AUER, Stefan: Liberal Nationalism in Central Europe. London, Routledge Curzon 2004, 232 stran. Recenzent vyzvedává, že autor zkoumá fenomén středoevropského nacionalismu z velmi zajímavého pohledu. Odmítá totiž dichotomii západního (občanského, tolerantního) a východního (etnického, xenofobního) nacionalismu a zároveň se snaží přehodnotit panující skepsi vůči spojení liberální demokracie s národním cítěním. Na tomto základě provádí autor komparaci Polska, Česka a Slovenska, přičemž rétoriku „liberálního nacionalismu“ poměřuje se sociální realitou v podobě přístupu k etnickým menšinám v těchto zemích. Na základě znalosti převážně anglicky psané sekundární literatury se přitom dopouští četných selekcí a zjednodušení. Hlavní slabinu knihy však recenzent spatřuje v tom, že Auer při rekonstrukci „liberálně-nacionální“ tradice ve zkoumaných zemích nedokáže diferencovat jednotlivé proudy a rozlišit jejich odstíny a význam. and Auer, Stefan. Liberal Nationalism in Central Europe. London: Routledge Curzon, 2004, 232 pp. The reviewer considers Stefan Auer’s investigation of the phenomenon of central European nationalism to have been undertaken from a very interesting angle. Auer rejects the dichotomy of Western nationalism (considered civil, tolerant) and Eastern nationalism (considered ethnic, xenophobic), and also tries to reassess the current scepticism about linking liberal democracy and national feeling. He then makes a comparison of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, measuring the rhetoric of ”liberal nationalism” against the social reality by considering the approach to ethnic minorities in these countries. Using his knowledge of secondary literature written chiefly in English, Auer nevertheless is highly selective and over simplifies. The principal weakness of the work, the reviewer feels, is that in outlining the ”liberal-national” tradition in the countries he considers, Auer seems unable to distinguish the individual streams, varieties, and importance.
The essay deals with the global historical development of the human rights doctrine and its role in modern politics from a Czech, Czechoslovak and East-Central European point of view. It draws on recent revisionist historiography of human rights the main characteristic of which, described at the beginning of the essay, is the reconstruction of the human rights doctrine as an epiphenomenon of major historical political conflicts. Then, the author turns to the comeback of human rights as a universalistic concept during the Second World War and the Allied struggle against Nazism. He continues with tracing down the general development during the Cold War leading to the promotion of human rights as a part of binding international law since the mid-1970s. Further, the Czechoslovak postwar situation is analysed starting with the Stalinist Constitution of 1948 up to the dissident struggle for human and civil rights during the last two decades of the communist dictatorship. The last part of the essay examines the rise of liberal internationalism and humanitarian interventionism in the post-1989 period and strives to specify the Czechoslovak and Czech development within a broader context, fi nishing with a plea for understanding human rights as a space for political deliberation, dialogue and contest.
Předmětem této studie je vztah Komunistické strany Čech a Moravy (KSČM) k vlastní minulosti z hlediska vnitřního vývoje strany a hledání politické a kulturní identity v rámci českého politického systému. Interpretace minulosti a role Komunistické strany Československa (KSČ) v českých a československých dějinách byly klíčovými prvky ideologického vývoje strany v prvním desetiletí české demokracie po listopadu 1989 a hrály ústřední roli v úsilí komunistů odpovědět na její systémový i rétorický antikomunismus. Autor ukazuje, jaký diferenciační účinek měly diskuse o minulosti v prvních polistopadových letech, kdy na jedné straně přispívaly k vnitřnímu štěpení strany, na druhé straně však také vytvářely podmínky pro její pozdější konsolidaci a získání nového sebevědomí. Počáteční reformistická strategie, inklinující k ideovým souřadnicím sociální demokracie a usilující o získání maximálního počtu voličů a v konečném důsledku podílu na vládě, jak ji zastával filmový režisér a předseda KSČM v letech 1990 až 1993, byla postupně nahrazena strategií „levicového ústupu“ (Vladimír Handl) či „voličské reprezentace“ (Seán Hanley), založené na upevnění politicko-kulturní identity a důrazu na komunikaci mezi členstvem a vedením strany. Jak autor ukazuje, „vyrovnávání s minulostí“ postupně nabralo u komunistů význam značně odlišný od většinové české společnosti. Pragmatismus následujícího vedení Miroslava Grebeníčka do jisté míry pacifikoval, avšak nevyřešil základní dilema KSČM, spočívající v rozporu mezi „logikou volebního boje“ a „logikou voličské reprezentace“. První rys po pádu reformistů v roce 1993 představovali zejména neokomunističtí teoretici (jako je filozof Miloslav Ransdorf), kteří usilovali o formulování celospolečenské socialistické alternativy, jež by byla přijatelná pro širší levicovou veřejnost. To je také vedlo ke snaze o kritičtější čtení vlastní minulosti v porovnání s většinovým členstvem. Druhý rys, tedy „logika voličské reprezentace“, zaměřená na uchovávání a posilování silné identity členů a příznivců strany, byl spjat s přetrvávající konzervativní většinou řadového členstva, reprezentovaného lokálními aktivisty, stranickým tiskem i některými členy politického vedení. Ti všichni dávali přednost programu politického a sociálního populismu a dějiny chápali spíše jako „politiku dějin“ – tedy jako oporu vlastní identity a nástroj odporu proti nepřátelskému vnějšímu prostředí. Pro oba proudy uvnitř KSČM však zůstal antikomunismus – ať už systémový či spontánní – až do konce devadesátých let jedním z hlavních, ne-li nejdůležitějším sjednocujícím, motivem, což značně limitovalo možnosti otevírat citlivé otázky vlastní minulosti i případné kritické diskuse., This article is concerned with the attitude that the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (Komunistická strana Čech a Moravy – KSČM) has had towards its own past. It examines the subject from the perspective of the internal development of the Party and its search for a political and cultural identity in the Czech political system. The interpretation of the past and the role of the Czechoslovak Communist Party (Komunistická strana Československa – KSČ) in Czech and Czechoslovak history were key elements in the ideological development of the Party in the first ten years of Czech democracy after the Changes beginning in mid-November 1989. And they played a central role in the Communists’ efforts to respond to the new democracy’s systemic and rhetorical anti-Communism. In this article the author seeks to demonstrate what effect debates about the past had in causing divisions in the Party in the first years after the Changes. On the one hand they contributed to cleavages within the Party, but on the other they also created conditions for its later consolidation and new self-confidence. The initial reformist strategy inclined roughly to the ideas of the Social Democratic Party and sought to win the maximum number of votes and ultimately a share in government. It was supported by the film-maker and chairman of the Party, Jiří Svoboda (born 1945) from 1990 to 1993, but was gradually superseded by the strategy of what one Czech expert on international relations, Vladimír Handl, has called the ‘left-wing retreat’, and what one British political scientist, Seán Hanley, calls ‘voter representation’, based on the strengthening of political-cultural identity and the emphasizing of communication between the rank-and-file and the leadership of the Party. As the author demonstrates, the idea of ‘coming to terms with the past’ gradually acquired a meaning amongst the Communists that was markedly different from the meaning it had for most Czechs. The pragmatism of the subsequent leader, Miroslav Grebeníček (born 1947), to a certain attenuated, but did not solve, the fundamental dilemma faced by the Party, which consisted in the conflict between the ‘logic of the electoral struggle’ and the ‘logic of voter representation’. The first trend after the downfall of the reformists in 1993 included, in particular, neo-Communist theorists (like the political thinker Miloslav Ransdorf, b. 1953), who sought to formulate Socialist alternatives acceptable to most left-leaning Czechs. That also led them to attempt a more critical analysis of their own past than the majority of their, and rank-and-file members would have done. The second trend, the logic of voter representation, oriented to preserving and strengthening the strong identity of Party members and supporters, was linked with the continuing conservative majority of the rank-and-file represented by local activists, the Party press, and some members of the Party leadership. All of them preferred the programme of political and social populism. They tended to understand history as the ‘politics of history’ – in other words, as a means to support their own identity and to resist the hostile environment outside the Party. For both trends in the Party, however, the challenge presented by anti-Communism – whether systemic or spontaneous – remained, to the end of the 1990s, an important, if not the most important, unifying motive. But it considerably limited their possibilities to raise sensitive questions about their own past and to hold a potentially critical debate.
This article is concerned with the attitude that the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (Komunistická strana Čech a Moravy - KSČM) has had towards its own past. It examines the subject from the perspective of the internal development of the Party and its search for a political and cultural identity in the Czech political system. The interpretation of the past and the role of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (Komunistická strana Československa - KSČ) in Czech and Czechoslovak history were key elements in the ideological development of the Party in the fi rst ten years of Czech democracy after the changes beginning in November 1989. And they played a central role in the Communists’ efforts to respond to the newdemocracy’s systemic and rhetorical anti-Communism. In this article the author seeks to demonstrate what effect debates about the past had in causing divisions in the Party in the fi rst years after 1989. On the one hand they contributed to cleavages within the Party, but on the other hand they also created conditions for its later consolidation and new self-confi dence. The initial reformist strategy inclined roughly to the ideas of the Social Democratic Party and sought to win the maximum number of votes and ultimately a share in government. It was supported by the fi lm-maker and chairman of the Party, Jiří Svoboda (b. 1945) from 1990 to 1993, but was gradually superseded by the strategy of what one Czech expert on international relations, Vladimír Handl, has called the ''left-wing retreat'', and what one British political scientist, Seán Hanley, calls ''voter representation'', based on the strengthening of political-cultural identity and the emphasizing of communication between the rank-and-fi le and the leadership of the Party. As the author demonstrates, the idea of ''coming to terms with the past'' gradually acquired a meaning amongst the Communists that was markedly different from the meaning it had for most Czechs. The pragmatism of the subsequent leader, Miroslav Grebeníček (b. 1947), to a certain extent attenuated, but did not solve, the fundamental dilemma faced by the Party, which consisted in the confl ict between the ''logic of the electoral struggle'' and the ''logic of voter representation''. The fi rst trend after the downfall of the reformists in 1993 included, in particular, neoCommunist theorists (like the political thinker Miloslav Ransdorf, b. 1953), who sought to formulate Socialist alternatives acceptable to most left-leaning Czechs. That also led them to attempt a more critical analysis of their own past than the majority of their rank-and-fi le members would have done. The second trend, the logic of voter representation, oriented to preserving and strengthening the strong identity of Party members and supporters, was linked with the continuing conservative majority of the rank-and-fi le represented by local activists, the Party press, and some members of the Party leadership. All of them preferred the programme of political and social populism. They tended to understand history as the ''politics of history'' - in other words, as a means to support their own identity and to resist the hostile environment outside the Party. For both trends in the Party, however, the challenge presented by anti-Communism - whether systemic or spontaneous - remained, to the end of the 1990s, an important, if not the most important, unifying motive. But it considerably limited their possibilities to raise sensitive questions about their own past and to hold a potentially critical debate.