POLITICAL SITUATIONS: THE CZECHOSLOVAK REVOLUTION – A COMMENT

Much has already been said and printed in criticism and self-criticism, and doubtless much still remains to be said. But out of the mass of recrimination two demands stand out as symptomatic of the entire malady: (1) The need to clear the conscience of the nation and the character of the Communist Party by rehabilitating the victims of the “political trials” of the post-1948 period, (2) and to ensure against the repetition of such trials and clear the moral and intellectual atmosphere by guaranteeing freedom of criticism to every citizen.

These demands indicate that the Communist Party had implemented a coercive system functioning on the basis of minimum participation by the masses in the sphere of policy-making. Events have revealed that even the high percentage of election participation gave a warped reflection of reality; people voted out of deference to conformity and not from any conviction or enthusiasm of their own. The voting system gave additional advantages to those candidates highly favoured by the C.P. and blocked any substantial influence by voters on election day. In other spheres, the veneer of democracy was even more flimsy. Directives came down from above. with little regard for the actual objective and subjective conditions among the people who had to implement them or benefit from them; only rarely did the initiative come from the people themselves. All of this led to lack of enthusiasm and indifference at best, and frustration and disappointment at worst. Those who dared to protest were either imprisoned or demoted to positions where their voice carried no weight.

As the outcome has shown, this state of things was repugnant to a substantial section of the C.P. leadership. They were to give the impetus to the nation needed for its house-cleaning. They began serious open self-criticism in January, 1968. The movement snowballed. By February, all sections of the bureaucracy were under attack. By March, desertions, suicide and resignation had become the order of the day. The Czechoslovaks had proven that despotism was alien to Socialist society. It remains for them to prove now, that democracy is compatible with revolution.

What is the relevance of all this for us in the Third World? It is my belief that the mistakes and deformation of the Czechoslovak Socialist revolution spring from a single problem incipient in all revolutions but decisive in particular with regard to Socialist revolution – the problem of democratization once state power has been seized; the problem of deciding at what point decision-making must pass from the revolution’s vanguard, i.e. the ideologically most developed group, back to the masses.

No one who knows the biography of the ex-president, A. Novotny, and his ‘old guard’ associates, can fail to be convinced that they held the cause of the dictatorship of the proletariat close to their hearts. On the other hand, no one who knows them intimately can escape the conclusion that these men became cynical over the years. In place of the unbounded confidence in the wisdom of the masses, these men demanded that the masses place unlimited trust in them. In their own eyes, these leaders had become the personification and only guarantee of the Socialist revolution. They had elevated their role in the time of crisis into an eternal and immutable law. Such serious an error threatens the future of every revolution. Like Czechoslovakia, every revolution is faced with conditions which give rise to the creation of such attitudes: the threat of external intervention; the machinations of the deposed bourgeoisie; economic difficulties due to inexperience in the manipulation of a completely new social model, very often compounded by trade embargo and discrimination by former trading partners, etc. All the circumstances of revolution tend to concentrate power in the hands of a few acting in the interest of the many. And the length of this phase of the revolution, of course, differs from country to country. But the revolution that does not count with the eventual resolution of this contradiction is foredoomed. For on its effective solution depends the sustained enthusiasm and initiative of the masses in the period of reconstruction. On it also depends the only guarantee of control of the leadership and against over centralism and bureaucracy.

The lessons of the Czechoslovak revolution are there for all engaged in making a new world free of exploitation of man by man. For us in the Third World, it is a timely warning that the seizure of state power is not an end in itself. It is a warning to cultivate the widest democracy within our political parties to insure the security of members. It is a warning that the understanding, participation, initiative and confidence of the masses are ultimately decisive and of much more importance than their mere passive willingness to follow.

So far, no other communist-led revolution has come to terms with this problem. Whatever the outcome, our Czechoslovak comrades must be congratulated on their attempt to tackle it.

[1] Editor’s Note: This comment was written and submitted before the Soviet invasion of August 1968.