilization of ideology and power, which was caused by perestroika, awakened in them feelings of uncertainty as well a sense of ‘disappointment’ and ‘being ill-prepared’. The author does not argue that the collapse of the Communist dictatorship stemmed from the disintegration of élite groups. He does, however, seek to explain the historical genesis of this disintegration, which played an important role in the collapse of the dictatorship, since it prevented the élites of the ‘ancien régime’ from joining forces during the major geopolitical changes that emerged in late 1989.

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Soudobé dějiny (Contemporary History)
• Year: 2012
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 256-275

Contributors

author

Michal Pullmann

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