Socialistické Československo jako technokratický projekt
Socialist Czechoslovakia as a Technocratic Project

Summary/Abstract: The review compares two collective monographs published simultaneously, which examine one of the key trends in Czechoslovakia’s history since the mid-1950s: expert thinking, management and ruling, technocracy, and the social role of experts from various segments of the society. The publication "Architekti dlouhé změny: Expertní kořeny postsocialismu v Československu" [Architects of the Long Change: Expert Roots of Post-Socialism in Czechoslovakia] (Prague: Argo, Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy, and Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, v. v. i., 2019) was written by a team of authors under the leadership of the book’s editor Michal Kopeček, the book "Řídit socialismus jako firmu: Technokratické vládnutí v Československu, 1956–1989" [Running Socialism Like a Company: Technocratic Governance in Czechoslovakia,1956–1989] (Prague: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny and Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, v. v. i., 2019) is a product of trio of authors led by Vítězslav Sommer. While Sommer’s project captures, in a comprehensive manner, the evolution of expert approaches in relation to the management of the economy, society, and state and to the scientific-technological revolution at the time of post-Stalinism and the so-called normalizationin Czechoslovakia, Michal Kopeček and his collaborators made several probes into specific fields of expertise (law, management, psychotherapy, sociology, ecology, urbanism) during the period of normalization and in the early 1990s. The entire publication is permeated by a proposition claiming that a number of essential aspects of the post-socialist rule in the country had their roots in the political and economic thinking, mental patterns, and social and cultural practices of the 1980s, and thus were not just imports of Western neo-liberalism. In the reviewer’s opinion, both monographs help understand the relative stability of the state socialism in Czechoslovakia by showing how much efforts aimed at scientific management of the society were contributing to it; at the same time, however, they also identify the subversive potential of these efforts, as expert criticism of the system’s dysfunctions at the time of the so-called perestroika (přestavba) was undermining the system’s legitimacy. The reviewer also appreciates that both publications emphasize longterm historical continuity, have a trans-national dimension, and dispute the alleged impermeability of state socialism.

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