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State and Society in Communist Czechoslovakia

Author: Roman Krakovský

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 323

ISBN-13: 9781350988200

Across Central and Eastern Europe after World War II, the newly established communist regimes promised a drastic social revolution that would transform the world at great pace and pave the way to a socialist future. Although many aspects of this utopian project are well known--fast-paced industrialization, collectivisation and urbanisation--the regimes even sought to transform the ways in which their citizens interacted with each other and the world around them. Using a unique analytical model based on anthropology, sociology, history and extensive archival research, award-winning scholar Roman Krakovský considers the Czechoslovakian attempt to 'reinvent the world'--in this all-encompassing way. Ranging from World War II to the fall of the Berlin Wall, his innovative analysis considers the impact of Stakhanovism, the impossible-to-achieve production targets intended to assert socialism's future potential; the attempt to replace Sunday's Christian attributes with socialist ones; and the profound changes brought about to the public and private spheres, including the culture of informing and the ways this was circumvented. Across a wide range of case studies Krakovský demonstrates both the far-reaching extent of the communist vision and the inherent flaws and contradications that gradually destabilised it. This in-depth perspective is vital reading for all scholars of twentieth-century history and politics.--Page [4] of cover.

State and Society in Communist Czechoslovakia

Author: Roman Krakovsky

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2018-05-30

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 1838609113

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Across central and eastern Europe after World War II, the newly established communist regimes promised a drastic social revolution that would transform the world at great pace and pave the way to a socialist future. Although many aspects of this utopian project are well known - such as fast-paced industrialisation, collectivisation and urbanisation - the regimes even sought to transform the ways in which their citizens interacted with each other and the world around them. Using a unique analytical model based on an amalgam of anthropology, sociology, history and extensive archival research, award-winning scholar Roman Krakovsky here considers the Czechoslovakian attempt to 'reinvent the world' - 'time' and 'space' included - in this all-encompassing way. Ranging from WWII to the fall of the Berlin Wall, his innovative analysis variously considers the impact of Stakhanovism, the impossible-to-achieve production targets intended to assert socialism's future potential; the attempt to replace Sunday's Christian attributes with socialist ones; and the profound changes brought about to the public and private spheres, including the culture of informing and the ways this was circumvented. Across a wide range of case studies Krakovsky demonstrates both the far-reaching extent of the communist vision and the inherent flaws and contradictions that gradually destabilised it. This in-depth perspective is vital reading for all scholars of twentieth century history and politics.

Socialism and Democracy in Czechoslovakia

Author: M. R. Myant

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2008-06-26

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780521067164

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This book is about the political, social and economic changes in Czechoslovakia in the years 1945- 1948. In 1945 the 'national revolution' established the Communist Party as the dominant force within a coalition government. The leading Communists then evolved the idea of a specific Czechoslovak road to socialism that could bypass the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'. By analysing in detail the revolutionary events and the society that emerged from them, the book demonstrates that there was a real possibility of developing a distinct model of socialism containing a plurality of parties and a sizeable private sector. Such thinking, however, was effectively ended in February 1948, when the Communist Party established a monopoly of power. The fundamental causes of this change in the party's strategy are to be found, it is argued, in the international situation. The February events were of international significance as they confirmed the division of Europe into two blocs. The concluding chapter shows how important they were for the subsequent development of Czechoslovak society.

The Struggle for the Soul of the Nation

Author: Bradley F. Abrams

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 9780742530249

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The material effects of World War II, in combination with Eastern Europe's disappointingly undemocratic interwar history, placed radical social change on the postwar agenda across the region and shaped the debates that took place in immediate postwar Czech society. These debates adopted both a cultural form, in struggles over the meaning of the recent past and the nation's position on the East-West continuum, and a directly political form, in battles over the meaning of socialism. The Struggle for the Soul of the Nation examines the most important and politically resonant fields of historical and cultural debate in Czech society immediately after World War II. Bradley Abrams finds that communist public figures were largely successful in controlling debate over the nation's recent past--the interwar First Republic and the experiences of Munich and World War II--and over its location on the East-West continuum. This success preceded and was mirrored in the struggles over the political issue of the times: socialism. The communists engaged their political foes in the democratic socialist and Roman Catholic camps, and, surprisingly, found significant support from a major Protestant church. Abrams's careful reading of major publications re-creates a postwar mood sympathetic to radical social change, questioning the standard view of the communists' rise to power. This book not only contributes to the specific literature on Czech history, but also raises questions about the relationship between war and radical social change, about the communist takeover of the region, and about the role of intellectuals in public life.

Worlds of Dissent

Author: Jonathan Bolton

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2012-04-13

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 0674064836

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Worlds of Dissent analyzes the myths of Central European resistance popularized by Western journalists and historians, and replaces them with a picture of the struggle against state repression as the dissidents themselves understood, debated, and lived it. In the late 1970s, when Czech intellectuals, writers, and artists drafted Charter 77 and called on their government to respect human rights, they hesitated to name themselves "dissidents." Their personal and political experiences--diverse, uncertain, nameless--have been obscured by victory narratives that portray them as larger-than-life heroes who defeated Communism in Czechoslovakia. Jonathan Bolton draws on diaries, letters, personal essays, and other first-person texts to analyze Czech dissent less as a political philosophy than as an everyday experience. Bolton considers not only Václav Havel but also a range of men and women writers who have received less attention in the West--including Ludvík Vaculík, whose 1980 diary The Czech Dream Book is a compelling portrait of dissident life. Bolton recovers the stories that dissidents told about themselves, and brings their dilemmas and decisions to life for contemporary readers. Dissidents often debated, and even doubted, their own influence as they confronted incommensurable choices and the messiness of real life. Portraying dissent as a human, imperfect phenomenon, Bolton frees the dissidents from the suffocating confines of moral absolutes. Worlds of Dissent offers a rare opportunity tounderstand the texture of dissent in a closed society.

Communist Czechoslovakia, 1945-89

Author: Kevin McDermott

Publisher: Red Globe Press

Published: 2015-08-28

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780230217140

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Few Europeans in the twentieth century have been subject to the repeated buffetings by foreign powers, ideologically driven transformations and internal upheaval of the Czechs and the Slovaks. The period of Communist rule was complex, and those who gleefully overthrew the regime in 1989 were the very grandchildren of those who had voted for Communism with hope in the free elections of 1946. This concise account includes both political and social history, analysing half a century of Communism from at all strata of society. Kevin McDermott is equally intrigued by those in power and ordinary citizens, asking what motivates a young Czech worker-believer to join the Communist Party in the early 1950s, enrol in the People's Militia and remain in the party during the dark years of 'normalisation', yet end up welcoming the tearing down of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Using Czech and Slovak archival sources and the most recent historiography, McDermott challenges the still dominant 'totalitarian' paradigm and argues that the forty year communist experience in Czechoslovakia cannot simply be dismissed as a Soviet-imposed aberration.

Communism in Czechoslovakia, 1948-1960

Author: Edward Taborsky

Publisher:

Published: 1961

Total Pages: 648

ISBN-13:

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Examines the Communist rise to power and social, economic, and political conditions.

Czechoslovakia in Transition

Author: Sharon L. Wolchik

Publisher: Burns & Oates

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13:

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A multi-disciplinary examination of the modern political history, economic system and social institutions of Czechoslovakia, this study evaluates the successes and failures of the Marxist regime, and concludes with analysis of the reasons for, and events since, its collapse in 1989.