by Ivan Klíma
the future of a movement is determined by the devotion, and even intolerance, with which its members fight for their cause. . . . The greatness of every powerful organization which embodies a creative idea lies in the spirit of religious devotion and intolerance with which it stands out against all others, because it has an ardent faith in its own right.
Through an unshakable faith in their own truth, their sense of chosen destiny, and their ability to bring salvation to the people, prophets of new truths and creators of new empires manage to acquire, at least for a time, masses of devoted and fanaticized followers.
Weary Dictators and Rebels
The beginning of every dictatorship appears to its contemporaries as solid and unyielding. The organs of a dictatorship function precisely according to calculations that suit the power being established. In their relationship with artists and the intelligentsia in general, their positions seem unequivocal. Those who glorify and subordinate themselves to the regime are praised. Those who refuse to subordinate themselves in thought and work are silenced by imprisonment, exile, or the scaffold. The new masters, the coffin carriers, appear as the guarantee that the dictatorship will persist undisturbed. In reality, it is precisely the opposite. The uncreative nature of the new masters, their dull-witted loyalty, is the beginning of a stagnation that will gradually mortify and kill off society, which begins to lag behind in all branches of human activity. Usually when the founding dictator steps down, is overthrown, or dies (one of these must inevitably happen), it is at once revealed that all that is left are masses of unfulfilled promises, slogans no one believes, absurd prohibitions, and directives that hinder life. Wearied by its own arrogance, weakened by its own dull-wittedness, rid of all personalities, hated by most of its subordinates, the dictatorship seeks some way to survive.
The new inheritors realize that as long as they continue the previous despotism, they cannot be sure their subordinates will not turn against them. They know they cannot trust each other. Some of them can turn to the subordinates, exploit their dissatisfaction, and deal harshly with the other inheritors who previously committed crimes under the protective hand of despotism. In the end, the inheritors of totalitarian power will decide not to risk it and instead flatter their underlings (including the army, police, and government authorities) by promising a renewal of law and order, a return to the original ideals, and a prosperity unseen anywhere else in the world. They will seek to retain absolute power without absolute repression.
The Communist dictatorship in Czechoslovakia was derived from the Soviet dictatorship in both form and content. During the very first months of its rule, it decided to suppress unconditionally every sign of resistance in all areas of life. It formed action committees made up of fanatical Communists tasked with screening the behavior of individuals and organizations. It immediately closed down newspapers and magazines not under the government’s immediate control; it broke up and prohibited independent institutions. It nationalized all enterprises and later small workshops and businesses, and installed its loyal acolytes at the head of every institution. It took over film production, shut down theaters, closed private publishing houses, and began its attack against farmers. The richest were transferred to the border regions. Representatives of democratic political parties, if they had not fled in time, were sent to prison and concentration camps for long periods (some were executed when workers organized a mass campaign demanding the death sentence for the accused). Members of the Western resistance and army officers, university professors, journalists, and the educated in general who did not accept the Marxist doctrine were turned out from their jobs. The Catholic clergy, including nuns and monks, were locked up or at least silenced. Several Catholic poets were condemned to lengthy prison terms.
After the death of Stalin, however, and shortly thereafter that of his obedient vassal, Gottwald, a new, “wearier” form of dictatorship began to emerge.
The weary dictatorship no longer murders, it doesn’t even pronounce lifetime prison sentences, but it tries to corrupt all the more. Corruption does not manifest itself only in its most brazen form, allowing the most loyal followers to steal unrestrainedly or at least to enjoy sinecures. The regime now behaves more benevolently toward most of its subordinates. Until recently it compelled them to ostentatiously declare their love to the regime, to devote time and money to it, and t o go to meetings, brigades, and rallies; and even when they were doing so, they could never be certain the police would not accuse them of some serious crime, then interrogate them, torture them, and finally hand them over to a court that would deliver a predetermined conviction. Now the powers make it clear that whoever works, refrains from any acts of opposition, and confirms his loyalty once every four years in elections will be allowed to purchase a weekend cottage and cultivate bourgeois amusements, such as attending jazz concerts or collecting stamps; he will be allowed to read lyric poetry and from time to time vacation at the seaside of some friendly nation. He can even steal—a little. In return the regime will provide him with peace. From now on only criminal elements and genuinely determined opponents will be persecuted. Even the innocent, whom it had previously accused and ordered servile courts to sentence, now, after long years of imprisonment (if they survived), are hesitantly and discreetly released—as long as they understand that they may not communicate to anyone the details of their imprisonment. For a short time, peace, or, more precisely, torpor, will reign in society, which compared with the recent terror will becalm or even arouse hope.
The regime will alter its relationship to intellectuals. In its benevolence, which should be appropriately appreciated, the totalitarian regime will provide intellectuals and artists with a little more freedom, with the proviso that any doubts and solutions cannot be aimed at it. At most they may request that the regime rid itself of several (now admitted) vices, and the artists will always submit their conclusions for approval. As long as intellectuals behave in this way, they will be tolerated. As a sign of its goodwill, the regime will allow some, who until now had to remain silent, to speak, even if usually only on some inconsequential topic.
The retreat from direct terror creates difficulties for the totalitarian power. Whereas terror drove the surviving, freely thinking intellectuals deep into the underground or compelled them to be silent, now many refuse to be bought, refuse to pretend that the ground disintegrating beneath the vigilant governance of a weary but still totalitarian power is an empire of unprecedented freedom.
In the first half of the twentieth century, plenty of intellectuals and especially artists believed the erroneous visions and promises of the Communist Party. Between those who supported, or even believed in, the regime and those who understood its true essence was a border that was difficult to traverse. Some (often in good faith but always blindly) supported the dictatorship and helped stifle freedom, and thus bore, to a greater or lesser degree, coresponsibility for the crimes committed. Others understood that without preserving basic freedoms, society was doomed to destruction. Some stood up to power; others remained silent, but they knew that all terror was self-destructive and thus condemned to extinction.
After the death of the Soviet dictator, however, another analogous border was created within the Communist Party. Some considered a partial admission of crimes as an unprecedented, even admirable, act of self-criticism, which all citizens should appreciate and which entitled the party to further lead society to the goals it defined itself. To admit that the goal was mistaken or at least unrealizable seemed unacceptable. But many Communists began to realize that they had become members of a felonious party that had committed unspeakable crimes. It is impossible to ascertain the number of such people, but they were often active in fields of the humanities: journalists, film directors, scriptwriters, authors, historians, sociologists, university teachers—that is, those who could influence the thought of others, even if only to a limited degree under the conditions of a totalitarian state. Most of them could not accept that those who had answe
red for crimes committed in the name of the Communist regime had gone unpunished, that they still participated in governing the country. At least in the domain of the spirit, they wanted society to be open to the world.
Those who stood at the summit of party power and henceforth considered all similar opinions as revisionist, opportunistic, bourgeois, or Trotskyist at the same time perceived that a good number of intellectuals in the party were “infected” with these opinions. It even seemed that most of the grumbling, most of the dissatisfaction, most of the criticism of the current power was coming not from democratic opponents but from a reckless and unruly section of the party.
The party (and the police) organs were most likely correct in their suspicions. After all, the only remnants of societal criticism (at least those that might be made public) and political life survived precisely in the party itself.
The metamorphosis of disappointed disciples of the Communist vision into its opponents occurred in all countries. Utter disappointment is one of the most powerful experiences, and it is not important whether it is disappointment in faith in man or in an ideal. The most persuasive texts revealing the crimes of communism were written by its former disciples, for example, Arthur Koestler and George Orwell, and, more recently Milovan Djilas. Throughout most of his adult life, Koestler fought against dictatorships, something with which this century is so rich, and compellingly described the monstrous political trials. In 1931 he was still, as a member of the German Communist Party, convinced that communism is the global solution to all problems. In Animal Farm and his celebrated utopian novel 1984, Orwell depicted the horrifying possibilities of totalitarian states and their control over their citizens in both thought and action. During the Spanish Civil War, however, Orwell fought in the militia of the Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification, and until the end of his life he considered himself a Socialist and adherent of that which he called democratic socialism. Milovan Djilas was one of the highest functionaries in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and one of Tito’s closest associates. Even Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who convincingly revealed the criminal foundation of the Communist regime, began as a loyal citizen of the Soviet state. He graduated from the university, joined the Komsomol, and during the war was a decorated captain in the Soviet army. In his polemics with a Czech agent of the Soviet secret police, Tomáš Řezáč, he noted: I know how inexperienced and superficial our understanding of things is; after all, I myself began to sympathize with the unbelievably villainous Leninism. . . . I was entirely and fervently for the defense of Leninism.
As soon as the most brutal terror had passed, the number of Communists who were fed up with the politics of their party began to increase. They considered the leading functionaries and their blindness the greatest danger for the future of the country. The impossibility of founding a new party or establishing a faction within the party itself led to the emergence of groups of party members who were against the dull-witted dogmatism and absolute absence of democratic principles in both the party and society.
After the official party doctrine had rejected its primary ideological pillar—Stalin’s doctrine of the escalating class battle and his method of rule (that is, handing over every critic to the courts and then to the firing squad)—there was only one pillar left, one prophet: Lenin. The founder of the Bolshevik Party and the first architect of revolutionary terror was, after all, more educated than the Georgian seminary dropout. He had lived many years in Europe, even in democratic Switzerland and England. Even though he scorned democracy, his work contained defenses of, or even demands for, open criticism or at least a free exchange of opinions within the party he led. Now members of the party exploited this fact to defend their right to advocate opinions other than those of the leading functionaries.
By invoking Lenin, Communist rebels were demarcating another border they were not willing to cross. Even the most critical pronouncements tried to convince the ruling power that their advocates were actually acting in the interest of socialism, its development and enhancement. Their goal was not to overturn it but merely to return it to its roots. (The poison of these roots had already been forgotten, debilitated by myth.)
One of the leading lights of the nonparty opposition, Václav Havel, expressed his distaste for the “rebelliousness” of the Communists:
Please realize that your relativizing antidogmatism, which admires itself for its tolerance, is tolerant of only one thing: itself, that is, its own attitudinal amorphousness.
Rebellious communists, as long as they stayed in the ruling party, could enjoy many advantages, even rights, that were denied the rest of society. But in order to achieve some sort of change, it was necessary to reestablish an independent, or at least less dependent, judiciary. It was necessary to limit the influence of the semieducated and uncreative party apparatus and abolish censorship, which hindered the free exchange of opinions and the development of the spiritual sphere of life. It was necessary to extricate the economy from its dependence on unattainable long-term plans. All of this the party rebels tried to achieve, sometimes covertly, sometimes more openly. And even though they often invoked Lenin or some party resolution, their demands subverted the foundation of the ideology of exculpatory Communist domination. A totalitarian power cannot coexist with an independent judiciary, with free expression, or with an impugned ideology, which tries to justify its irreplaceable societal mission. Thus it cannot exist without absolute rule.
Dreams and Reality
There are moments in history when it appears that everything that recently seemed like destiny—for example, the unalterable run of everyday events—can be changed. It often seems as if a large part of a generation has been struck by a bedazzling flash of a belief in the possibility of change. People go into ecstasy; the vision of a better society (the bygone image of a paradise that preceded all the toilsome history full of cruelty and suffering) impels them to deeds they couldn’t have imagined only a short time before. Because paradise can exist only in dreams, only in myths, a cruel awaking usually follows, and enthusiasm turns into a hangover. Even in our modern history, such moments of hope flare up.
Our forefathers were at first blinded by a vision of national independence and citizenship within the Slavic tribe, which would gain self-confidence by inclining toward the powerful “Russian Oak.”
In June 1848, the Slavic Congress met in Prague. Pavel Jozef Šafařík read a fanatical speech ending with the challenge: For me it is not the time for long speeches, for artificial speechifying; that is something for another place and time. Only deeds concern us, action. The path from serfdom to freedom is not without struggle—either victory and a free nation or honorable death, and after death glory. The hall erupted in exultation.
Even the pragmatic František Palacký gave way to his feelings:
Something our fathers never dreamed of, something that in our youth kept entering our hearts like a beautiful dream, something we only recently did not dare to long for, today is coming to pass.
Soon after this congress, revolutionary events occurred that were connected with fantasies of establishing a democratic regime. As is well known, the revolution was suppressed (without blood, as is usual in Bohemia). Enthusiasm vanished, the participants in this Slavic and then democratic dream ended up in prison or retired into seclusion. Some—like Sabina—were bought off by the police; others—like Palacký—devoted themselves to scholarship.
Several generations passed without such fantastic visions. Only in 1918, at the end of the First World War, did a moment arrive that seemed to fulfill the dreams of contemporaries and forefathers alike. The Prague people behaved in exemplary fashion, recalls Jan Herben in his biography of Masaryk. They rejoiced, hung banners, sang hymns. (They also destroyed monuments. It’s difficult to understand what was exemplary about the whole thing.)
A few days later the otherwise severely critical historian Josef Pekař gave an impassioned speech on the grounds of the Czech Academy:
The day will come
when they will tell us: You are free! This day of great tidings in which our joy tries to compensate for centuries of oppression and to measure our strength with the pain of entire generations who waited in vain for the morning star of freedom. They tried in vain, for years will pass before we will be able to consider and absorb the entire significance of this historical turnaround, the entire contents of our happiness. For the freedom that greeted us is not the freedom our fathers and grandfathers looked forward to: not freedom within Austria, but freedom from Austria, not the freedom of the feudal classes, but the freedom of all!
It also seemed that 1968 would bring a change that promised to touch the lives of most citizens. Not everyone saw it in the same way, however. For some, this was an attempt to cleanse the image of socialism in which they had once believed. For others, it was hope for the renewal of at least a limited democracy.
Substantial gatherings swelled with supportive petitions; enthusiastic ovations by courageous orators promised the end of dictatorship. A year earlier, people had participated in the May Day celebrations only with distaste. This time they went out spontaneously to emphasize and demonstrate their faith in the new leadership of the country. In an April public opinion poll, three-quarters of respondents expressed support for the process of renewal and the leading politicians Alexander Dubček, Josef Smrkovský, and the newly elected president, General Ludvík Svoboda.
Just as during the time the National Theater was being built and people donated their life savings and jewelry, the Fund of the Republic arose at the impetus of a few enthusiasts and collected almost eighty pounds of gold in two weeks.
When the Czech delegates left for Čierna nad Tisou at the end of July to meet with Soviet potentates, Literární listy accompanied them with a text by Pavel Kohout titled “A Dispatch to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.” This appeal reminded me of our recent and not overly encouraging history: