a1_Reformní komunisté, kteří po invazi vojsk Varšavské smlouvy do Československa v srpnu 1968 odešli do exilu a začali rozvíjet svou činnost v rámci skupiny Listy (sdružené kolem bývalého ředitele Československé televize, vydavatele římského exilového dvouměsíčníku Listy a později poslance Evropského parlamentu Jiřího Pelikána), se při hledání politických spojenců proti Husákově §,,normalizaci'' snažili budovat kontakty hlavně s vlivnými představiteli západoevropské levice. Tento text ovšem sleduje jejich exilové angažmá, kterému dosud nebyla věnována pozornost - a sice rozvíjení kontaktů s čínskými komunisty, kteří byli v posrpnovém období na mezinárodních fórech hlasitými kritiky sovětského expanzionismu. Autor ukazuje, jak se toho exulanti snažili využít pro posílení svých pozic coby zahraniční socialistické opozice proti ,,normalizačnímu'' režimu. Při navazování těchto kontaktů mohli stavět na vazbách, které v Číně měl zejména Jiří Pelikán (1923-1999) z dob svého působení v Mezinárodním svazu studentstva. Jeho někdejší čínští kolegové v čele s Chu Jao-pangem (1915-1989) vystoupali během druhé půle sedmdesátých let na čelná místa ve stranické hierarchii a díky tomu se exulantům otevřely širší možnosti spolupráce. Z Číny získávali průběžné finanční příspěvky na své aktivity a Číňany naopak zajímal československý pokus o reformu státního socialismu z konce šedesátých let., a2_Autor přibližuje návštěvy vyslanců skupiny Listy do Číny, kteří své tamní partnery seznamovali s aktuálním vývojem ve střední Evropě včetně informací o disentu a opozičním hnutí. Specifickou iniciativou v rámci této spolupráce byl pokus prosadit vlastního zástupce v českém vysílání Rádia Peking - to se dočasně podařilo, ale plán ovlivňovat obsah vysílání do Československa, tak aby se mohlo stát pro posluchače ve vlasti informační alternativou k oficiálním médiím, se nezdařil a zástupci skupiny Listy působili ve vysílání jen jako jazykoví poradci., a1_Some reform Communists who went into exile after the Soviet-led military intervention in Czechoslovakia, in August 1968, began to work in the Listy group led by Jiří Pelikán (1923-1999), a former Director of Czechoslovak Television, the publisher of the Rome-based exile bimonthly Listy, and, later, a Member of the European Parliament. In the search for political allies against Husák´s regime of ''normalization'' (the return to hard-line Communist rule), they tried to establish contact mainly with influential representatives of the West European Left. This article, however, examines an area of their involvement in exile, which has previously not received attention - namely, their efforts to develop contacts with Chinese Communists who in the period after August 1968 were vociferously speaking out at international forums and criticizing Soviet expansionism. The author demonstrates how the exiles tried to take advantage of this in order to strengthen their positions as members of the foreign socialist opposition to the normalization regime. When establishing these contacts, they could build particularly upon those that Pelikán had developed in China while working in the International Union of Students. In the second half of the 1970s his erstwhile Chinese colleagues, led by Hu Yaobang (1915-1989), rose to leading positions in the Party, thus creating considerable opportunities for the exiles to work with them. From China, they received continous funding for their activities, while the Chinese were interested in the Czechoslovak attempt to reform state socialism in the late 1960s., a2_The author acquaints the reader with visits by Listy ''envoys'' to China, who acquainted their partners there with current developments in central Europe, including information about dissidents and the opposition movement. A special initiative as part of this collaboration was their attempt to get their own representatives involved in the Czech broadcasts of Radio Peking. Though they briefly succeeded in this, their plan to influence the content of transmissions to Czechoslovakia, and thereby make it an information source for listeners which would provide an alternative to state-controlled Czechoslovak mass media, ultimately came to naught: members of the Listy group worked at Radio Peking only as language advisers for the Czech broadcasts., Petr Orság., and Obsahuje bibliografii a bibliografické odkazy
První sériově vyráběný elektronový mikroskop (EM) uvedla na trh firma Siemens před 80 lety v roce 1939 (obr. 1). Teprve o deset let později byl zkonstruován první EM v Československu skupinou mladých pracovníků kolem profesora Aleše Bláhy v Brně. Z tohoto nenápadného počátku vyrostla průmyslová chlouba Brna a celého státu - několik firem zde vyrábí téměř třetinu světové produkce EM. Přitom se nejedná o zanedbatelné odvětví "high-tech" průmyslu, neboť představuje trh o velikosti asi 3,2 miliardy dolarů za rok a v příštích letech má růst více než 7% tempem - především díky poptávce rozvíjejícího se nanotechnologického průmyslu., Jan Valenta., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy
The paper deals with the English-speaking community in
Czechoslovakia in the 1950s. It attempts to illustrate that although international communism was supposed to cross national boundaries, it was not always the case in reality. There were invisible boundaries – mental, language, cultural, ethnic and racial – that proved to be difficult to overcome for both the guests and their hosts. The paper concentrates on questions such as the role of Czechoslovakia and Prague in the international communist movement, anti- Western propaganda, political asylum, housing and job related issues the English-speakers had to face, family questions, language issues and free time activities. and Článek zahrnuje poznámkový aparát pod čarou
a1_Autor na rozboru strategie a taktiky Komunistické strany Československa v letech 1945 až 1948 sleduje, jak se v její tehdejší politice uplatňovalo téma takzvané specifické cesty osvobozené Československé republiky k socialistickému společenskému systému. Klade si otázku, jak mohla komunistická strana po válce získat tak masovou podporu, a jednu z příčin jejího úspěchu shledává v pragmaticky a pružně zvolené strategii, využívající vzepjaté národní cítění obyvatel v kombinaci s široce vyznávanými ideály sociální spravedlnosti. Domácí historické kořeny teze o svébytném směřování země k socialismu a její přitažlivosti nachází autor ve druhé polovině 19. století, kdy se v české společnosti a politice prosazovaly a propojovaly levicové a nacionální myšlenky, jejichž symbióza poté silně působila po celou dobu první republiky. Předseda KSČ Klement Gottwald (1896-1953) a další členové stranického vedení po květnu 1945 popisovali současnou situaci v termínech "národní a demokratické revoluce" a "budování lidové demokracie", v nichž ovšem zazníval akcent na jejich specifický charakter. Samotné heslo zvláštní československé cesty k socialismu zaznamenává autor v projevech komunistických představitelů až na podzim 1946 a rozhodující moment pro jeho formulaci spatřuje ve vítězství KSČ ve volbách v květnu téhož roku, které přesvědčily stranické špičky o tom, že je možné Československo přetvořit na socialistický stát pokojnou cestou stále radikálnějších reforem, bez násilí a "diktatury proletariátu" podle sovětského vzoru., a2_Tato myšlenka získala v praktické politice podobu hesla o boji za získání většiny národa, která by komunistické straně zajistila více než padesát procent hlasů v příštích volbách. Autor přitom upozorňuje na důležitost mezinárodního kontextu, zejména postojů Moskvy, která Stalinovými ústy deklarovala svůj souhlas s představou o rozdílných cestách vedoucích k socialismu v různých zemích, v závislosti na jejich domácích poměrech. Zásadní obrat v politice Moskvy v létě a na podzim 1947, který odráželo zejména založení Informačního byra komunistických a dělnických stran, se promítl do strategie KSČ, když v boji o moc začala vedle cesty voleb plánovat i alternativní postupy s využitím nátlakových a násilných metod. Ty nakonec efektivně použila v únorovém převratu roku 1948, o němž autor referuje z pohledu zpráv sovětských diplomatů a úředníků. Vedení KSČ se sice československé cesty k socialismu výslovně nezřeklo, po rozkolu SSSR s Jugoslávií a nastolení "zostřeného kurzu" Moskvou na podzim 1948 ji však zcela opustilo a přebíralo sovětský model socialismu. Autor resumuje, že povrchní a teoreticky nepropracovaná koncepce "československé cesty k socialismu" v politice KSČ jistý čas opravdu existovala, jejím cílem však bylo jen pokojné převzetí moci a v podstatě se jednalo o demokratickou kamufláž cesty ke komunistické diktatuře., a3_V závěru autor představuje sovětský dokument "O některých chybách v činnosti Komunistické strany Československa" (O někotorych ošibkach v dějatělnosti Kommunističeskoj partii Čechoslovakii), který je v českém překladu editován a publikován jako příloha článku. Význam dokumentu demonstruje na konkrétních změnách, které následovaly v politice KSČ v souladu s tezemi sovětských činitelů. Tento poměrně obsáhlý a k politice vedení KSČ velmi kritický text vypracovali úředníci aparátu Ústředního výboru Všesvazové komunistické strany (bolševiků) L. Baranov, V. Mošetov a A. Antipov, datován je 5. dubna 1948 a určen byl pro Michaila Andrejeviče Suslova (1902-1982), který byl tehdy vedoucím oddělení zahraniční politiky ÚV VKS(b). (Dokument byl rusky publikován v edici: VOLOKITINA, T. V. - ISLAMOV, T. M. - MURAŠKO, G. P. - NOSKOVA, A. F. - ROGOVAJA, A. L. (ed.): Vostočnaja Jevropa v dokumentach rossijskich archivov 1944-1953 gg., sv. 1: 1944-1948 gg. Moskva - Novosibirsk, Sibirskij chronograf 1997, s. 831-858.) Zpráva se zaměřuje na několik oblastí - strategii KSČ v boji o moc a její deklarované cíle, vnitřní výstavbu strany, národnostní politiku a zemědělskou politiku - a vytýká vedení československých komunistů řadu chyb a nedostatků. Největší chybu spatřuje právě v orientaci KSČ na pokojnou cestu k socialismu bez třídního boje a obětí, v přeceňování parlamentních forem boje a v podceňování významu revolučního vystoupení lidových mas., a4_Dále kritizuje masové rozšiřování členské základny KSČ, které hodnotí jako odmítání bolševických zásad organizační výstavby strany. Ostrý odsudek si vedení KSČ (stejně jako ostatní předúnorové strany) vysloužilo za nacionalistickou politiku uplatňovanou vůči německé a maďarské menšině v Československu, přezírající leninsko-stalinské přístupy v národnostní otázce. Podobné úchylky se údajně dopustilo v rolnické otázce, když nevypracovalo vědecký program jejího řešení a nenarušilo základy kapitalismu na vesnici. V závěru zprávy její pisatelé konstatují, že KSČ musí přezkoumat svá teoretická východiska i praktickou politiku, a formulují podmínky, které musí nutně splnit ke své nápravě v duchu marxismu-leninismu., a1_In this analysis of the strategy and tactics of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1945 to 1948, the author considers how, in its policies, the Party applied the notion of the so-called "special road" of liberated Czechoslovakia to a Socialist system. He asks how, after the Second World War, the Party could gain such mass support. He sees one of the reasons for its success in its pragmatically and flexibly choosing strategy and using the heightened popular national feeling in combination with the widely acknowledged ideal of social justice. The historical roots of the Czech notion of the country´s distinctive orientation towards socialism and its attractiveness, argues the author, are in the second half of the nineteenth century, when left-wing nacionalist ideas were promoted and linked together in Czech society and politics. Their symbiosis then had a strong effect during the whole existence of the first republic. The chairman of the Party, Klement Gottwald (1896-1953), like other members of the leadership, described the contemporary situation after May 1945 as a "national and democratic revolution" and the "building of a people´s democracy", in which, however, the accent was on their special character., a2_The author finds the first use of the slogan "the Czechoslovak road to socialism" in speeches of Communist Party representatives in autumn 1946, and he considers the decisive moment for its formulation to be the victory of the Communist Party in the general elections of May 1946, when the top-level members of the Party convinced themselves that it was possible to remake Czechoslovakia into a Socialist state by following a peaceful road of increasinly radical reforms, without the violence or "dictatorship of the proletariat" of the Soviet model. In practice this idea was expressed in the slogan about the struggle to win over the majority of the nation, which was meant to ensure the Communist Party more than fifty per cent of the vote in the next elections. The author points to the importance of the international context, particularly the attitudes of Moscow, which, as Stalin said, declared that it agreed to the notion of different roads leading to socialism in different countries, depending on the local circumstances in each. The fundamental turnaround in Kremlin policy in summer and autumn 1947, reflected particularly in the founding of the Cominform (Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers´ Parties), was projected into the strategy of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, when, in the struggle for power, it began, in addition to elections, to plan alternative approaches using pressure and violence. Ultimately these were effectively employed in the February 1948 takeover, which the author examines from the viewpoint of reports by Soviet diplomats and bureaucrats. Though the Czechoslovak Communist Party leadership did not explicitely reject the Czechoslovak road to socialism, after the Soviet-Yugoslav split and the establishment of a more hard-line course by the Kremlin in autumn 1948, it completely abandoned the Czechoslovak road and adopted the Soviet model of Socialism., a3_The author sums up by saying that although the superficial and undeveloped concept of the Cezchoslovak road did indeed exist for a while in Czechoslovak Communist Party policy, it was only intended for the purpose of taking power peacefully and was essentially a tactic to make the road to Communist dictatorship appear democratic. The author concludes with the Soviet document "O nekotorykh oshibkakh v deyatelnosti Kommunisticheskoy partii Chekhoslovakii", presented here in Czech translation as a supplement to the article. The author demonstrates the importance of the document by discussing particular changes in Czechoslovak Communist Party policy in accord with Soviet ideas. This long text, highly critical of the Czechoslovak Communist Party leadership, was drawn up by three officials of the apparat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), L. Baranov, V. Moshetov, and A. Antipov, on 5 April 1948, for Mikhail Andreyevich Suslov (1902-1082), the head of the foreign policy department of the Central Committee. (The document was published in Russian in T. V. Volokitina et al., Vostochnaia Evropa v dokumentakh rossijskikh arkhivov 1944-1953 gg., vol. 1, 1944-1948 gg. Moscow and Novosibirsk: Sibirskii Khronograf, 1997, pp. 831-58.) The report focuses on several areas - Party strategy in the power struggle and its declared aims, the internal building up of the Party, nationalities policy and agricultural policy -, and it reproaches the Czechoslovak leadership for a number of mistakes and shortcomings., a4_The report sees the greatest mistake in the Czechoslovak Communist Party´s orientation to a peaceful road to Socialism without class struggle or victims, in its overrating of parliamentary forms of struggle and underestimating the importance of the revolutionary rising up of the masses. It also criticizes the mass expansion of the membership base of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, which it considers to be a rejection of the Bolshevik principles of the organizational building up of the Party. The report condemns the leadership of the Czechoslovak Communist Party (and other parties before the February takeover) for its nationalities policy when dealing with the German and Hungarian minorities in Czechoslovakia, because the leadership ignored Leninist-Stalinist approaches to this question. The Czechoslovak Communist Party leadership, according to the authors of the report, were guilty of similar deviations on the peasant question, because it had failed to work out a "scientific" solution and did not strike at the very foundations of capitalism in the villages. In the conclusion of the report, the authors state that the Czechoslovak Communist Party shoud have re-examined its theoretical starting points and practical policy, and they set out the terms and conditions that the leadership had to meet in order to rectify the situation in the Marxist-Leninist spirit., Jiří Pernes., Součástí článku je sovětský dokument uvedený v překladu Jany Váchové v Příloze, and Obsahuje bibliografii a bibliografické odkazy
Through an analysis of Zdeněk Doskočil’s monograph on a key period in Ladislav Novomeský’s life and work, this essay attempts to examine the possibilities and limits of biography as a historiographical genre. The author relies on attempts to reformulate biography as a distinct but traditionally convention-bound genre of “writing about the past” so as to bring it closer to what is known as contextual biography (Hans Renders, Binne de Haan). The text places Doskočil’s book among a number of other monographs published in recent years on luminaries of the Czech and Slovak Marxist intellectual elite (e.g. Zdeněk Nejedlý and Gustáv Husák). It focuses on the dilemmas faced by the author, who attempts to follow a different emplotment than the traditional, chronological and rather holistic one.
This essay examines, in ten clearly formulated propositions, the causes and the long-term impact of the Munich Agreement of September 1938. This complex theme is approached through not purely national lenses. The term ''betrayal'' as a dominant label of the actions of the two West European democratic powers is thus questioned. The author claims that the British and French unwillingness to go to war because of Czechoslovakia’s border regions is, in the light of previous historical developments, understandable and, in a way, even rational. He also points out certain defi ciencies in the Czechoslovak treatment of its German minority. At the same time, Czechoslovakia’s political leaders were playing a strange game with their people in September 1938, alternately stirring up and moderating their patriotic feelings - depending on where the behind-the-scenes negotiations on Czechoslovak border regions were heading at a given moment. Also the alleged Soviet preparedness to come to Czechoslovakia’s assistance in September 1938 is more than questionable; Stalin intended to intervene only in a European war, not to help lonesome Czechoslovakia. Nonetheless, Munich has had, and unfortunately continues to have, a fundamental infl uence on the Czech ''mental map'' of Europe. The lesson according to which the West should not be trusted and it would therefore be advisable to look for protection and alliance in the East still lives on in minds of a number of Czech politicians and of a not negligible segment of the public. On the other hand, the ''lessons of Munich,'' according to which it is not advisable to make concessions to any aggression or blackmailing, became a part of policies of Western statesmen confronting expansionist dictatorships, and the other life of Munich thus continued to complicate the use of ''negotiations'' as a method of dealing with international crises by Western politicians in the Cold War and beyond. and Přeložil Jiří Mareš
Both collective publications (Prefab houses 1: Fifty prefab housing schemes in the Czech Lands. A critical catalogue of the “Prefab house story” series of exhibitions and Prefab houses 2: History of housing schemes in the Czech Lands 1945–1989. A critical catalogue of the “Residence – prefab housing scheme: Planning, realization, housing 1945–1989” exhibition) are products of a broadly conceived interdisciplinary research project the deliverables of which included, inter alia, exhibitions in Prague and all regional capitals of the Czech Republic and which were awarded the prestigious Magnesia Litera prize in 2018 as an extraordinary feat in the fi eld of professional and educational literature. In the reviewer’s opinion, they bring the fi rstever systematic attempt to periodize the prefab-based building projects in the Czech part of the former Czechoslovakia between the mid-1940s and the end of the 1980s, at the same time providing a multifaceted characterization based on a representative sample of fifty prefab housing schemes in Bohemia and Moravia. and Each of them was subjected to a thorough artistic-historical analysis outlining the development of the housing scheme’s concept, providing brief information about its authors, describes its urbanistic concept, prefab technology used, and artefacts and decorations. Added to the above is a set of interdepartmental studies analyzing different aspects of the historical development of prefab housing schemes. The compact collective of authoresses and authors has succeeded in presenting the prefab housing schemes, no matter how similar they may seem, as a varied and dynamically developing phenomenon, which fact is underlined by excellent work with archival photographs and the generally outstanding graphic layout of the publications. The only critical comment the reviewer has is that the authors were so absorbed by the architectural aspect of the matter that they tended to overlook substantial changes of the socialist urbanism in Czechoslovakia.
With respect to the history of sciences under communism, we understand the gray zone to mean academic practices originating from the negotiated autonomy of academia and the need to respect scientific values such as objectivity and a critical approach to reality. Our research explores the links between academic communities that were not directly involved in dissident activities but actively supported dissent initiatives (very often for a limited period of time) and were linked to transnational scientific networks or social movements. Specifically, we analyze the involvement of socially engaged scientists employed by the official research institutions in dissident activities related to the environmental sciences.
Petro Shelest (1908–1997), the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was one of the strongest advocates of an armed invasion of Czechoslovakia among Soviet leaders in 1968. The Soviet leadership tasked him to maintain contacts with the so-called healthy forces in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia; in the beginning of August, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Vasil Biľak (1917–2014) secretly handed over to him the notorious “letter of invitation” in public lavatories in Bratislava. The author asks a fundamental question whether it is possible to identify a specific Ukrainian factor which stepped into the Prague Spring process and contributed to its tragic end. He attempts to capture Shelest’s position in the decision-making process and describe information that Shelest was working with., To this end, he has made use of reports of the Committee for State Security (Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti – KGB) of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic on developments in Czechoslovakia and reactions thereto among Ukrainian citizens produced in the spring and summer of 1968, which were being sent to Shelest and other Ukrainian leaders. These documents have lately been made available in Ukrainian archives and partly published on the website of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes. Their analysis brings the author to a conclusion that they were offering a considerably distorted picture of the situation. Instead of relevant information and analyses, they only present various clichés, ideological rhetoric, inaccuracies, or downright nonsenses. Their source were often members of the Czechoslovak State Security who were often motivated by worries about their own careers and existence and were acting on their own., and The uncritical acceptance of the documents contributed to a situation in which in the leader of the Ukrainian Communists and other Soviet representatives were creating unrealistic pictures of the events taking place in Czechoslovakia, believing that anti-socialist forces were winning, anti-Soviet propaganda was prevailing, and Western intelligence agencies were strengthening their position in Czechoslovakia, and that there was a threat that the events that had taken place in Hungary in 1956 would repeat themselves again. As indicated by his published diary entries and other documents, Petro Shelest was using these allegations both in discussions inside his own party and during negotiations with Czechoslovak politicians. Just like in the case of the leaders of Polish and East German Communists, Władysław Gomułka and Walter Ulbricht, respectively, the principal reason why Shelest was promoting a solution of the Czechoslovak crisis by force was, in the author’s opinion, his fear of “contagion” of his own society by events taking place in Czechoslovakia which the Ukraine shared a border with.
The aim of the work is to analyze the peculiarities of Ukrainian secondary education abroad in the 1920s and 1930s on the example of the Ukrainian secondary school („Ukrainian Gymnasium“) in Czechoslovakia. The analysis of features of the organization, methodological bases of educational work of the Gymnasium in Prague as a part of the general cultural and educational activity of the Ukrainian interwar emigration is carried out.