The communist elites had prepared
and elaborated contingencies for such a forthcoming change of the regime (well,
unless one is ready to conciliate oneself with a belief in a death-wish or
complete ignorance on the part of the Communist regime). In this respect, Milan
Uhde's explanation of the inquisition trial of the Czech priest Jan Hus can be
applied more properly and without any modification to the Velvet Revolution of
1989 in Czechoslovakia:
Let us understand it well: among
the highest representatives ... of power there were also supporters of remedy
and purification. Being realistic politicians, they, however, knew well that
the remedy should be organized, and to organize it is up to the leadership,
otherwise a chaos would arise.[1]
After the XVIIth congress of the
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1986, when the party leadership also
realized its own rapidly growing unpopularity within the party itself, the
Ministry of the Interior was charged with a task of preparing a plan of its
activities within a given time horizon, being that of 1990. As Lorenc later
stated, the main line of "new"
activities stemmed from the "already
clear" further course dictated by foreign factors and, thus, also from
"the foreseen changes in
internal politics of the state" [my italics]; in this regard, an
"opening-up of the country" as if from inside was defined as the
crucial direction.[2]
According to Lorenc, at the same time, the minister of interior Vajnar already
announced in a consultation meeting on the new strategy a "political character of the expected changes."[3] The
first post-Communist Interior Minister, Richard Sachr, commented these
preparatory measures by the Communist police as follows:
On one side there was a
conservative leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, on the other
the state police (StB) with an ability to analyze the current development and
estimate its tendencies. In the last period of the totalitarian regime it was
apparent (sic) that some sectors of the police tried to distance themselves
(sic) from some imprudent steps made by the political leadership.[4]
The new wave of Czech public leaders
was generally recruited from among the signatories of the Charter '77. However, as generally acknowledged, without
powerful extraneous inputs and additional fostering, Charter '77, self-defined
as apolitical and non-oppositional, had very limited capabilities for any
large-scale action; and of the 217 first signatories of Charter '77, 156 were
ex-Communist Party members.[5]
According to Kotas, "Charter 77 was
the brain-child of some prominent personalities of 1968," that is, then leading communist nomenklatura
cadres who were also closely tied to the period of the 1950s or what Kotas
called "a profound anti-democratic past."[6] In
other words, the decade of the 1950s appeared as all too long a period in the
modern history of Czechoslovakia with a striking political perseverance of its
personalities well over 1989 and through all hitherto transformations. Or as
Havel himself put it: "For my part ... I shall always be in some sense
linked to the pseudodialectical tension between dictatorship and the thaw,
between Stalinism and de-Stalinization ..."[7]
In 1986, when apparently selected
groups in the Czechoslovak secret police started working on the "new
political changes" to come by 1990, the Charter 77 did not progress in any
tangible way. There was a stagnant pool of signatories of around 1800. Its
broader influence was without any "visible success."[8] Lorenc
thus concluded that by 1986, when he personally started to deal with this area
of police interest, the Charter "was more calling for opposition than
being it itself;" it was "politically and socially isolated;"
its real active members counted only several dozens, concentrated almost exclusively
in Prague. Lorenc also confirmed that the secret police was present from the
very beginning within the Charter, and police agents were among the first
signatories, while the police network of dissidents was "incessantly
supplied." As a result, the secret police "had an ability to
influence the Charter to a certain extent." In this regard, the goal of
the police was not the liquidation of the oppositionist groups or Charter 77
because "the activity of the Charter or the former Communists, if limited
to isolated groups, represented no danger." In November 1985, Havel
already announced his future role as a new political leader about whose
"very concrete" intentions he, however, refused to speak because
their premature revelation could thwart their realization.[9] In
1986, when the police coincidentally received a new strategy for the period
till 1990 and was charged with its elaboration, new tendencies appeared on the
part of the Charter 77 as well.[10] If in
1986 there were only six oppositionist groups in Czechoslovakia, in 1988, their
number was already 47 and by the middle of 1989 sixty with the police
"having a good control over their activities" and 'trying to have
their agents in each group."[11] Lorenc
also asserted that "it was the secret police themselves that supported
later founding of some of these 'independent' groups.[12] It is
also necessary to note that after 1989, some of the prominent new leaders
appeared as having been registered sometime in the past as "candidates for
the collaboration with the secret police," including Vaclav Havel, Michal
Kocab (a rock musician, Havel's close friend and negotiator of the withdrawal
of the Soviet Army from Czechoslovakia), Zdena Skvorecka-Salivarova (a wife of
the writer Skvorecky and herself a writer), a post-1989 deputy Moldan (an advisor
to Havel and close friend of Pithart, who also threatened the Czechoslovak
journalists with letting check and expose their links with the police due to
his disliking some of the news coverage), Vladimir Meciar, the post-1989 Slovak
Prime Minister, and others. In this regard, Vaclav Havel admitted publicly that
the police were trying to recruit him from the 1950s, and that he was
registered as a candidate in 1965 - for three months.[13]
Coincidentally, the category of "candidate for collaboration" was
afterwards effaced from the law on screening the functionaries on their
possible links with the Communist secret police.[14] Lorenc
commented: "About 3000 candidates for secret collaboration also cooperated
with the counter-intelligence, they were prepared for agents. Those were
assigned different controlling tasks for establishing their abilities and
loyalty."[15]
In
addition, the phenomenon of the governmental Institute of Forecasting also
deserves some attention in this regard because a group of the leading Czech
politicians were after the take-over of 1989 recruited from the cadres of this
single institute: Vaclav Klaus, the Czech Prime Minister since mid-1992, father
of the economic reform and privatisation and also the leader of the ruling
party the Civic Democratic Party; Valter Komarek, the first post-1989
Czechoslovak Deputy Prime Minister and former director of the institute, ;
Vladimir Dlouhy, the Czechoslovak and later Czech minister of economy and
planning, who was previously a deputy director of the institute; and the
current leader of the Czechoslovak Social-Democratic Party and since June 1996
the Chairman of the Czech Parliament. The last three economists were members of
the Communist Party till December 1989. Komarek and Dlouhy were as Communists also
delegated to the first post-Communist Czechoslovak government (Dlouhy was a
chairman of the Communist party organization at the institute). In the past,
Valter Komarek, also one of those Czech politicians who were born in the USSR,
had distinguished himself as an advisor to Fidel Castro in the early 1970s -
roughly at a time when Dlouhy was sent to study at a Catholic university in
Belgium. Interestingly, Mr. Koecher, a top spy of the Czechoslovak Communist
regime, was also assigned to this institute, after his disclosure by the CIA
and imprisonment in the USA and later a short assignment to the intelligence
unit on the USA at the Czechoslovak Ministry of the Interior. After the Velvet
Revolution, Koecher worked as an economic advisor to Vaclav Havel. Coincidentally,
prior to the Velvet Revolution, the Prognostication Institute was also known
and referred to by intelligence officers as "Strougal's institute."
Lubomir Strougal, in 1959 at the age of 34, was propelled as the youngest
member ever into the Czechoslovak Communist government as Minister of
Agriculture. In 1962, he personally assisted in arresting the then Interior
Minister Rudolf Barak and became Interior Minister himself. In April 1968, he
became one of the Deputy Premiers in Cernik's "Prague Spring"
government. In August 1968, he chaired the emergency government sessions in
Prague during the absence of detained leaders and issued a strong condemnation
of the invasion. The post-1968 inquisition committees did not touch him - on
the contrary, he was rewarded for his behaviour by receiving the post of
Czechoslovak Prime Minister while those how supported his appeal condemning the
invasion were punished by being deprived of their jobs, children's prospect to
study, homes etc. In the period 1973-1975, during the illness of the then
president Ludvik Svoboda, he acted as the de
facto head of Czechoslovakia. As Kotas also revealed, Strougal
"personally ensured that the anti-Charter repression after 1977 did not
cross certain limits."[16]
By 1989,
developments began accelerating in the whole of Eastern Europe, as well as in
Czechoslovakia. Vaclav Zajicek, a former chief of the department dealing with
police matters of the Party Central Committee, confirmed that, upon an order of
his superior R. Hegenbart, a political and security overhaul of the country was
drafted in early February 1989. In May 1989, the security apparatus made a
final conclusion that the then communist state and party leadership had
virtually no use value for delivering the change required.[17] There
are also some other indications that May 1989 was the threshold at which the
former power-brokers made their final decisions and the lines were drawn.[18] In the
summer, Pavel Tigrid, a leading anticommunist emigrant, wrote in his journal Svedectvi in the summer of 1989 that
Havel was to be president, not Dubcek.[19] At this
time, the existing Communist leadership was transferred on the list of its expandable assets by
Moscow that needed a peace in this part of Europe": the Secretary General
of the party, Milos Jakes, was not allegedly denied a reception by Gorbachev
who was said not to accept even Jakes's
telephone greetings during a vacation in the USSR in the summer 1989.
Shortly after, a videotape and cassette with a compromising speech of Jakes delivered
at a closed Communist meeting in Cerveny Hradek was released to the public with
a mediation of the Charter 77 (Sasa Vondra). It seems quite probable that on
this very occasion, Jakes himself was either drunk or drugged.[20]
This was followed by a visit of
Lorenc to Moscow in September 1989 where Lorenc met with the highest men of the
KGB, including its chairman Krjuckov, both first deputies of Krjuckov and the
chief of counter-intelligence Grusko. Hegenbart, the highest party executive
dealing with police matters, later said that at that time Lorenc proposed to
him a "pact" against the nominal Communist leadership.
This was also followed by an
appearance of the so-called initiative MOST (written all in capital letters
like another 'initiative' STUHA - coincidentally also the practice used by the
ministry of interior for coding its own actions, as evidenced in the referred
book by Alojz Lorenc). This initiative MOST (meaning "bridge")
represented by a rock musician Michael Kocab and Michal Horacek, a journalist,
is essentially a story of how a part of the Communist establishment found a
"bridge" to personal contacts with the "official" dissent.[21] This
rapid succession of events was wounded up by the Soviet-American summit in
Malta (actually on a US navy ship) in December 1989 wrapped up in a slogan
"from Yalta to Malta."[22] The
development progressed to such an extent that, in early November 1989,
dissident Jiri Krizan could report to Sasa Vondra, the current first deputy
foreign minister of the Czech Republic, that "signs of dialogue had
appeared: Evzen Erban [a member of the highest political circle of the regime]
had invited Havel to an obscure party (with his wife in the role of an oriental
dancer!)."[23] In
October 1989, Pavel Bratinka, a dissident to become a deputy foreign minister,
announced on a forum in Italy that the
regime would soon collapse, and that then Communist leader M. Jakes would be
succeeded by K. Urbanek - that also happened.[24] The
leadership of the Communist party actually knew at least two weeks ahead about
the foreseen massive manifestations in Prague that materialized after November
17, 1989.[25] In
addition, they also correctly estimated beforehand the number of participants
in the manifestation at 50,000.[26]
The official demonstration of 17
November 1989 was organized, legitimized and logistically secured by the Prague
organization of the Union of Socialist Youth, whose leader Vasil Mohorita was
then a member of the highest ruling communist circle and, later, one of the
leaders of the post-November communist party. As Karel Steigerwald, one of the
protagonist of the velvet take-over, put it, not only was the procession of
students led "according to the police plans," but also the leadership
of the Communist youth organization carried out "a remarkable role of the
Trojan horse."[27] As the
then leader of the Union of the Social Youth, Martin Ulcak said:
Together with the university
council of Prague and independent students [mostly dissidents' children], we
had prepared the action for quite a good time ahead ... Three days before it
[was to take place] we were even told that this manifestation could be
culmination point in the development of this state ... This became even a
slogan, almost all the [high] functionaries kept saying: 'Beware of it ... it
could also be a complete tragedy.[28]
The co-organizer cryptically named
"STUHA" (presumably derived from two Czech words denoting
"student movement") did not represent more than a handful of students
who were the children of famous Czech dissidents (Marek Benda, Martin Benda,
Martin Klima, Pavel Dobrovsky, Monika Pajerova, Simon Panek). STUHA was
"founded" in two meetings on September 28, 1989 and October 9, 1989 -
coincidentally after Lorenc had returned from his visit to Moscow. The first
"conspiratory" session took place in a restaurant - it was a public
secret that all Prague restaurants were under watch of the StB. Soon after the
foundation of STUHA, these self-appointed representatives managed to have
"negotiations" in cafes with the university council of the Communist
youth organization of Prague (Vladena Mejtska and Martin Mejstrik who after
November 17, 1989, changed the "sides" and led the student strike).
STUHA was immediately accepted by
these junior representatives of the regime as a legitimate partner for the
action whose "legality" would take care of the Communist youth
organization. The only purpose of this strange grouping STUHA, as later turned
out, was the facilitation of the manifestation of November 17, 1989. Among the public,
STUHA itself remained largely an unknown entity. On November 9, 1989, the
selected members of STUHA met with the "whole representation" of the
Prague leadership of the Communist youth organization (Martin Ulcak, Jan
Dahnel, Jiri Jaskmanicky, Martin Mejstrik and others). There it was
"agreed" (sic) that in Prague prior the planed manifestation,"
all prohibitive measures be lifted for the success of the action.
Understandably, none of these "negotiators" had a mandate to do so.
Such a facilitation of the action could come only as a blessing from the
highest Communist leadership.[29]
The participation in the demonstration was
really massive, perhaps also because many activists and members of the
Communist youth organization were summoned there by their youth activists and
leaders.[30]
Coincidentally, the demonstration was then led towards Wenceslas Square along a
curious detour of several miles, winding up on National Boulevard, where the
head of the march was cut off and several hundred people were severely beaten
by the police. By that time, the great majority of the marchers (including most
communist youth activists) had already gone home. The police had been ready,
waiting for their victims at the 'rendez-vous' several hours before the
demonstrators had even started to gather in distant Visehrad; coincidentally,
the doors of the neighbouring houses had been also locked well in advance.
A StB lieutenant, Ruzicka/Zifcak,
was one of those who headed the demonstration towards National Boulevard, where
he pretended to succumb to the violence of his colleagues and posed himself as
dead.[31] A
short-lived but crucial myth of a murdered student and, thus, the take-over was
born on the basis of the emotional (false) appeal and the public relations of
actors.[32] On
November 17, 1989, probably for the first time in the history of the regime,
the Czechoslovak Ministry of the Interior was evacuated by its highest
management, and for the first time, its analytical department did not have to
make any analysis - the situation was apparently sufficiently clear beforehand
to the top, and nothing else was required in this regard.[33] Except
for a small number of "official" dissidents (one of them, Vaclav
Benda, later claimed that he was during the manifestation as
"usually" tapping in to the StB from his presumably StB-tapped
apartment),[34] all of
them left Prague for about one day. Immediately, theatres were turned into an
emergency stage for closing down the
Communist regime, and "student guards" appeared at entrances to
university facilities. Evidently, the strategy was well poised to effectively
mobilize and respond to the cultural and behavioral patterns of the Czechs. For
a while, the Czech anthem and symbolism were revived with ardour. Three years
later, Czech enthusiasm and pride were muffled as 'untimely' or potentially
disruptive in dissolving the federation without a people's vote. As Lorenc
stressed, "the philosophy of the intelligence services" lies in
"efforts to arrange things in such a way that deliberately prepared things
should appear on the surface as phenomena of normal life, or as coincidences;
what matters is to unveil regularity in coincidental phenomena."[35]
Interestingly, Soviet
lieutenant-general Teslenko was present in the police headquarters of the
operation, while Alojz Lorenc was permanently on the telephone in the presence
of a Soviet delegation headed by general V. Grusko, the chief of the second
directory of the KGB and deputy chairman of the KGB. The Soviet delegation
departed from Prague on November 18, 1989[36] - and Czechoslovakia
was about to leave the Soviet Empire as its asset was to be entrusted into
Havel's hands as its care-taker. As Michaels Simmons, a personal acquaintance
of Havel and his biographer put it:
In a moment, when Gorbachev
placed an unbounded full power (sic) into Havel's hands, he might retreat and
let Havel cope with this situation. At one time, future historians will have to
examine carefully what and by whose hand was written on the other side of this
authorization, but the confidence and determination of Havel and others at the
time when the revolutionary flow was moving towards one apparently
unproblematic goal, indicate that Mikhail Gorbachev was merely one of those who
quietly supported all this from Moscow.[37]
In this way, Simmons claims that the
Soviet leadership, including the KGB and the Warsaw Pact command, prevented an
"uncontrollable" development in Prague and "curbed" the
Communist regime of Czechoslovakia. Understandably, the most precarious thing
was to exclude the possibility of having the velvet take-over suppressed by the
action of the army generally suspected as the force most loyal to the state.[38] Thus,
it seems that, during the takeover, the Soviets and police security were most
concerned with keeping close watch over the army - their nominal former ally.
Coincidentally, Rudolf Hegenbart, the then chief of the 13th department of the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (responsible for
internal affairs), later told the Parliamentary committee that he too was at
the time of the regime forthcoming collapse busy entertaining a delegation from
the USSR - allegedly, somewhere outside Prague.[39]
Hegenbart, assuming the stature of an eminence
gris, frequently figures prominently in the annals of the revolution.[40] It may
be noted in this regard that a second parliamentary committee for the
investigation of the mystery of the "velvet" takeover conspicuously
denied and avoided some of the most striking facts pointing towards the
involvement or presence of the KGB, as established by the first parliamentary
committee.[41]
Danisz, who later appeared on the
lists of StB agents, was quoted as advising his colleagues in the Parliamentary
Committee: "Vasek Havel once told me: You should keep your hands off this
Hegenbart, he has done for you [plural in Czech] so much that one day, when we
tell it all, you will be astonished. For the time being, we have to keep
silent."[42]
Similarly, another lawyer-member of the committee, Motejl, stated that Vaclav
Havel told him already in December 1989: "Hegenbart is not so bad as those
others."[43] During
further discussions in the Parliamentary Committee investigating the 17th of
November 1989, Danisz was obliged to reinforce his argument:
Somebody needed that [things]
change here ... That we avoided a bloodshed like that in Romania, is a credit
to the one who organized the coup ...
But are you guys crazy? To be sure, we received freedom completely free of
charge, in comparison with others.
Why should we sue someone, who gave us such a push, for a few broken bones? ...
You cannot find the truth anyway. It is too early for it. It could damage many
myths ... Myths are sometimes very constructive and useful [my italics].[44]
And
again later:
Guys,
you should understand that if it turned out that this revolution was made by
Lorenc and Hegenbart, it would impair a good thing. There is no sense in
breaking myths prematurely. People believe that it is the work of students and
the Civic Forum, so why should we take these beliefs away from them? ... Vasek
Havel will not be happy if Hegenbart too is to be compromised.[45]
Moreover, according to Karel
Steigerwald, an actor of the velvet pass-over, "in the most critical
moment, it was Ladislav Adamec (Czechoslovak Communist Prime Minister) who
played a very important role ," "reminding [Steigerwald] of Heinrich
Himmler." This Adamec's role consisted in inviting a delegation of the
Civic Forum created in the evening on November 19, 1989 to a meeting on
November 21, 1989, when understandably only a limited number of people knew at
all about this new political formation.[46] In a
crucial time, an intervention of the new Communist leader, Karel Urbanek in the
favour of the dissidents' demands effectively undermined the line of the last
defence of the government.[47]
On 29 December 1989, the Communist
Czechoslovak Parliament elected unanimously
- at "gun point" of the TV cameras -
Vaclav Havel for president after the calls for a people's vote had been
rejected with arguments that it would be "too complicated," "untimely" or
"costly."[48] Similar
arguments were later used for preventing a referendum on the breakup of the
country. It was clear that at that time Havel would hardly be the people's
choice. The parallels in this regard are ominous and reveal one pattern of cowardice
and its continuity on the part of the elite and its inability to have any
stable content of their own even if it were at least a matter of personal
dignity. The message is quite evident: the elite's value or pride is not to
have any; it is Heidegger's imperative of standpoint without standpoint in the
Böhmisch practice. Slavomir Ravik summarized:
So,
the post-February parliament with the same composition and opposition deputies
approved the [victorious Communist] government of Gottwald [after the Communist
take-over in 1948]. Then, twenty years later, one and the same assembly
applauded the new government of Cernik, excelled by an incessant session during
the [Soviet] occupation [in 1968], then approved the same occupation, commanded
the changes in the government, and welcomed A. Dubcek only to dissociate
themselves from him and to play its tragic role until the end. And so in the
same way, the post-November parliament, complemented by adopted deputies,
elected ... Vaclav Havel as president as it would have voted for Ladislav
Adamec or Alexander Dubcek.[49]
Communism in Czechoslovakia, as well
in other Eastern European countries thus ceased to exist in the fast pace of
developments. However, neither the Czechs nor the Slovaks appeared to be lucky
in the same measure when, on 1 January 1993, they found themselves without
their common state, being fenced off in two different entities, with their
manifest, yet not prevailing wills in support of the common state not
considered. While the authorities asserted that the Slovaks had never really
identified themselves with Czechoslovakia (Havel, Pithart, Klaus),
nevertheless, several years after the breakup, around sixty percent of Slovaks
kept preferring a common federation with the Czechs.[50] And
during the last Czechoslovak elections of 1992, even the Slovak nationalist
party (SNS) did not advocate a split of the country. In fact, no party had a
breakup in its program, nor had the two victorious republican parties of Klaus
and Meciar who, immediately after the elections, confronted the people with the
fait accompli of their new agenda.
Nick Thorpe, a Canadian correspondent, noted that a wide-spread "nostalgia
for Czechoslovakia was evident at the very start of the Czech Republic ...
Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, the father of the Czechoslovak state in 1918 must be
turning in his grave at recent developments."[51]
In this light, Danisz's thesis about
freedom given to the people of Czechoslovakia "for nothing and free"
may be reconsidered. In particular, Havel himself later invalidated Danisz's
maxim in his New Year's address to the nation on January 1, 1994 by stating
that the division of Czechoslovakia was "a levy for us to pay for our
post-November freedom."[52]
Importantly, however, there was a conspicuous unwillingness to reveal the
nature of the "levy" for the nation to pay both on the part of the
former power-holders and the new ones. As Bartuska put it, none of these old or new politicians
"was interested in the truth," irrespective of their Communist or
post-Communist labels. Bartuska concluded: "When the new ruler conceals
the practices of his predecessor it is high time to think."[53] The
truth of the split as a levy or rent to be paid was also indicated by Ivan
Svitak, the Marxist insightful foreteller of the changes: "Whoever thinks
of November 1989 as a local phenomenon without global connection with the
superpowers is a calibrated ass."[54]
All this raises for all us the
very crucial question posed by Barry Cooper with regard to nihilism and its
"ass-worshipping" by the Last Men: Who is stupid? What is serious?
And can the stupid (ass) rule?[55]
5 [5]
See ibid.., pp. 8, 97. Thus, according to the Declaration of the Charter 77 of
January 1, 1977, "With regard to the alleged contesting of the leading
role of the Communist party (article 4 of the Constitution), it is necessary to
state explicitly that there is no single statement made by the Charter that
would alow such an interpretation ... The leading role of the party is, of
course, not only compatible with but it can even be based on respecting human
rights ..."[Kniha Charty, Hlasy z
domova 1976/1977, (Koln: Index,1977), p. 166]
6 [6]
Jiri V. Kotas, Czechoslovakia's
Crossroads in the Twentieth Century (a personal essay), op. cit., pp.
34-35.
7 [7]
Antonin J. Liehm, eds., The Politics of
Culture, (New York: Grove Press,
1968), p. 389. Havel, who, as we have seen, hailed himself repeatedly for the
incredible infallibility of his opinions after 1989, also stated: "I was
always in favour of socialism in the sense of nationalization of major means of
production. Perhaps it may seem like opportunism for me to say this today, or
then again perhaps not ..." [Ibid., p. 380] Some of the leading
politicians whose political profiles began being formed in the Stalinist 1950s
and who reemerged as new political leaders of the nation after 1989 include M.
Uhde, a chairman of the Czech parliament who was one the main
"negotiators" of the breakup;
Z. Jicinsky, a leading member of the parliament who was a co-author of
the Communist constitution of 1960, the constitutional act of 1968 (federation)
and constitutional documents after 1989; Pavel Rychetsky, an expert on the
Communist law, and Ladislav Lis who in the 1950s participated in the campaign
against the "Zionist traitors" and after 1989 was instrumental in
undermining the defence ministry. [See Miroslav Vacek, Proc bych mel mlcet, (Praha:
NADAS, 1991), pp. 89-90] Alojz Lorenc also confirmed that the
"purges" on the Ministry of the Interior after 1989 were directed and
carried out by people who served with the secret police in the 1950s. [Alojz
Lorenc, Ministerstvo strachu:
Neskartovane vzpominky generala Lorence, op. cit., p. 182] Additionally,
Kotas also observed that the leaders from the Prague Spring of 1968 were also
recruited from the cadres of the 1950s. [Jiri V. Kotas, Czechoslovakia's Crossroads in the Twentieth Century (a personal essay),
p. 27] Pithart justified this remarkable tenacity of the Communist cadres from
the 1950s in the following way: "without their experience (sic) with the
functioning of the power mechanisms, which nothing can substitute, any more
broadly founded protest movement would soon become extinct." [Petr
Pithart, Dejiny a politika, op. cit.,
p. 312]
10[10]
Lorenc, Ministerstvo strachu, op.
cit., p. 98. Lorenc's evaluation was confirmed by H. Gordon Skilling, a
Canadian expert on Czechoslovakia with close connections with the dissidents,
see H.Gordon Skilling, Samizdat and an
Independent Society in Central and Eastern Europe, (Colombus: Ohio State
University Press, 1989), p. 39: thus, on the eve of the Velvet Revolution he
himself saw the dissident culture living in a "kind of ghetto, almost
unknown to the general public" that, however also isolated the public from
a better insight into the nature of their programs. The limited scope of clout
on the part of the Charter was also acknowledged by the dissidents themselves,
moreover, expressing this in the same way as Lorenc: "the range of influence
of the Charter is limited, the number of signatories is stagnating ...
(1987)." [Vojtech Mencl, Milos Hajek, Milan Otahal and Erika Kadlecova, Krizovatky 20. stoleti: Svetlo na bila mista
v nejnovejsich dejinach, op. cit., p. 335] The same vision of the Charter
77 as an "isolated ghetto" by other dissidents-organizers of the
Charter 77, see also Karel and Ivan Kyncl,
Po jaru prisla zima: aneb Zamysleni nad vlastni knizkou o Charte 77, (Praha: Art Servis,1990), pp. 80, 81, 111. On
the "elitist" character of the Charter 77 see ibid., p. 164; on its
background see ibid., pp. 159-164. On the expectation of the changes within the
Charter as early as 1980, that were to happen in 1988 or 1989, see ibid., p.
179.
13[13]
See Slavomir Ravik, Bylo nebylo v
listopadu 1993,, (Praha: Alternativy, 1993), p. 42; Slavomir Ravik, Totalni deziluze, (Praha: Prazska
imaginace, 1992), pp. 48-49, 74; In this
regard, Havel declared that for a person, who is unveiled to the public as an
agent, "the whole world collapses" even "if he did not do
anything." [Slavomir Ravik, Bylo
Nebylo v prosinci 1993, (Praha: Alternativy, 1993), p. 43] As a matter of
fact, approximately at the same time, in 1965, Havel was "invited to
join" a progressive cultural journal
Tvar, however, under a
condition that he join the official Writers' Union, to which Havel replied:
"I knew all this - no one had tried to hide the utilitarian aspects of the
invitation - and I accepted because, as I quickly found out after a few
preliminary meetings with the new editorial board, their aims appealed to me in
every way, and in fact were close to mine. This was something quite new in the
Writers' Union; it was the only grouping of people on Union territory that I
felt I could work with and identify with, without any inner reservations. It
was a step that turned out to be far more important in my life than it first
appeared to be. ... at the same time, it was the beginning of something deeper
- my involvement in cultural and civic politics - and it ultimately led to my
becoming a 'dissident'." [Vaclav Havel, Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Hvizdala, (New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), pp. 76-77]
16[16]
Jiri V. Kotas, Czechoslovakia's
Crossroads in the Twentieth Century (a personal essay), op. cit., p. 41.
17[17]
Vaclav Bartuska, Polojasno: Patrani po
vinicich 17. listopadu 1989, (Exlibris: Praha 1990), p. 95. From the early 1989, Lorenc also recorded his
conversation with the then Secretary general of the Communist Party of
Czechoslovakia, Milos Jakes, that apparently preceded a short Havel's
detainment from February to May 1989:
18Jakes Would not it possible to prosecute only
people around Havel? And to leave Havel out ..?
19Lorenc
... it can hardly go.
20Jakes It has to be done with a political
effectiveness.
21[Alojz
Lorenc, Ministerstvo strachu, op.
cit., p. 66]
22[18]
Thus, for example, Martin Ulcak, the then leader of the Communist youth
organization informed the parliamentary committee of the investigation of the
November events that, at least since May 1989, the "reformist group in the
leadership had been ready for the fact that [the takeover] would start."
These leaders of the Communist youth organization also played a crucial role in
the Velvet Revolution helping to organize and legitimize the connection between
the dissidents and the public. [Vaclav Bartuska, Polojasno: Patrani po vinicich 17. listopadu 1989,op. cit., p. 92]
23[19]
See Zdenek Jicinsky, Cs. parlament v
polistopadovem obdobi, (Nadas - Afgh. s.r.o.: Praha, 1993), p. 1989. Marta
Kubisova, a Czech pop singer, persecuted under the Communist regime, who in November
1989 was instrumental for the managing of the public manifestations, reported
that, during an interrogation by the police in June 1989, a policeman told her
to be patient for another half a year. She therefore concluded that the Velvet
Revolution was a "beforehand planned reaction [to an arranged
provocation]." [Karel Hvizdala, Vyslech
revolucionaru z listopadu 1989, op. cit., p. 73] During the summer 1989,
Jan Rejzek, a Czech journalist, managed to publish "smartly" the
proposal of having Havel for the next head of state. [Ibid., p. 44] Further, in
early 1989, after his detainment, Havel was nominated by Karel Kyncl, a Charter
77 activist, for president in the British Independent.
[Michaels Simmons, Nesmely prezident -
The Reluctant President, (Praha: Volvox Globator, 1993), p. 26] As a matter
of fact, in the summer of 1989, T-shirts were distributed among the dissidents
and related groups with a slogan "Havel for president." At the same
time, one of the apparently best people in Prague was a vendor in one newspaper
and tobacco kiosks in Prague 4 who asserted that Havel was earmarked for
president, and that it would happen when to most people it sounded like a joke.
The story of a kiosk vendor is a fact confirmed by personal experience.
24[20]
Cf. for example, Marek Benda, Martin Benda, Martin Klima, Pavel Dobrovsky,
Monika Pajerova, Simon Panek, Roman Kriz, Studenti
psali revoluci, (Praha: Univerzum,
1990), p. 178.
25[21]
On the interpretation of this story by M. Horacek see, for example, Michal
Horacek, Jak pukaly ledy, (Praha: Ex
libris, 1990).
27[23]
S. Vondra's own wording is here reproduced as cited in Karel Hvizdala, Vyslech revolucionaru z listopadu 1989,
(Art-Servis: Praha, 1990), p. 2. After 1989, Jiri Krizan became one of the most
important advisors to Havel, and his task was to "supervise" the
Ministry of the Interior. As indicated above, Evzen Erban was a former agent
working for the occupation regime of the Nazis during the war, later hired by
the Soviets. In 1948, he worked as a leading Communist agent in the leadership
of the social-democratic party. [See Jiri V. Kotas, Czechoslovakia's Crossroads in the Twentieth Century (a personal essay),
op. cit., pp. 11,13] Clearly, the invitation, as well as the character of the
"party" seem to suggest a certain advanced form of mutual
acquaintance and intimacy.
28[24]
M. Otahal and Z. Sladek, eds., Deset
prazskych dnu (17.-27. listopad 1989), (Praha: Academia, 1990), p. 570.
30[26]
M. Otahal and Z. Sladek, eds., Deset
prazskych dnu (17.-27. listopad 1989), (Praha: Academia, 1990), p. 560.
32[28]
Vaclav Bartuska, Polojasno: Patrani po
vinicich 17. listopadu 1989, op. cit., p. 91. See ibid,, p. 91, on the
imperative of the official approval of the manifestation of November 17, 1989
so that the number of participants could reach the required threshold, and, as
a result, enough attention and publicity would be secured.
33[29]
On the curious phenomenon of STUHA see an account of its own members in Marek
Benda, Martin Benda, Martin Klima, Pavel Dobrovsky, Monika Pajerova, Simon
Panek, Roman Kriz, Studenti psali
revoluci, (Praha: Univerzum, 1990), especially pp. 20-21, 23; M. Otahal and Z. Sladek, eds., Deset prazskych dnu (17.-27. listopad 1989),
op. cit., pp. 558-569.
34[30]
On the importance of the role played by the leaders of the Communist
"youth" see, for example, Marek Benda, Martin Benda, Martin Klima,
Pavel Dobrovsky, Monika Pajerova, Simon Panek, Roman Kriz, Studenti psali revoluci, op. cit. Besides a tiny Socialist Party of
Czechoslovakia, which was represented by its chairman during the foundation of
the Civic Forum - in a police-guarded theatre on November 19, 1989, the
official Communist youth broke the "official" line by denouncing the
police action against the student manifestation in its newspaper on November
20, 1989. [Cf. M. Otahal and Z. Sladek, Deset prazskych dnu, op. cit., pp. 597,
615] On the same day, the then chairman of this Czechoslovak youth organization
and member of the secretariat of the central committee of the party, Vasil
Mohorita, made an encouraging speech on the Wenceslav square where he also
denounced the police action. He also helped in installing audio equipment on
the square. This greatly helped to get the cautious public into motion and into
streets. [Marek Benda, Martin Benda, Martin Klima, Pavel Dobrovsky, Monika
Pajerova, Simon Panek, Roman Kriz, Studenti
psali revoluci, op. cit., p. 95] Immediately after the foundation of the
Civic Forum, it was Mohorita together with the then Prime Minister Ladislav
Adamec, who established the Forum as a counter-partner representing the
Czechoslovak people for the government. [Ibid., p. 99] The youth organization
declared its support of the ensuing student strike. It also produced and
distributed across Czechoslovakia appeals for a strike and information
bulletins. Apparently, without the technical, logistic and organizational help
of the Communist "junior" activists, the strike could not take place.
[See ibid., p. 101] Jakub Mejdricky, a Communist youth leader (member of the
central committee) and then leader of the student strike, was known as a
frequent traveller to the USSR since his age of 16, where he admired "deep
Siberian forests, wild rivers ..." He was also a member of a student
delegation that went to Moscow on November 28, 1989, that is, with his "friends
from his previous travels to the USSR. (Their achievement can be appreciated
only by those who had an opportunity to experience the Soviet visa system.)
[Ibid., pp. 117, 129] Miroslav Vacek also stressed that Mohorita, for a while
the leader of the post-1989 Communist party, was "crucial in the
appeasement of the Communist parliamentary members with electing Havel as
president in December 1989." [Miroslav Vacek, Na rovinu: Bez studu a prikras, (Praha: Periskop, 1994), p. 175]
36[32]
A secret-police-ensured disinformation in the first decisive moments in this
regard is relatively well transparent in the account of its then chief as
presented in Alojz Lorenc, Ministerstvo
strachu, op. cit., pp. 164-166, 169. Bartuska noted: "History was not
moved by the Friday beating [November 17, 1989], but only by this short piece
of information [of an allegedly killed student]." [Vaclav Bartuska, Polojasno: Patrani po vinicich 17. listopadu
1989, op. cit., pp. 98-99] "If not for the brutal suppression of the
demonstration, the information about the dead student would arouse strong
doubts. On the contrary, it could hardly be an improvisation ... it was too
great a coincidence that [a person who was to invent the story] met so quickly
somebody from the circle of the Charter [77]." [Ibid., p. 155] Moreover,
the mother of Martin Smid, the student who was supposed to be killed, announced
as early as the evening of November 18, 1989, in the Realistic Theatre [again
another theatre ], that her son was alive - Havel was present there, his
spokesman Zantovsky, later the Czech Ambassador to the USA, refused the
evidence of Smid's mother: "No, I have it confirmed, if it were a hoax, I
would be out of the job tomorrow." Smid's mother also personally spoke
with Havel, but in vain: "They held a commemoration ceremony for my son
[instead]." The other units of the police also established by the evening
of November 18, 1989 that Martin Smid lived. The information was, however, ignored
[by other police?]. [Ibid., p. 60] Zifcak-StB-agent-imposter of Smid was one of
the leaders of the Independent Student Association [STUHA?] that was signed as
a co-organizer of the manifestation and he himself brought this declaration to
the Charter spokeswoman Dana Nemcova for its emitting by the Radio Free
Europe. But he did not
"remember" this before the parliamentary investigation committee. He
was also one of those who were leading the manifestation towards the police
clubs. [Ibid., pp. 190, 199] When Zifcak was exposed by students themselves,
the then minister of interior flew to see Zifcak personally before his hearing
and had several-hours' consultation with Havel about the same: as a result, it
was ordered to the parliamentary committee that nothing can be published.
[Ibid., 202] Lorenc also confirmed that the crucial "coincidence" was
this bluff with a dead student. As Lorenc lauded it, it was "quite a good
combination." Allegedly, the StB was not behind it [alone?]. Lorenc then quotes one of the post-Communist
leaders who was to say - also rather symbolically: "So what, we do need
some corpse." [Alojz Lorenc,
Ministerstvo strachu, op. cit., pp. 174-175] Again coincidentally, Marek
Benda, a dissident's son and member of STUHA and Martin Smid were studying
together in the same program. [Martin Benda, Martin Klima, Pavel Dobrovsky,
Monika Pajerova, Simon Panek, Roman Kriz, Studenti
psali revoluci, op. cit., p. 34]
37[33]
Ibid., p. Vaclav Bartuska, Polojasno:
Patrani po vinicich 17. listopadu 1989, Exlibris, Praha 1990, p. 113.
38[34]
Karel Hvizdala, Vyslech revolucionaru z
listopadu 1989, op. cit., p. 16. Moreover, Vaclav Benda, who later became
the leader of the Catholic-Democratic party, also revealed that one day before
the manifestation, on November 16, 1989, he had in his apartment a "dramatic negotiation" with a member
of the central committee of the Communist youth organization (perhaps, Mohorita
or Ulcak). Present was also a prominent dissident Rudolf Battek, later a leader
of the social-democrats. They discussed last organizational arrangements of the
manifestation, especially, with regard to its "management and
control" on the spot. Allegedly, and also understandably, the man from the
official power structure had for this meeting a mandate from "high"
places, including a "certain mandate from the secrete police
(security)." It was confirmed that no "preventive arrests and
restraining of the movement of the activists would take place," as well as
"the police would not in any form visible" - perhaps inside the
procession. On November 18, 1989, one day after the manifestation and its
brutal dispersal by the police, this mysterious man as if taken directly out of
Havel's play The Conspirators,
expressed to the dissidents a gratitude for keeping their agreement, while the
police were to provide Benda with a close personal guard. On the eavesdropping
on the Czechoslovak secret police, Benda commented: "As was my habite
during such occasions, I was listening to the radio connections of the secrete
police which followed the manifestation. Charmingly, there mobile stations have
a code name Katan (Executor)." [Ibid., p. 16] This revolutionary
"fair-tale" is quite impressive, one only suspects that Hollywood
would perhaps deem this piece perhaps too cheap a plot to be worth considering
for a new movie with James Bond.
39[35]
Alojz Lorenc, Ministerstvo strachu,
op. cit., pp. 41-42. The same
"philosophy" of rejecting a phenomenon of coincidence was embraced by
the former dissidents-current-elite. See, for example, Vaclav Belehradsky, Myslet zelen sveta, op. cit., p.
58; Vaclav Havel, Letters to Olga, op. cit., pp. 237-238; Vaclav Havel, Living in truth: Twenty-two essays published
on the occasion of the reward of Erasmus Prize to Vaclav Havel, op. cit.,
pp. 282-284, 287-288: here a close Havel's friend Zdenek Urbanek argues that
"there is no such thing as 'coincidence';" coincidence [in the
Universal and Homogenous State, we can add] is a phenomenon that is merely
"not sufficiently researched" (or investigated); consequently, as
Urbanek maintains, "coincidence ...
should be excluded from the vocabulary of meaningful terms or concepts."
This poses for us an important question: is there such a thing as a free-willed
betrayal of the Hegelian slave? Apparently, the answer is negative.
40[36]
Bartuska, Polojasno: Patrani po vinicich 17. listopadu
1989, op. cit., p. 138. Lorenc, op. cit., p. 160.
42[38]
Ibid., p. 13. The contacts between the Civic Forum and the Soviets during the
take-over were numerous. On the Soviet side, it seemed that the chief concern
was to prevent anything or anybody (like
the Workers' Militia, army or naive Communists] that would complicate a smooth
passing-over of power. See, for example, Marek Benda, Martin Benda, Martin
Klima, Pavel Dobrovsky, Monika Pajerova, Simon Panek, Roman Kriz, Studenti psali revoluci, op. cit., p.
99; Oskar Krejci, Jak to prasklo,
(Praha: Trio, 1991), pp. 27, 103. Vaclav Havel's brother Ivan Havel, already
mentioned here in connection with the manufacturing of the police ciphering
computer, was assigned as a negotiator or liaison officer with the Soviet
Embassy in Prague. Ivan Havel also designed the organizational structure of the
Civic Forum. [Karel Hvizdala, Vyslech
revolucionaru z listopadu 1989, op. cit., p. 47] Coincidentally, Ivan
Klima, a dissident writer, had one day after the student manifestation, on
November 18, 1989, a meeting with "a Soviet literature critic
Semjonova" as if the whole day and later became a member of the Civic
Forum committee for political strategy. [Ibid., p. 48]
44[40]
Inter alia, Hegenbart's
"people" were said to be "detaining" delegates to a crucial
session of the central committee of the Communist party on November 23-24, 1989, at a time when a
certain possibility existed that the then Minister of Defence might intervene.
The detained delegates were then "instructed" (apparently by the
means of appropriate persuasion methods) "how to behave." As a
result, the whole presidium of the central committee resigned as required.
[Karel Hvizdala, Vyslech revolucionaru z
listopadu 1989, op. cit., p. 47]
46[42]
Bartuska, Polojasno: Patrani po vinicich 17. listopadu
1989, op. cit.., p. 174. According to Miroslav Dolejsi, a Czech analyst and
long-time prisoner under the Communist regime, the creation of the Civic Forum
on November 19, 1989, was helped by the secret police, apparently not only logistically. [Stredocesky Expres, October 29, 1990, pp. 1, 8] A film director J.
Svoboda, who was personally involved in the creation of the Civic Forum, the
new ruling body, later became a chairman of the post-1989 Communist Party of
Czechoslovakia. [See Z. Jicinsky, Cs.
parlament v polistopadovem obdobi, op. cit., pp. 36-37] In addition, the
Civic Forum, seemingly a chaotic organization, was actually organized in a
rather smart way. It created a number of redundant "commissions" that
consumed energy and time of other political streams and groups by charging them
with laborious and essentially unneeded tasks. These commissions, in turn, also
tied attention to these spurious bodies that presented seemingly important
centres of the revolution. In fact, they were side-lined and served as a cover.
These tactics allowed the real centre of decisions related to Vaclav Havel,
Jiri Krizan and Sasa Vondra to follow its deliberate and firmly settled
strategy without interference and to carry out the arranged take-over of power
in cooperation with the government. [See M. Otahal and Z. Sladek, Deset prazskych dnu, op. cit., pp. 577,
617-621, 632]
48[44]
Bartuska, Polojasno: Patrani po vinicich 17. listopadu
1989, op. cit., pp. 86-87. Danisz was Havel's lawyer and was later exposed
as a collaborator of the secret police.
The parliamentary investigation committee itself was greatly under
control of StB agents, its own members. See Alojz Lorenc, Ministerstvo strachu, op. cit., p. 17.
49[45]
Bartuska, Polojasno: Patrani po vinicich 17. listopadu
1989, op. cit., pp. 202-3. Evidently, Danisz was responsible for informing
Havel about the work of the parliamentary investigation committee. Later, it
was revealed that, on the evening of November 27, 1989, Hegenbart organized a
party celebrating "the Victorious November" in his apartment together
with members of the dissident ex-Communist group Obroda (Revival) among which there were allegedly at least three
agents of the secret police. [Zemedelske
noviny, November 17, 1995, p. 3]
50[46]
Cf. Michal Horacek, Jak pukaly ledy,
(Praha: Ex libris, 1990), pp. 59-81; M.
Otahal and Z. Sladek, Deset prazskych dnu,
op. cit., pp. 585, 587; Karel Hvizdala, Vyslech
revolucionaru z listopadu 1989, op. cit., pp. 42. On 21 November, 1989,
Adamec was still afraid to receive Havel himself, as a result, Havel had to
wait in a vestibule of the building of the Presidium of the Government. Thus,
Jiri Bartoska, an actor, took part in this first meeting instead of Havel as
"a less politically engaged personality." However, Adamec thereby
initiated the official talks with Civic Forum, announced its existence
officially to the public and elevated it as a counter-partner of the government
and future power-holder. [Ibid., p. 35] During a hearing before the
parliamentary investigation committee, Adamec claimed that he did not even know
that a massive student manifestation was to take place in Prague on November
17, 1989. [Vaclav Bartuska, Polojasno: Patrani
po vinicich 17. listopadu 1989,
op. cit., p. 81]
52[48]
Marek Benda, Martin Benda, Martin Klima, Pavel Dobrovsky, Monika Pajerova,
Simon Panek, Roman Kriz, Studenti psali
revoluci,op. cit., p. 168. Dubcek was manoeuvred out of his possible candidacy for president by
giving him a position of the chairman of the federal parliament as a Christmas
present by the same Communist parliament that ruled during Dubcek's forced
internal exile. Consequently, Havel was elected president by the Communist
deputies at a time when more than 80 per cent of the citizens wanted to have
direct presidential elections. [Oskar Krejci, Jak to prasklo, op. cit., p. 42]
53[49]
Frantisek Dvorak, Slavomir Ravik, Jiri Teryngel, Zaloba aneb Bila kniha k patemu vyroci 17. listopadu 1989, (Praha: Periskop, 1994), p. 28.
54[50]
See, for example, Country Report: The
Czech and Slovak Republics, (the Economic Intelligence Unit, London, No. 2,
1993), p. 10. In July 1994, only 35% of Slovaks were for the preservation of
the independent Slovak state while more than 50% of them regretted the division
of the Czechoslovak state. [Lidove noviny,
21 June 1994, p. 1.]
59[55]
Barry Cooper, "Nihilism and Technology" in Tom Darby, Bela Egyed and
Ben Jones, eds., Nietzsche and the
Rhetoric of Nihilism: Essays on interpretation, language and politics,
(Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1989), pp. 165-181.
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