Comrade Zelenka,
A short time ago you stopped me on the street and we spoke for about three minutes. I have recently learned that you referred to this conversation before a large gathering of students from the departments of law, humanities, and journalism; referred to me intimately by my first name (even though we’ve spoken to each other only twice in our lives); claimed that I regretted my position as I formulated it at the Writers’ Congress and elsewhere, and that I am now on the way to grasping my errors; et cetera, et cetera.
I do not intend to ponder how or why you fabricated this self-criticism, but so that it does not happen again, I must inform you that I would not change a word of what I said at the congress; I disagreed then and disagree now with the encroachment upon
Literární noviny
(I announced it publicly, after all). I consider your role in this matter extremely cowardly and yourself a preposterous figure.
While most writers boycotted Zelenka’s “G.I. paper,” as they referred to it, those of us who were fired were invited to other journals that had not yet been misappropriated.
It was as if, in a society that had been divided since the end of the war — actually since the beginning of the republic — the dividing line had shifted. Now it was no longer democrats versus followers of the revolutionary dictatorship, Communists versus non-Communists. Instead it was those who were trying to hold on to power versus those who wanted to think and act more freely.
*
My wife and I met now and then with my friends from the editorial board, who would bring me news of battles raging within the leadership of the Communist Party. Apparently there had been arguments, especially between Slovaks and Czechs. The chairman of the Slovak Communists, Alexander Dubček, had criticized First Secretary Antonín Novotný. In his turn, Novotný had treated the Slovaks with haughty disdain on a trip around Slovakia. It all culminated in the city of Martin on a visit to the oldest and most revered cultural institution, the Slovak Matica, where the Slovaks intended to present Novotný with a copy of the 1918 Pittsburgh Agreement that paved the way for the creation of Czechoslovakia. Novotný refused the gift.
Besides conflicts between Czechs and Slovaks, followers of Novotný and devotees of reform were fighting in the Central Committee. The economist Ota Šik gave a long speech criticizing the fact that a small group of conservatives led by Novotný was ruling the country, and he said economic reforms would fail without political reforms. We tried to figure out what he meant and if such reform was even possible in a country ruled by the Communist Party.
On the last day of the year, we invited a few friends over. A minute before midnight the telephone rang, and an unfamiliar voice introduced himself as Borůvka, Borůvka from the Central Committee of the party, he explained. First he wished me a happy New Year and then he assured me that everything would turn out fine for me and other writers. “Comrade Klíma, please tell your colleagues that everything is about to change completely in the next few days. But we’re also counting on your help and support!”
I didn’t know how to respond. Was this some kind of joke, or a drunken dialer? The voice on the telephone added, “Read Rudé právo and watch the television. You’re going to be surprised!”
I didn’t subscribe to Rudé právo, and we didn’t own a television set.
Astonished by this bizarre communication, I told my friends what I’d just heard.
It was typical of the times that no one knew whether to take this seriously or as a practical joke.
On January 5, 1968, the citizens of Czechoslovakia were informed that Antonín Novotný had stepped down as first secretary of the Communist Party. The Central Committee thanked Comrade Novotný and praised the selfless and meritorious work he had performed on behalf of the party and the republic. Alexander Dubček was elected first secretary (unanimously, as usual). Not even those of my friends who had remained party members knew what to make of this new development. But they understood from experience that as long as a party that alone assumed the right to govern existed in the country, every political change must be preceded by a change in the leading positions of the party.
When I was reading Kafka’s diaries, I was struck by his entry from August 2, 1914. It was very brief. Germany has declared war on Russia — Swimming in the afternoon. I wrote two exclamation points next to it and in the margin penciled: This concurrence of world events and personal history is an inherent aspect of modern literature. More exact would have been: an inherent aspect of human life.
At the end of January, the Writers’ Union announced that the administrative interference in Literární noviny had been politically misguided, and the union should request permission to register the weekly.
At the beginning of February, a member of the Communist Party’s Central Committee, Josef Smrkovský (only sixteen years earlier sentenced to life in prison), wrote a letter to Rudé právo:
It is necessary to eliminate everything that deformed socialism, everything that corrupted the spirit, everything that inflicted harm on the people and took from them so much of their trust and enthusiasm. We must finalize the rehabilitation of those Communists and others who were innocently sentenced in the political trials. . It is up to us Czechs and Slovaks to bravely set out toward uncharted territories and seek our own Czechoslovak Socialist path.
Something like this from a high party functionary would previously have been unthinkable. It was beginning to become apparent that events were occurring that were more significant than the replacement of the first secretary of the ruling party.
On February 20, 1968, our journal was in fact renewed under the name Literární listy. All those who had been fired from the editorial board in the summer of 1967 returned to their positions on Betlémská Street with the feeling that justice had for once prevailed, and we started to prepare the first issue.
Around this time, Ludvík Vaculík, A. J. Liehm, Pavel Kohout, and I were invited to the Municipal Council of the Communist Party, where an apology was transmitted to us from the higher-ups. They decided that our punishment had been an improper administrative response to criticism. Our expulsion from the party and Vaculík’s reprimand were nullified.
The realization that they were thereby acknowledging the truth of what I had claimed at the congress concerning the suppression of freedom of speech blinded me to such an extent that I accepted their decision without mentioning that I did not want their membership card, that I no longer desired to be responsible to any superior committee or party discipline. (Fortunately, a few weeks later, when I was once again banished from the party, no one asked me for any discipline.)
*
It was apparent that with the arrival of Alexander Dubček, the Slovak Communists were acquiring much greater influence. We in the editorial office suffered from what most of Czech society suffered — an ignorance of Slovak conditions, Slovak history. We didn’t even know most of the Slovak politicians. Since I had written two books about Slovakia, some of my colleagues assumed I knew more about the country, but my books had been about the most eastern part of Slovakia, which was a republic within a republic.