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The author proposes an analysis of the concept of ”ideological equalization” between West European countries at the end of the Second World War, which may be defined as limiting or even eliminating the inherent differences in approaching the political organization of society on a homogenous democratic basis, faced with the aggressive assertion of an ideological formula identified as a common enemy: communism.
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This research focuses on plunder from variuos co-operative or state institutions (mostly those which had belonged to the Ministry of Internal Trading or the Unity of Co-operatives of Lithuanian SSR) in the first post-war years (1945–1947) in the Lithuanian SSR. The primary source for this article is comprised by 54 criminal cases from the archive of the Supreme Court of the Lithuanian SSR. Cases used in this study were chosen based on one important criteria: that there were not only acts of plunder but also the realization of stolen goods. This would most likely be achieved by selling the goods through various marketplaces (looking from the Soviet point of view, the plundered items belonged to the black market anyway – even if the market activities were not forbidden). Also, the practices of punishment applied in the cases of plunderers and speculators are analyzed. The research shows that even in the very first years of the post-war period, illegal economic processes were widespread in Soviet Lithuania. Plunderers were hitting the Soviet economy hard – despite the harsh practice of punishment, the Soviet government would lose tens of millions of rubles in the Lithuanian SSR each year.
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Bedřich Loewenstein v rozhovoru s Kateřinou Čapkovou
The conversation between Bedřich Loewenstein and historian Kateřina Čapková, who prepared it for publication, took place in July 2013 in Berlin. In the interview, Loewenstein is talking about his Czech-German-Jewish family roots, recalls his difficult childhood with his mother in the German-occupied Prague, war time emigration of his father and brothers, or studies at the Faculty of Arts and History of the Charles University and the conflict resulting in his expulsion, his work at the Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and his dismissal in the early 1970s, his employment at the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, which he made use of to facilitate transfers of sensitive documents between local dissidents and Czechoslovak exiles. He also touches upon his intellectual inspirations at the time when he was a teenager, or the morally questionable behavior of some of his colleagues among Czech historians.
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Vývoj politických struktur organizace Varšavské smlouvy v letech 1985–1989
The study analyzes the functioning of political structures of the Warsaw Treaty organization between the advent of Secretary General of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev and the collapse of the state socialist dictatorships in Central and Eastern Europe in the end of the 1989, which has hitherto been examined only superficially. Using results of research in Czech, German, and Polish archives and drawing from studies of published documents, it describes in detail the substantial changes in the day-to-day operation of political structures of the organization, which took place at that time. It attempts to clarify and evaluate the essence of these shifts, to assess them in the context of previous developments, and to outline their significance for the fate of the Warsaw Treaty after 1989. It shows that Gorbachev initiated fairly significant changes in the organization, but he rarely promoted their implementation in anassertive enough manner. However, the greater openness toward and incentives presented to the allies, which characterized the approach of the Soviet Secretary General, were only partly successful. On the one hand, the political structures of the Warsaw Treaty started working in a routine manner for the first time in the history of the organization since 1985, becoming a venue where information was shared and foreign policy viewpoints and initiatives of member states were presented, the deepening crisis of the Eastern Bloc notwithstanding. On the otherhand, however, day-to-day problems in the operation of the political structures of the Warsaw Treaty persisted, reflecting the impasse the Eastern Bloc as a whole and the system of relations between its member states, built in the previous four decades, found itself in. Before 1989, the Warsaw Treaty organization was unable to strengthen itself sufficiently enough, and the collapse of the then existing political regimes in Central and Eastern Europe doomed it to an early demise.
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In the nineties of the 20th century, the relations between the Polish People’s Republic and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea were visibly intensifying. One of the evident levels of this intensification were inter-party relations. The objective of this article is to discuss the nature and main areas in which the Polish United Workers’ Party and the Workers’ Party of Korea maintained contact and organised visits in their countries in 1980–1989.
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From about 1923 onwards, two leaders of the Communist Party of Lithuania (CPL), Zigmas Aleksa-An-garietis and Vincas Mickevičius-Kapsukas, began to disagree on the tactics and direction of the party. In 1925–1926, because of the workload in the Comintern apparatus and the subsequent illness of V.Kapsukas, Z.Angarietis began to dominate in CPL matters and isolated V.Kapsukas from decision-making within the CPL and information pertaining to it. When V.Kapsukas recovered from his illness, he sought to recover his positions and wrote an appeal to the Comintern Executive Committee, asking the committee to resolve the conflict. Because of this, the conflict got more personal: both individuals started to gather supporters, initiating a power struggle for leadership positions, while the conflict itself, beginning with a disagreement about tactics, evolved into a personal matter. The Comintern formed a commission to resolve the conflict, but they took a balancing position: the commission wanted to maintain the status quo, but instead managed only to delay and not resolve the conflict.
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Podnikový management a úskalí „socialistické kontroly“ v československých podnicích v osmdesátých letech 20. století
The study deals with issues of corporate management and pitfalls of the “socialist supervision” in Czechoslovak enterprises in the period of late socialism. Using documents of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the State Security, period texts and specialized publications, it shows how party organs and state authorities were unsuccessfully trying to make supervisory and audit mechanisms that were used, and outlines basic reasons of the almost fatal failure of supervisory activities of the system which was, in a way, obsessed with supervision and control. He explains the systemic conditionality of the supervisory system which socialist managers often and in many respects bent to suit the needs of the enterprises they were in charge of; such situation naturally did not match the needs of the society as a whole. Usingn many specific cases as an example, the study graphically shows that members of the Czechoslovak corporate management community in the 1980s were fully aware of systemic, political and social limitations of the supervisory system which they managed to modify, fairly successfully, to suit intra-corporate conditions. The result was a situation in which the party leadership was reacting to increasingly obvious symptoms of the “agony of the centrally planned economy” by adopting various directives and guidelines to make the supervisory process more effective and to consistently promote the “whoever manages – supervises” principle. However, the anticipated effect did not materialize and, at the end of the day, the non-functional supervisory mechanisms made a substantial contribution to the collapse of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia.
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The author analyzes the various staging of the drama Kordian by J. Slowacki, showing the importance the Polish directors generally attach to the romantic drama (they compare versions of directors such as J. Kotarbiński, Leon Schiller, Erwin Axer, J. Grotowski, A. Hanuszkiewicz, their contribution to the interpretation of the text, the technical difficulties related to the staging, the inventiveness and upgrading of stage facilities). Once the censorship had disappeared they broke with the romantic drama, by means of which they conveyed their Polish audience numerous moral and political issues, keeping awake their critical spirit and resistance to the communist ideology.
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In the late 1950s, the Romanian communist leaders decided to build a necropolis for the remains of prominent figures of the socialist and communist movement. The study focuses on the institutions that coordinated the construction of the monument, the origins of the building materials, the managing staff of the site, the well-known political activists who were buried there. The sources used vary from official archival files of the era, press articles, and testimonies given, after the fall of the regime, by those directly involved in managing the memorial site.
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Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski treated the “normalisation” of the State-Church relations, announced in December 1970 by the authorities, with caution and distance, though also with some optimism. He hoped that at least some of the postulates of the Episcopate would be implemented, especially regarding sacral construction. However, already in the spring of 1971, he knew that the “normalisation” is merely a propaganda evasion. In 1972, in a document prepared for the meeting of the Main Council of the Polish Episcopate of 4 May 1972 entitled “Political situation in Poland and the normalisation of relations between the State and the Church,” he summarised the State-Church relations in the first two years of government of Edward Gierek’s team. In it, Cardinal Wyszyński thoroughly discussed the social and political situation in 1972 in the context of the entire Eastern bloc. The most important observation was the exhaustion of the “dynamics of post-December renewal.” In the document, the Primate also discussed the concept of “normalisation” propagated by the authorities, mainly on the example of the most important – in his opinion – statements of the leading dignitaries of the “People’s” Poland, confronted with their real actions. The material in question proves that Cardinal Wyszyński thoroughly analysed the political reality of the PPR, not being misled by the propaganda of the authorities.
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Starting with April 1964, when the Central Committee of Romanian Workers Party published a Statement that stressed the equality of all communist parties and critised the conflict within the international communist movement, the Romanian foreign policy became the number one issue in the Romanian-Soviet relations. The freedom portrayed by Romanian leadership by taking a stand in foreign policy events in the international arena disturbed Moscow because the Soviets saw it as danger tot he monolithic unity of the Warsaw Pact.
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The research talks about the cultural and ideological redefinition of the political regime after 1948 in relation to international political events. Romanian communism built its identity on the visceral opposition to the West, on the rejection of any previous spiritual and cultural concepts and constructions. Romanians were forced to assimilate new founding myths, to rewrite a part of history and align it with the Soviet discourse. The main theme over by the Romanian culture and historiography after 1948 was the guilt of the West. From the East came peace, development, freedom and from the West war, misery and oppression. The changes at the international level of the USSR leadership had a direct influence how the communist regime in Bucharest rewrote its own history. What were the tools by which this process occurred and with what effects, the present study will be analyze.
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This is a review of Novak Csaba Zoltan's book , Epoca de aur? Ceaușescu și maghiarii. Politica Partidului Comunist Român față de minoritatea maghiară în perioada regimului Ceaușescu, Editura Cetatea de Scaun, 2020, 330p.
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Vaněk, Miroslav and Pavel Mücke: Velvet revolutions: An oral history of Czech society. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, ix + 251 pp., ISBN978-0-19-934272-3. If a publishing house as renowned as Oxford University Press publishes a book representing it, it is in the reviewer’s opinion an exceptional success of the Czech historiography. As a matter of fact, this is what Miroslav Vaněk and Pavel Mücke have achieved with their "Velvet revolutions: An oral history of Czech society". It is a pioneering work which, using oral history, systematically conveys and interprets perceptions, thinking, opinions, and attitudes of “ordinary people” during the period of more than two decades from the Prague Spring to the fall of the Communist regime and democratic transformation; more over, being focused on an international audience, it enables such perceptions, thinking, opinions, and attitudes to be understood across the mental barrier of the former Iron Curtain. The publication is based on an analysis and interpretation of more than three hundred methodologically conducted interviews most of which date back to between 2006 and 2013 and whose purpose was to record stories and experience of “ordinary people” during the period in question in a structured manner, i.e. with a focus on several central topics, including politics, family, school and education, employment and unemployment, perception of the West, travelling, and leisure.
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Autor zajmuje się odbiorem krytycznym Mojego wieku Aleksandra Wata, skupiając się na dwu zasadniczych wątkach książki: na komunizmie i religii. Wat przeżywa podwójny kryzys: nihilizmu i komunizmu. Religia, do której dochodzi poprzez nawrócenie, staje się ocaleniem, chociaż jest to proces złożony i nie do końca przyswojony. Wśród krytyków toczyła się również dyskusja na temat struktury i charakteru Mojego wieku: w jakim stopniu jest to dokument historyczny czy utwór literacki? Autor artykułu podkreśla wartości poznawcze i hermeneutyczne tego cennego i oryginalnego świadectwa o XX-ym wieku.
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The present text is a chronicle of the novel Selafiila (2021), by the contemporary Russian Orthodox writer, Father Alexandr Torik. The major theme of the book, to which the author focuses his entire mastery, is not the unmasking of the gulags and crimes of Bolshevism (which have only background value), but the pursuit of the inner becoming of his heroine. The inner becoming of the heroine is defined especially by the great provocative encounters with the personalities who will shape her destiny. These providential meetings also help the author to insert, through the mouths of these mentors of the spirit, some instructive teachings not only for the protagonist, but also for the reader. The novel Selafiila has the great merit of feeding the reader both with the spiritual substance of Christian and ascetic teaching, necessary for spiritual survival today, and with a literature of the highest quality, able to reach the soul and mind of everyone, regardless the degree of catechetical or cultural preparation of the reader.
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Politická role Sovětské armády a jejích místních spojenců v „normalizaci“ Československa (1968–1969)
The study deals with political activities of the Soviet Army in Czechoslovakia after the intervention on August 21, 1968, and its sympathizers from the ranks of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. The authoress examines the topic in the early stage of the so-called normalization (until the spring of 1970), focusing on the local level; however, she sets her research into a broader period context and derives general conclusions from its results. Although the official agreement on the temporary stay of Soviet troops in the territory of Czechoslovakia declared that the Soviet Army should not interfere with domestic affairs of the Czechoslovak state, the Soviet leadership kept devising plans how to make use of the presence of Soviet troops for political purposes. Soviet officers participated in the dissemination of Soviet propaganda, established contacts with local antireform party officials, spoke at their forums, complained about hostile attitudes of Czechoslovak political bodies, and thus kept pressing for a legitimization of the political arrangements. The authoress shows that local pro-Soviet activists, who had maintained contacts with the Soviet Army from the very beginning and been taking over its political agenda, were playing a crucial role in the success of these efforts. In line with Soviet intentions, they were implementing the normalization process “from below”, initiating purges in various organs, demanding the dismissal of officials protesting against presence of the Soviet Army, participating in the subsequent political vetting. They were actively pushing through a change of the official approach to the Soviet Army and helped break its boycott by the Czechoslovak society, which had initially been almost unanimous. In doing so, they were making use of their personal contacts to organize manifestation “friendship” meetings and visits of Soviet soldiers to Czechoslovak schools and factories. The authoress analyzes the reasons of the attitude of these activists, most of whom came from the ranks of “old” (pre-war) and “distinguished” members of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and illustrates the development outlined above by specific examples. By way of conclusion, she notes that, although different forms of the Czechoslovak-Soviet “friendship” since 1968 are often viewed as mere formalistic acts without any deeper meaning at the level of “lived” experience, they were, from the viewpoint of the Soviet policy, well thought-out and centrally planned propagandistic activities which contributed to the promotion of the Soviet interpretation of the Prague Spring and the Soviet invasion and discredited its opponents.
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History repeats itself, unfortunately. For some of us, the sight of the Russian military hardware in the streets of the Ukrainian towns, marked with distinguishing symbols, has undoubtedly brought the events of August 1968 to mind. That was the time when Czechoslovakia was also facing aggression from the same Eastern power, and just like today, the propaganda of the latter presented the developments and reality just as it suited the oppressor. It spoke of counter-revolution, which the forces of the Soviet Union and four other Warsaw Pact states were determined to eliminate. Soon after the invasion, “evidence” began to appear which revealed plots aimed at demoting the socialist system in Czechoslovakia, which included, for instance, seized weapons.
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The Liberec-based Social Democratic daily “Stráž severu” [Sentinel of the North] was captured by the communists immediately after the coup d’état in February 1948. Still, they did not succeed in “normalising” it as they wanted to. They had a monopoly on information but lacked journalists able to effectively fulfil it.
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Franciszek Studziński joined the Polish Legions as a volunteer in 1914, where he served in the 1st Infantry Regiment, with which he followed its entire combat route. He was also active in the underground Polish Military Organisation. In independent Poland, he served in the 25th Infantry Regiment, with which he survived the entire Polish-Bolshevik War. He was decorated for gallantry on the battlefield with the 5th Class Silver Cross of the Virtuti Militari Military Cross. He served in the Border Protection Corps as commander of the 6th Border Battalion in Iwieniec, and later in other units of the Polish Army. In the autumn of 1939, he made his way to Hungary, where he was interned. In summer 1941, he escaped from the camp and returned to Warsaw. From 9th December 1941, he was a commander of the Tarnopol District of the ZWZ-AK (the Union of Armed Struggle). In August 1944, he was arrested by Soviet counterintelligence and imprisoned in Kiev. Later he was transferred to the NKVD POW and internment camp 174-454 in Diaghilev near Ryazan, and in July 1947, to camp 150 in Gryazovets. On 4 November 1947, he returned to Poland. Despite the failure of a secret police provocation, carried out in October 1952 (a proposal to join the alleged WiN Association), he was arrested in December 1952 and sentenced to almost 5 years in prison. He was released in 1955 on the wave of a political “thaw”. Ill and living in extreme poverty, he died on 23 May 1964. His fate during the second Soviet occupation and the collaborationist communist rule exemplifies the similar stories of the Polish Army, Home Army, the WiN Association and other independence organisations that sacrificed their lives for the Fatherland.
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