Substantial changes were taking place under Dubček. Censorship was abolished in the spring, and important political organizations were being established: the Club of Engaged Independents and the association K231, which brought together political prisoners sentenced in the show trials at the beginning of the ’50s.
Our editor in chief, Milan Jungmann, invited a representative of K231 to our offices. From the chair of this organization, Jaroslav Brodský, I once again heard how little attention the courts, and government offices in general, were giving to reevaluating the trials of those who had been victims of arbitrary despotism even though they had never been Communists. I heard tales about concentration camps in the uranium mines and prisons where priests lived side by side with former democratic politicians and scouts, as well as criminals and swindlers and even the last remnants of Nazis. I was ashamed to confess that much of this was new to me — they wouldn’t have believed me anyway and would have considered it merely a pitiful excuse.
The times did indeed seem favorable for serious changes, but what should be the priorities? What was imperative, and what could be put off for a time? What could we allow ourselves without provoking those whom we referred to as conservatives? What was still acceptable in the eyes of the superpower to the east, the superpower that demanded that no one doubt whatever it proclaimed indubitable?
The launch issue of Literární listy came out on March 1. The first two issues comprised twelve pages just like the previous instantiation of the paper. With the third issue, however, we increased the number of pages to sixteen, and our circulation rose from the previous 120,000 to 270,000, and a few weeks later to 300,000—an unprecedented number for a literary newspaper. (Even during the big news moments we continued to write about literature and culture in general.)
I was put in charge of the so-called opinion pages. I’m not sure if we were aware, but we should have assumed, that these pages would become the most talked-about section of our newspaper.
It was already apparent that the promised reforms would apply to all spheres of life. I started to realize that a couple of editors from our opinion section were not qualified. I recommended we establish several multimember advisory boards composed of specialists, each for a different sphere of societal life. Thus arose our working groups in which we discussed articles on economics, history, philosophy, sociology, and law. The working groups met at least twice a month; the members worked without pay and mainly brought in their own articles.
At first we considered the essential focus to be the rectifications of recent injustices. It was necessary to rehabilitate the unjustly persecuted or sentenced — professors deprived of their positions during the purges, students forbidden to study, the western resistance, works that were not allowed to be published, ideas that the ruling ideologues had designated as erroneous or unfriendly. This was the past of our First Republic.
Soon, however, other points rose to greater significance. We understood that if we did not succeed in removing, or at least limiting, the rule of a single party and renewing democracy, things could always turn around. The first voices demanding a radical change in the political system came from artists in response to a question published in our paper: Whence, With Whom, and Whither?
The philosopher Karel Kosík wrote:
Because the politicians who brought this country to the edge of economic, political, and moral catastrophe still hold powerful and influential positions and are hoping they will survive today’s wave of regeneration, democracy must be vigilant and not forget the fundamental experience of history: politics is decided by power and deeds, not words and promises.
My friend Alexandr Kliment went even farther in his response:
Renewing political life means finding the courage for free discussion of all vital matters. Such a discussion cannot take place in a privileged party circle; it must include all citizens of the republic. I believe in free elections, a functioning parliamentary opposition, the rehabilitation of public opinion, active neutrality, and the federalization of a neutral state.
Today these demands seem innocuous and obvious, but they seemed at the time more like a dreamy, unrealizable fantasy.
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In the fourth issue of our journal we published an article titled “The Renaissance of Power” by one of our foremost lawyers, Vladimír Klokočka. He began by discussing power in generaclass="underline"
It is possible to misapply political power as well as steal it. . The theft or misapplication of power is still a more advantageous type of criminality than the theft of property. It brings rule not only over property but also over people. [The people] must therefore be protected even from their own representatives and delegates.
One of the most important questions in a modern society is how to control power and by what means we can ensure this control. Ever so cautiously, Klokočka moved on to questions of a legal opposition. The word “opposition” itself must be stripped of its criminal connotations. A healthily functioning society requires opposing opinions. The fundamental question of power is whether opposing opinions will become the basis for organizing interests in the creation of political will, that is, whether opinions will be the foundation for specific political behavior, political action. The idea of the need for an opposition party was concealed behind this formulation.
In “Freedom and Responsibility,” the sociologist Miroslav Jodl distinguished between external and internal freedom. The political system must ensure external freedom in the form of political freedoms, that is, the freedom of expression and of association. He also discussed, although on a theoretical level, the character of contemporary power: All power tends toward hypertrophy. From this it follows that no power can be allowed to exist for long without control from below. Otherwise power degenerates into license and arbitrariness; it does not recognize any limitations other than those it establishes itself, and it transforms the citizen into a vassal.
Václav Havel contributed an essay to the same issue titled “On the Theme of an Opposition.” Even in a Socialist society, he claimed, an opposition is necessary, and whoever imagines that such an opposition can be substituted for by some sort of unorganized public opinion (for example, the press) is mistaken. Every opposition must have the opportunity to try to hold power. He expressed this aphoristically. Ultimately, power really listens only to power, and if government is to be improved, we must be able to threaten its existence, not merely its reputation. Aware that the Communist leadership would allow only unwillingly the founding of new parties, he cautiously proposed the concept of such a new party. Its goal would also be to create democratic socialism, but it would come from the historical and humanitarian traditions of our country. Although it would be a fully legal partner in the battle for power, because it would no longer be built on class bases, its politics would be founded on a historically new type of coalition cooperation. . with full political autonomy.
At the end of April, I wrote an article called “One Design, One Party” and tried to impugn the image of an ineluctable Socialist society. I identified all the praiseworthy aspects of socialism, such as the socialization of the means of production, the payment for work according to merit, and the building of a humanitarian society. Then I asked how much of this had been achieved. The answer was obvious: nothing. The entire project had been a utopian fantasy combined with the ideals, illusions, and one-sided rationalism of the nineteenth century. I characterized the party, which had taken on responsibility for the creation of what it called a Socialist society: