Filozofové dělají revoluci: Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy během komunistického experimentu (1948 - 1968 - 1989)
Gespeichert in:
| Hauptverfasser: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Buch |
| Sprache: | Czech |
| Veröffentlicht: |
Praha
Univ. Karlova, Nakl. Karolinum
2015
|
| Ausgabe: | Vyd. 1. |
| Schlagworte: | |
| Online-Zugang: | Rezension Rezension Inhaltsverzeichnis Abstract |
| Beschreibung: | Zsfassung in engl. Sprache u.d.T.: Philosphers make a revolution: the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, Charles University in Prage during the Communist experiment 1948 - 1989 |
| Beschreibung: | 1132 S. Ill. |
| ISBN: | 9788024629940 |
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Datensatz im Suchindex
| _version_ | 1804174780631351296 |
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| adam_text | Rány, jež utrpěli studenti na Strahově, dopadly na celou republiku... /308
Exkurs: O hledání identity a hodnot náhradou za ztracené iluze /318
Společenští vědci zvažují prostor /320
Historikové o naší živé a mrtvé minulosti
v reflexi společnosti /335
Generační sebereflexe /352
OVZDUŠÍ PRAŽSKÉHO JARA 1968 /368
Fakulta se reformuje pod sílícím vlivem studentů /368
Reformy systému studia /387
Problémy s rehabilitacemi /396
Snaha udržet jednotný postoj v obraně reforem /405
NORMALIZACE /434
Zkouška charakterů /434
Fakulta během konsolidace /470
Znormalizovaná fakulta /480
Katedry a ústavy /501
Program studia a jeho skutečná náplň /557
STUDENTI /565
Přijímání, počty a složení posluchačů /565
Disciplinace a kontrola /577
Svazáci /581
Studijní skupiny a vojenská příprava /584
Byrokratický formalismus překrývající prázdnotu /586
Členství v KSČ jako podmínka kariérního postupu /589
OD POLOJASNA K ÚSTRETŮM (1986-1989) /600
„Přestavbové“ změny /600
Kulturní a občanské aktivity mladé generace v hledáčku Státní
bezpečnosti /629
Individuální a kolektivní rebelské projevy studentů /634
Propojování nezávislých aktivit „volné mládeže“ a svazáků /671
17. LISTOPAD 1989 A SAMETOVÁ REVOLUCE /716
Nejprve o rozkladu sovětského bloku a politické situaci /716
Příprava a výsledek manifestace - Vezmi si s sebou květinu /755
ČAS PRAVDY A ROZHODNOSTI /800
Od pondělí vyhlásíme stávku. Šiřte to dál /800
Dialog znamenal konec vedoucí úlohy jedné strany /840
NOVÉ VYKROČENÍ... /857
Občanské fórum /857
Obnovení akademických svobod v životě fakulty. Znovu rehabilitace /881
Změna skladby fakulty a výuky /901
ZÁVĚREM /926
SUM MARY /942
PŘÍLOHY /955
Seznam zkratek /1087
Seznam literatury, pramenných edic a tištěných pramenů
literární povahy /1090
Seznam vyobrazení v textu /1107
Seznam příloh /1109
Rejstřík /1112
Summary
Philosophers Make a Revolution
The Faculty of Philosophy and Arts,
Charles University in Prague,
during the Communist Experiment 1948-1989
This monograph is being published twenty-five years after 17 November 1989, on
which date Prague students commemorated the 50th anniversary of the funeral of
the medical student Jan Opletal, killed during an anti-Nazi demonstration. In
retaliation the German occupiers closed down Czechoslovak universities, and this
state of affairs lasted until the end of the occupation in 1945. In 1989 the student
demonstration, which grew into a mass rally against the communist regime and
a march into the centre of Prague, was brutally put down by the police on Nârodni
trida. This prompted the students to organise a strike, which was joined by actors
from Prague theatres and which marked the beginning of the downfall of the state
and the end of totalitarianism in Czechoslovakia.
The author begins by examining the way that opinions regarding the events
referred to have been transformed as part of the “memory of a nation.” He re-
veals how the events of November 1989, which formed part of a larger political
sea change involving the break-up of the Soviet Union and the transition to
democratic systems in its former satellites, are perceived a quarter of a century
on. The revolution forced people who had spent the previous forty years under
a totalitarian regime to re-examine their own opinions, decisions and actions, to
look into their own consciences, and often to seek pretexts for having abdicated
their own responsibility. Over time various narratives have been created, the
contours of which have been blurred in historical memory by media and virtual
projections that have frequently influenced academic debate too. A myth of the
past is taking shape. In addition, differences of opinion and even conflicts are
opening up between generations with very dissimilar experiences of life. At pres-
ent a debate is underway between, on the one hand, methodological revisionism,
which advocates new approaches to the study of totalitarian regimes, and, on the
other, political revisionism, which finds its analogue in journalism monitoring
the objectives of political parties.
This monograph analyses the impact of the entire forty-year duration of the
communist experiment at the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts of Charles Uni-
versity in Prague, which was powerfully impacted by the ideological doctrines
of communism and soviétisation. It traces the stories of individuals and groups,
lecturers and students, and examines said stories in the light of what has been
called “the betrayal of the intellectuals.”
SUMMARY
/943
It was clear from the outset what the new communist regime expected and ex-
plicitly demanded from the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts of Charles University
in Prague in its capacity as the leading educational institution in Czechoslovakia
in the sphere of the social sciences and humanities. Nothing in its history had
prepared the faculty for such a role, which was incompatible with the spirit of
academic freedom that its staff and students had taken for granted until then.
Some of the middle-aged and older lecturers were willing to contribute actively
to legitimising the new regime through their work, though not without reserva-
tions. They were poorly versed in the new ideology, and in an attempt to master
its language often resorted to simplified guides rather than a detailed study of
the classics of Marxist-Leninism. In this respect the young were no better, and
seized the opportunities arising with enthusiasm and genuine conviction. Most
completed their studies without having acquired the knowledge to match that of
the older lecturers whose posts they assumed.
In the political purges that took place between 1948 and 1952 it was to a certain
extent necessary to respect the continuity of disciplines and level of teaching and
research simply in order that the faculty could continue to operate. When bringing
politically “indifferent” lecturers round to their point of view, the faculty commu-
nists appealed to the supposed legitimacy of the new system. They were aided in
these endeavours by the collective cultural memory, which is based on the com-
municative memory of generations and reflects lived history in its recollections.
The communist dictatorship put to good advantage the generational memory
of the Nazi occupation and capitalist First Republic, especially recollections of
the social problems indelibly associated with these periods. The revival of pan-
Slavism also helped. This did not involve internal criteria of truth and error as
required by scientific methods, but a political ideology exploited by the regime.
The communists claimed that they were completing the national revolution and
seeking to achieve social justice by purging society of those who had collaborated
in the past with the Nazis. Camouflage for the public was provided by a form of
“people’s democracy,” led by the National Front and the communists (the covert
form of the “dictatorship of the proletariat”).
During the first half of the 1950s, when the communist regime made strong
efforts to indoctrinate the faculty, it ran into problems and was plainly dissatisfied.
Though the faculty had already undergone the first wave of reforms to its curricula
in a programme highly laden with ideology, it had nevertheless failed to provide
the regime with what it wanted.
A specially devised foundation course, i.e. a core module comprising ideolog-
ical axioms, formed an obligatory part of tuition at universities. In addition, the
social science departments were hobbled by a binding interpretation of these ax-
ioms and the wholesale adoption of Soviet-style curricula and teaching methods
from top to bottom. A substantial part of the compulsory timetable was given over
to subjects such as military preparation, meetings of study groups and different
forms of political “praxis,” to the detriment of specialist tuition and students’
/944
own scholarship. The authoritarian regime advanced the ideas of “progressive
socialism” versus “reactionary capitalism,” and socialist “engaged science” versus
“bourgeois pseudoscience.” In the faculty’s social science and humanities depart-
ments, this “revolutionary character” was manifest in a thoroughgoing rejection of
“objectivism” and “positivism,” the scientific orthodoxies of the West that alleged-
ly failed to appreciate the progressive relevance of the “socio-political engagement
of science.” So as to prevent the infiltration of Western pseudoscience, censorship
was introduced, foreign literature was confiscated, and contacts with academics
and students from the West forbidden. This isolation was especially damaging to
the development of teaching and academic research.
In certain respects the reformed curricula modified the teaching process in
line with student demands prior to 1948 (above all in relation to the problem
of the sequence of subjects taught depending on their difficulty in individual
years). However, the centralised system of education and the changes made to its
contents did not contribute to the study of the social sciences and humanities. As
experienced lecturers often pointed out, school-leavers were arriving at the faculty
completely unprepared, and the reformed teaching system had to be adapted to
their needs. Indeed the faculty was sometimes, perhaps with a degree of irony,
referred to as an upper middle school, a reference to its packed timetable of
obligatory lectures, seminars and examinations, study groups, etc. Students had
little opportunity to select lectures and seminars that reflected their own interests,
and the statutory timetable was completely dominated by subjects belonging to
the foundation course. This course was regarded by the more gifted students as
requiring a simple regurgitation of dogmatic axioms that prevented them from
cultivating their own ideas. The system was set up in such a way as to cater for
below-average, weak students, the result of the acceptance of candidates primarily
on the basis of Communist Party credentials. At this point mention should be
made of the graduates of one-year workers’ courses created as part of the attempt
to boost “working intelligence.” Those who participated at these courses lacked
a full secondary school education with baccalaureate.
Having failed to transform the faculty into the ideological vanguard, the party
apparatchiks decided instead to divide it into two smaller units: the Faculty of
Philosophy and History, and the Faculty of Philology (between 1951 and 1959).
Both these institutions were mutually linked by combinations of curricula with
limits on the number of students accepted. The conditions of indoctrination were
met by the social science departments of the Faculty of Philosophy and History
through the introduction of other disciplines, such as the history of the workers’
movement and political parties, by prioritising the history of the Soviet Union
over general history, etc. Likewise, at the Philology Faculty certain subjects, for in-
stance the history of literature, bore a heavier ideological burden than languages,
especially those languages with a very small intake. The political regime required
that the faculty prepare linguistically gifted students for diplomatic, trade and
news services abroad. In the immediate post-war period Russian studies were
SUMMARY
/945
popular, while interest in German studies declined. Disciplines were introduced
or beefed up that dealt with the languages and culture of countries of the Eastern
bloc and the spheres of its political interest. This included Hungarian, Bulgarian,
Hispanic and Korean studies, sinology, etc.
The idéologisation of the Faculty of Philosophy and History was intensified
with the transfer of staff and students from the disbanded party-propagandist
University of Political Science and Economics in 1951. Some of the lecturers took
up posts at newly created departments teaching the history of Soviet Union, com-
munist parties and the workers’ movement, while others boosted the cadre-based
presence in existing departments. In no time at all they had ensconced themselves
within the management of the faculty as a whole, as well as on trade union and
other faculty committees of the Communist Party.
In the mid-1950s the importance of the faculty dwindled as a consequence of
the establishment of specialist institutions of higher education: teacher training
colleges, schools of journalism, the Russian Language University, and the Univer-
sity of 17 November, the main task of which was to teach foreign students from
regions in which the leaders of the Soviet power bloc had political interests. The
number of students accepted at both the Faculty of Philosophy and History and
the Faculty of Philology plummeted.
Despite all the pressure the faculty came under from the communist regime
during the first half of the 1950s, the process of indoctrination and soviétisation
was not completely successful. The “cadre reinforcements,” brought in from
outside or nurtured by the faculty, were unable to seize control of the academic
community for their lack of expertise and teaching experience. It was as much
as they could do to maintain the continuity of tuition and research, especially in
spheres requiring a high level of erudition, a knowledge of languages, and pro-
ficiency in new philological methods. This applied even more to the specialist,
“small” spheres.
It should not be forgotten that the process of ideological indoctrination affect-
ed individual disciplines to a different degree, and this contributed to a larger or
smaller discontinuity of the educational system during changes in the conception
of individual disciplines, creative methods, and the actual manner in which they
were taught. The “nomenclatural” subjects suffered the most, finding themselves
under increased supervision by “vetted” lecturers and party members maintaining
the spirit of immutable doctrine. This was especially so in the case of philosophy,
history and modern literature, along with some of the newly introduced disci-
plines, such as the history of the workers’ movement and political parties, the
history of the Soviet Union, and later on scientific socialism, political economy,
Marxist-Leninist sociology, the theory and management of culture, etc. What had
previously been education in the social sciences aimed at ethical exegesis and the
interrogation of meaning was replaced by ideological training serving a political
doctrine. The Enlightenment vision of a cultural revolution of the new age disap-
peared entirely, and the platitude “science goes to the people” became the illusory
/946
screen onto which the regime’s propaganda was projected. On the other hand,
one has again to remind oneself of the results of several of the “small” disciplines,
which were not as affected by indoctrination and were able to maintain continuity
more easily, in part thanks to international contacts within the turbulent political
environment. This applied to Egyptology, certain Oriental disciplines, archaeol-
ogy, and certain sections of art theory.
The inconsistent level of studies and results is most visible in the content and
methodology of doctoral theses and diplomas, as well, obviously, as published
articles and monographs. It also speaks volumes that the erudite researchers of the
disciplines referred to were respected by the Czech Academy of Sciences, founded
in 1952 on the Soviet model to oversee all specialised academic research. Its chair-
man, Zdeněk Nejedlý, a former professor at the faculty, installed his ex-colleagues
on the academic board, who enjoyed recognition at home and abroad despite not
long before having been castigated in the ideological language of the apparatchiks
as “positivistic” in inclination, “politically indifferent,” and in several cases “reac-
tionary.” The idea was that they legitimise the new institution and lend it and its
chairman international prestige.
Naturally, the outcomes achieved by the faculty also depended on the quality
of its students. Those applying for a place at the faculty were selected on the basis
of a newly created admissions procedure, with the emphasis on “cadre-based”
entry requirements. In fact, a form of clientelism operated that had been present
since the start of the communist experiment. Despite the obstacles in their way,
and sometimes through sheer good fortune, genuinely talented students with
sound qualification requirements, especially in the demanding “small” disciplines,
succeeded in winning a place at the faculty in addition to the Communist Par-
ty-approved candidates. Tenacious applicants who had run into problems with the
Communist Party were accepted by the faculty after a gap year or more to obtain
work experience, perhaps in a factory, after which they would receive a recom-
mendation that they be accepted among the “working intelligence” applicants.
They often opted for a new form of extramural studies.
To begin with the communist experiment enjoyed great support from some
of the young generation of students and academic assistants, who mastered the
ideological language of the communist dictatorship. The regime exploited them,
making it plain that it relied on them to function as the socialist vanguard. This
resulted in a form of “studentocracy,” with arrogance being shown on the part
of students toward their lecturers. Social prestige was undermined by the fact
that party members, both lecturers and students, addressed each other using the
informal pronoun and as “comrades.” This is not to speak of the ongoing distrust
of “bourgeois intellectuals” on the part of the party bureaucracy.
Young radicals, blissfully unaware of the real facts on the ground, saw in the
Soviet Union the prototype of an ideal world that would fulfil their ideals and
utopian visions. They were confirmed in this belief by the media propaganda and
demagogy of certain advocates, such as Professor Arnošt Kolman, who had strong
SUMMARY
/947
links with the Soviet Union. It is no wonder that, seized by this “revolutionary”
spirit, a section of the young intelligentsia participated in the communist putsch of
February 1948 and seized control of the commission carrying out the party-based
purges between 1948 and 1952. Neither staff nor students escaped the effects of
the purges. In the “study vetting” of spring 1949 alone, around one fifth of the
student body was forced to leave the faculty. Student members of the commis-
sion deprived their companions of the right to an education guaranteed by the
constitution, and those disciplined did not even have to actively disagree with
the communist regime; it sufficed if they ostentatiously failed to support it or made
clear their passive resistance. The young “revolutionaries” were instrumental in
impoverishing the intellectual potential of society, either by virtue of the fact that
they excluded many talented students from studying, sometimes simply because of
a personal aversion, or by preventing outstanding lecturers from heading the edu-
cational process. Many of those affected subsequently proved their worth while in
exile.
The process of de-Stalinisation from 1953 to 1956 brought certain changes.
Some of the more discerning members of the young generation of “revolution-
aries” of the preceding generation peeked out from behind their rose-tinted
spectacles, partly influenced by news of shocking events reaching the country
from abroad. Some simmered down after obtaining coveted posts. The more
intelligent refined their opinions on the basis of a deeper experience acquired,
either as lecturers themselves or employees at research institutes. They rejected the
outdated dogma of empty ideology in favour of Marxist revisionism. On their own
initiative they tracked down the roots of the Enlightenment vision of the onward
march of the freedom of the human spirit, as it had been adopted by Marxism in
its earliest stages. They attempted to restore established ideas, now cleansed of
obsolete dogma that no longer stood up to the findings of Western science, until
then derided as “bourgeois pseudoscience” and to which they had been denied
access. They read up on cybernetics, sociology and semiotics, and revived their
interest in functional structuralism, existentialism, psychoanalysis, etc.
As the list of lectures at the faculty shows, in part this was manifest in the
curriculum, though not to such an extent as in the articles published by these
lecturers. A significant contribution in this respect was the mutual discourse of
Marxist revisionists of Central European countries of the Eastern bloc, namely
Poland, Hungary and the German Democratic Republic, where social constraints
were being relaxed, culminating in unrest. Wherever these revisionist tendencies
appeared, the communist authorities received them with hostility and deemed
them to be ideas that were dangerous to the party and divisive by virtue of the fact
that they advocated in no uncertain terms democratic, humanitarian, modernising
changes in the obsolete language of the Marxist worldview. This was not in the
interest of the stabilised power of the party bureaucrats.
Historically speaking, this Marxist revisionism cannot be equated with the
anti-communist resistance in Czechoslovakia or in exile at that time or later.
/948
The revisionists attempted to modernise society with a vision of socialist revolu-
tion culminating in communism. Even though they diverged from the Communist
Party and criticised the political system, in reality, as the “voice of the public,”
they legitimised it and contributed to its preservation. In doing so, to a certain
extent they released the tension ensuing from the social conflicts that arise in every
modern society. However, differences were created and allowed a more lasting
opposition to arise within the Communist Party.
In the following short cooling off period, which was the conservative reaction
to de-Stalinisation, revisionist language was restricted, though it continued to
be used in secret by individuals and groups of intellectuals. A decisive role was
played in this respect by the international climate, which from 1958 to 1962 saw
the communist leadership overcome the fears of upheaval and insecurity that
had characterised the de-Stalinisation period. They took measures against the
revisionists by vetting ideological political reliability. This most affected the social
science institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and the faculty itself.
Some lecturers were forbidden to teach, while younger colleagues were sent for
external work experience. However, the repression was by no means comparable
with the period lasting from 1948 to 1952.
In the second half of the 1960s the changing international political climate
again relaxed the conditions for the revival of revisionist tendencies. However,
this was not simply a continuation of what had gone before. In the cultural
sphere the range of topics was transformed and expanded, which can be seen in
the contents of magazines, articles and monographs of that time. In addition,
changes to the content of lectures on offer at the faculty were more far-reaching
than during the mid-1950s. They affected more disciplines, albeit to a different
extent. What was important was that the changes were witnessed by the young
generation of students. Not only did they reflect upon revisionist opinions, but
they were encouraged to look creatively for meaning and even to criticise openly
the existing regime. The authorities put the blame for this on the pernicious in-
fluence of revisionist lecturers, as well as the faculty management, which had not
taken sufficiently strenuous measures against it. And so the ground was prepared
for the Prague Spring of 1968 to 1969.
The students, at that time very active, were not united by any clear-cut stance
regarding reform or opposition, and rarely expressed revolutionary opinions in
respect of the existing political regime. In the main they were surprised, and most
did not understand supporters of the “new wave” in the West on the occasions
when a small window of opportunity appeared that permitted them to meet
Western colleagues, with their concept of “cultural revolution.” The lack of mu-
tual understanding during these meetings should come as no surprise. The “new
wave” arose from the internal problems of advanced Western industrial societies.
It called into question the capitalist worldview and attacked it for not having at-
tained the ideal of a socially just democracy, but, on the contrary, having caused
people to succumb to a craving for qualitative prosperity. The new wave also
SUMMARY
/949
claimed that the oppressive, ineffective bureaucracy of this system had “alienated”
humankind by putting it in the position of a slave to power and the structures
of hierarchical relations. This in turn had led to the nihilism of a society that saw
no aim other than its own growth. Students in Czechoslovakia were interested in
different problems, namely the deformation of the ideology of social revolution by
the communist dictatorship, and on the whole did not understand the demands
for a “cultural revolution” being made by their Western colleagues. It was only
a smaller cosmopolitan group that inclined to these revolutionary visions.
What we see at the faculty during the second half of the 1960s was not, it must
be re-emphasised, the mere continuation of the Marxist revisionism of the 1950s.
It was a time for “the opening of the society of state socialism to the world, a time
obsessed by dialogue as almost a lifestyle or means of existence.” Not only was
Marxist revisionism now institutionalised in the state system, which meant it had
lost its privileged status as an alternative to party conservatism, but the intellectual
discourse had moved on, leaving it behind. In the social sciences other discourses
were emerging. As a consequence the faculty was once again subject to radical
changes after twenty years of the communist experiment. Not only did it return
to democratic principles, academic freedom, and the rehabilitation of individuals,
but also saw changes made to its curricula and teaching methods.
However, as opposed to 1989, in 1968 and 1969 Marxist revisionists remained
the main representatives in public dialogue with both the old and changed party
leadership. The subsequent repression under the period of “normalisation” from
the end of 1969, comparable with the political purges at the start of the communist
experiment in the period from 1948 to 1952, focused almost overwhelmingly on
those Marxist revisionists from the ranks of lecturers more than on students. Later
on, as emigrants or domestic dissidents, some of these lecturers created a new iden-
tity for themselves. They confronted their former revolutionary convictions and
examined the errors they had committed under their influence. Their memories
of lived history reminded them of their previous moral shortcomings. However,
we should not overlook those former revisionists who, in order to protect their
academic career, quickly swapped sides and became leading “consolidators” and
“normalises” at the start of the 1970s.
The Marxist revisionists had their eyes opened by the military occupation of
Czechoslovakia in August 1968, an event that marked a break with the existing
understanding of “socialist revolution.” It transformed the ideological language of
the collaborating “normalises,” from which the term revolution disappeared. Not
only was it unnecessary under the circumstances, but could even be detrimental
to the representatives of power. The regime subjected a small group of leftwing
students advocating cultural revolution to severe persecution, denouncing them
as “rightwing opportunists and revisionists.” Political pragmatists could no lon-
ger rely on a reasonable person continuing to believe propaganda recycling old
dogmatic axioms relating to the benefits of revolutionary socialism that would
together create its “meaning.” Official communist jobs, the language of which had
/950
been de-ideologised, therefore no longer needed the services of an intelligentsia
educated in the social sciences and humanities. In the execution of power, ideo-
logical propaganda had lost its effect and been replaced by violence combined
with the resources of bureaucratic power.
Wherever the communist dictatorship could not rely on ideological cliches
promoting “socialist revolution,” or trust in the loyalty of disciplined party mem-
bers, it simply expanded the secret services, a phenomenon that is visible at the
faculty in the 1970s and 80s. Given the prevailing atmosphere of anxiety, hypoc-
risy and mutual distrust, exacerbated by threats of sanctions against individuals
and their families, the “collaboration” of individuals with the secret services and
the “normalisation language” of official documents (especially those of a cadre
character) must be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Not even precise semiotic
methods allow the historian to pronounce definitive conclusions regarding the
outcomes of his analysis.
The normalisation period significantly weakened the intellectual potential of
the faculty. This was partly due to the forced departure of lecturers or a ban being
placed on their teaching activities to an extent comparable with the purges of 1948
to 1952. Several academics emigrated and made a name for themselves abroad,
while others were obliged to take jobs that took no account of their qualifications,
sometimes as manual workers.
Given the lack of interest in the social sciences and humanities as an ideologi-
cal tool for manipulation, an analysis of the output of specialist literature at that
time reveals a paradox: on the one hand, the regime did not permit expelled party
members and other “inconvenient” authors to publish in Czechoslovakia, with the
result that their work either came out in illegal samizdat publications or abroad;
while on the other, it did not exert sufficiently strong pressure on those who ac-
tually were permitted to publish. It often no longer insisted on the inclusion of
Marxist-Leninist dogma, as it had at the start of the 1950s, and texts appeared
that were comparable in terms of methodology with Western, non-Marxist studies.
In what was probably a case of arrivisme, several historians went so far as to
provide a mouthpiece for the regime by proclaiming the shared interests of the
Communist Party and the people, and “documenting” the successes of commu-
nism while casting doubt on their “revisionist” colleagues. The legitimacy of the
system was to be given a firm foundation in the form of sociological surveys mon-
itoring the mood of the population. And yet during the 1950s sociology had been
designated “bourgeois pseudoscience.” Otherwise, the ideological supervision of
the social sciences and humanities remained half-hearted, allowing these subjects
to build on the methods they had developed and even draw on international con-
tacts made in the preceding years.
However, the political purges during the normalisation period at the start of
the 1970s did serious damage to the teaching and research being carried out by
the faculty, not least because in place of the dismissed specialists, new lecturers
SUMMARY
/951
arrived as “cadre reinforcements,” who had no business being there if academic
freedom was to be maintained.
Great discrepancies remained between individual disciplines in respect of the
level of teaching and research at the faculty. Quality remained wherever talented
lecturers had been retained out of necessity, even though some had been expelled
from the Communist Party. Thanks to them, gifted students were able to maintain
the tradition of their disciplines. Younger academics especially faced a dilemma:
should they join the Communist Party out of a pragmatic desire to further their
career? Or should they remain in the position of academic assistant for years,
facing the threat of dismissal from the faculty during the next bout of “academic
vetting.”
It was clear that the young generation of both lecturers and students conceived
of its future in different terms. During the first half of normalisation the student
movement had been sedated, as it were. However, during the mid-1980s it started
to regain its consciousness, albeit in a slightly different form. As the Soviet bloc
grew weaker and began to disintegrate, we can observe the gradual relaxation
of conditions and a change of mood among the general public, partly under the
influence of a growing dissent claiming allegiance above all to Charta 77.
During the process of perestroika or restructuring that was supposed to take
place within economics, politics and society throughout the entire Eastern bloc
on the instructions of Gorbachev’s Moscow-based leadership, the situation at the
faculty changed accordingly. Of course, this did not involve the revival of Marxist
revisionism and a vision of communist revolution: this was already long passé,
even though it remained lodged in the memory of certain former communists.
Under the conditions pertaining at that time faculty members could not be
active in their dissent, and despite attempts at forming alliances, opposition to
the regime remained fragmented. There were no plans afoot as yet to assume
the reins of power. The aim was rather to communicate with representatives of
the existing political regime and to demand respect be granted to those human
rights and freedoms the regime had formally recognised in international treaties.
Certain former faculty communists, expelled from the party during the purges
at the start of normalisation and involved with the dissident group Revival, con-
templated participating in the reform (revival) of the existing communist system.
We can observe independent instances of individual or collective rebellion
on the part of students, above all from 1988 onward the amalgamation of these
independent activities of “free youth” with groups of trade union organisations
(members of the Socialist Union of Youth), which more and more defied the
control of their central committee subordinate to the communist leadership. Not
only at the Prague Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, but also at other universities,
some outside Prague, activities intensified. This was reflected in the publication
of student magazines and the convening of discussion forums. As in the case of
the dissidents, what prevailed were “legal” demands: respect for human (in this
case student) rights and freedoms. The secret services monitored events closely,
/952
concerned by the impact they were having on what was already the compromised
stability of the regime.
It is no surprise that the demonstration on the anniversary of 17 November in
1989 was organised by the Municipal Committee of the Socialist Union of Youth.
However, the meeting’s agenda was largely the work of independent student
groups, especially the STXJHA movement. The most vocal group within STXJHA
comprised young people from the families of dissidents, who wanted to take ad-
vantage of the anniversary by founding an independent student organisation that
would bring together different factions of the movement and advance the liber-
alisation programme referred to above. Several faculty students were very active
in organising the meeting and drawing up an agenda, while others worked in the
Prague Student Press and Information Centre of the Socialist Union of Youth,
which prepared several events, including the demonstration of 17 November.
The demonstration was infiltrated by secret service provocateurs, and this gave
rise to rumours that the whole event, including the brutal intervention against the
demonstrators on Národní třída, had been stage-managed by one of the cabals of
the Communist Party, or even from outside the country (either from Moscow or
the West). The brutal response of the police, including the stories that circulated
of a dead student on Národní třída, was allegedly intended to stoke the flames of
public opinion (in which endeavour it was successful) and lead to change at the
head of the Communist Party. However, an analysis of the source materials avail-
able does not confirm these speculations, even though it seems that, independent-
ly of the suppression of the student demonstration, the Moscow government led
by Gorbachev was interested in speeding up the process of political and economic
perestroika in Czechoslovakia and forcing a change of personnel at the head of
the state and Communist Party.
What followed this last brutal manifestation of a disintegrating communist dic-
tatorship exceeded all expectations and wishes. Through occupations, strikes and
militant activism, the students provided an assurance that the coup now known
as that “Velvet Revolution” could be realised in full. This was despite the fact that
they themselves did not have the main voice at the large meetings held to organise
the demonstrations and at the roundtable discussions between representatives of
the government of Přemysl Adamec negotiating the conditions of the resigning
communist power, and representatives of the opposition led by the Civic Forum.
The students remained ready to strike at a moments notice, underwriting the
political changes until the election of Vaclav Havel as President of the Republic.
For several days two Civic Forums were in operation at the Philosophy Faculty
in addition to and in cooperation with the student strike committee, something
unusual elsewhere. One comprised the striking lecturers and students, while the
other was set up by former lecturers, mainly Marxist reformists, who had been
expelled from the faculty during normalisation and were awaiting rehabilitation.
To begin with, memories of recent times created mutual distrust arising from
divergent ideas of how the faculty should be re-staffed and what its programme
SUMMARY
/953
should be. However, agreement was soon reached that it was necessary to get
the faculty up and running as quickly as possible so that it could set off in a new,
as yet undefined direction in accordance with European trends. However, much
remained unresolved and a source of conflict.
This monograph has focused mainly on the participation of students of the
Faculty of Philosophy and Arts of Charles University ֊ the young generation
entering public life - within the broader framework of the activities of university
students that found support among a large part of the general public. Indeed, this
was how events were preserved in the memories of individuals and the collective
national memory. We have now reached a phase in the faculty’s development in
which a new path has opened up after the end of the forty-year communist exper-
iment. The faculty, and indeed society at large, acquired habits during the course
of this experiment that it was unable to divest itself of completely as it moved
toward a system of liberal democracy. The traces left not by one but two totali-
tarian regimes - we must not forget the Nazi occupation - cannot be smoothed
over in the short term.
Translated by Philip Jones
|
| any_adam_object | 1 |
| author | Petráň, Josef 1930-2017 Petráňová, Lydia 1941- |
| author_GND | (DE-588)119167794 (DE-588)107249440X |
| author_facet | Petráň, Josef 1930-2017 Petráňová, Lydia 1941- |
| author_role | aut aut |
| author_sort | Petráň, Josef 1930-2017 |
| author_variant | j p jp l p lp |
| building | Verbundindex |
| bvnumber | BV042609805 |
| ctrlnum | (OCoLC)911523331 (DE-599)BVBBV042609805 |
| edition | Vyd. 1. |
| era | Geschichte 1948-1989 gnd |
| era_facet | Geschichte 1948-1989 |
| format | Book |
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| id | DE-604.BV042609805 |
| illustrated | Illustrated |
| indexdate | 2024-07-10T07:05:50Z |
| institution | BVB |
| isbn | 9788024629940 |
| language | Czech |
| oai_aleph_id | oai:aleph.bib-bvb.de:BVB01-028042709 |
| oclc_num | 911523331 |
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| owner_facet | DE-12 DE-M457 |
| physical | 1132 S. Ill. |
| publishDate | 2015 |
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| publisher | Univ. Karlova, Nakl. Karolinum |
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| spelling | Petráň, Josef 1930-2017 Verfasser (DE-588)119167794 aut Filozofové dělají revoluci Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy během komunistického experimentu (1948 - 1968 - 1989) Josef Petráň ; ve spolupráci Lydií Petráňovou Vyd. 1. Praha Univ. Karlova, Nakl. Karolinum 2015 1132 S. Ill. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier Zsfassung in engl. Sprache u.d.T.: Philosphers make a revolution: the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, Charles University in Prage during the Communist experiment 1948 - 1989 Univerzita Karlova Filozofická fakulta (DE-588)1052909-3 gnd rswk-swf Geschichte 1948-1989 gnd rswk-swf Univerzita Karlova Filozofická fakulta (DE-588)1052909-3 b Geschichte 1948-1989 z DE-604 Petráňová, Lydia 1941- Verfasser (DE-588)107249440X aut https://www.recensio.net/r/9202e7e94f98463ea8c1195baa33a096 rezensiert in: Český časopis historický, 2015, 4, S. 1067-1072 Rezension https://www.recensio.net/r/eebd158b82074398b52f0d48143638c1 rezensiert in: Soudobé dějiny, 2017, 1-2, S. 218-227 Rezension Digitalisierung BSB Muenchen 19 - ADAM Catalogue Enrichment application/pdf http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&local_base=BVB01&doc_number=028042709&sequence=000002&line_number=0001&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA Inhaltsverzeichnis Digitalisierung BSB Muenchen 19 - ADAM Catalogue Enrichment application/pdf http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&local_base=BVB01&doc_number=028042709&sequence=000004&line_number=0002&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA Abstract |
| spellingShingle | Petráň, Josef 1930-2017 Petráňová, Lydia 1941- Filozofové dělají revoluci Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy během komunistického experimentu (1948 - 1968 - 1989) Univerzita Karlova Filozofická fakulta (DE-588)1052909-3 gnd |
| subject_GND | (DE-588)1052909-3 |
| title | Filozofové dělají revoluci Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy během komunistického experimentu (1948 - 1968 - 1989) |
| title_auth | Filozofové dělají revoluci Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy během komunistického experimentu (1948 - 1968 - 1989) |
| title_exact_search | Filozofové dělají revoluci Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy během komunistického experimentu (1948 - 1968 - 1989) |
| title_full | Filozofové dělají revoluci Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy během komunistického experimentu (1948 - 1968 - 1989) Josef Petráň ; ve spolupráci Lydií Petráňovou |
| title_fullStr | Filozofové dělají revoluci Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy během komunistického experimentu (1948 - 1968 - 1989) Josef Petráň ; ve spolupráci Lydií Petráňovou |
| title_full_unstemmed | Filozofové dělají revoluci Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy během komunistického experimentu (1948 - 1968 - 1989) Josef Petráň ; ve spolupráci Lydií Petráňovou |
| title_short | Filozofové dělají revoluci |
| title_sort | filozofove delaji revoluci filozoficka fakulta univerzity karlovy behem komunistickeho experimentu 1948 1968 1989 |
| title_sub | Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy během komunistického experimentu (1948 - 1968 - 1989) |
| topic | Univerzita Karlova Filozofická fakulta (DE-588)1052909-3 gnd |
| topic_facet | Univerzita Karlova Filozofická fakulta |
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