DEFIANT CZECH WRITERS PROVOKE A NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL DEBATE
By George Novack
In the early stages of the struggle for democracy in East Europe and the Soviet Union, writers, artists and scientists have taken the lead in voicing the discontents of the people and mobilizing progressive opinion against the worst abuses of the bureaucratic regimes. This initiative of the intellectuals has been evidenced in Soviet life over the past thirteen years, from the first signs of the cultural thaw in 1954, which preceded the demolition of the Stalin cult two years later, to the latest tug of war between the liberalizers and the diehards determined to uphold strict party supervision over all forms of creative activity.
Dissident writers and intellectuals were stimulators and heralds of the 1956 revolts in Poland and Hungary. The recurrent warnings in the Maoist press since the launching of the Cultural Revolution against dangerous "revisionist" critics in the, Communist party who might constitute Petofi clubs shows how deeply the lessons of these experiences with the intellectuals have been etched upon the minds of the monopolists of political power from Peking to East Berlin.
After the showdown a year ago between the Gomulka government and its critics at the University of Warsaw, which resulted in the expulsion of the philosopher Leszek Kolakowski from the party and strong protests from the faculty and students against this action (see "Report of a Participant on the Kolakowski Case," World Outlook November 10, 1967), the center of the continuing conflict between the intellectuals and the bureaucrats has shifted to Czechoslovakia.
The present grievances of the Czech writers against the arbitrariness of the authorities go back to the ayppression of Tvar in the fall of 1965. monthly was one of the most sophisticated
literary publications. After a violent campaign against its "unabashed liberalism," the party Ideological Department demanded that the Writers Union name a new editor-in-chief and reorganize its editorial board. With some resistance and reluctance, the Union Presidium complied.
Then a group of young writers held a, public meeting reminiscent of the Petofi Club gatherings which adopted a resolution condemning the fact that administrative measures "once again replaced literary discussion." More than three hundred writers and artists endorsed this resolution.
Nevertheless, the Writers Union Central Committee, under pressure from the party higher ups, went ahead and upheld the decision and Ivar ceased publishing.
The Tvar affair deepened discontent with the cultural climate and, in the two years since, all the burning issues relating to creative freedom have been subject to ardent debate in intellectual and political circles.
Four tendencies have emerged among the writers and intellectuals of Czecheslovakia. To the right stand the sentinels of the Old Guard who want to maintain the system of strict state and party control over all intellectual, scientific and artistic activities with a minimum of concessions to the insistent urge for relaxation. Beside them are the more sensitive and flexible official liberals who are willing and even eager to institute and support reforms, provided the primacy of the party in intellectual matters is unchallenged and unchanged.
The most rebellious elements are divided into the "unbelievers" and the "believers." The former are scornful of politics, inclined toward individualism and skepticism, and disillusioned with the hypocrisies of the "Communism" they see around them. They expect nothing from the regime and are not disposed to engage in any effort to clean up the mess. Such attitudes are not uncommon among the youth in all East European countries today.
Thirty-three year old Vaclav Havel is a typical spokesman for the sentiments of this current. His best-known play, The Memorandum, points its criticism at the regime within the framework of the theater of the absurd. Its theme is a transparent parody of the tragedy of Stalinism and the farce of de-Stalinization.
A group of employees seize control of a company -- obviously a symbol for the takeover of Czechoslovakia -- and introduce a nonsensical new language called "Ptydepe" which they imply is sanctioned by the mysterious mighty ones above. Scores of people learn the new lingo, interpret and analyze it, write books about it, make and break careers, organize scientific seminars and ideological structures around it. The manager who resists feebly against it is pushed aside.
Then one day it turns out, through equally obscure channels, that "Ptydepe"
had never been officially favored, that it had to be extirpated, and those responsible for introducing it punished. Meanwhile, another equally incomprehensible language called "Chorukor" is put in its stead. And so the comedy goes on.
There are not a few such novels, plays, films and poems which are thinly disguised polemics against one or another repressive or depressive feature of official society and an argument in favor of greater freedon.
The hopelessness, cynicism, frustration and sense of isolation that mark this tendency can make some of its exponents veer off in reactionary directions. One of its members, for example, deplored the role of de Gaulle as tending to disrupt the ability of the West to balance its power against that of the Soviet Union. And there is the wellpublicized case of Ladislav Mnacko, whose novel The Taste of Power is a vitriolic portrayal of a conscienceless bureaucrat supposedly modeled after Premier Novotny. The book is banned in Prague. Mnacko broke with the regime over the Arab- Israeli war, accusing it of anti-Semitism because of its opposition to Zionist expansionism, and sought exile in Israel.
There are a few other disoriented intellectuals who identify the intolerable practices of bureaucratism with Marxism and socialism and are disposed to "choose freedom" in the West on the model of Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva.
The "believers" are of a different sort. While also in open revolt against the regimentation of the Communist party, which they regard as worn out and discredited, they are willing to undertake political and ideological struggle against its evil influence and look forward to a replacement for it. Their most vigorous voice belongs to the highly respected 41-year-old Ludwik Vaculik, editor, critic and author of two novels attacking Stalinism, and a long-standing party member.
A confrontation between these tendencies occurred at the Fourth Congress of Czechoslovak Writers which was held in Prague on June 27-29, 1967. The sharp tone of the debates at its tumultuous sessions can be judged by the bitter indictment of the party's political and cultural policies made by Vaculik. Here are some excerpts from his speech.
"I am speaking as the citizen of a state which I shall never renounce, but in which I cannot be content...The first law of Power is that it will try to perpetuate itself...Since it can legally block all future challenges to its rule, Power evolves into a dynasty...
"The selection of people also occurs on the basis of their usefulness to Power. The men who are given responsibility are the ones who cause no trouble and ask no questions. The most commonplace people fare best while the more complex individuals disappear from the stage...
"Art cannot renounce the subject of government because to govern means to make direct or indirect decisions through administrative acts which affect the lives of men, their hopes and disappointments, and, what is more, their thoughts. Ideas are outside the province of administrative acts and yet decisions are made about them; this is where the activity of power affects the activity of art. And this is why art cannot renounce criticism of government...
"I see a persistent trend and an unmistakable danger that the old, bad days will return...I don't feel safe in the cultural situation because the ruling power can throw it into turmoil. Equally, I don't feel safe outside the walls of this hall, that is, this 'playground.' I am not being harmed and I have not been harmed. Things like that don't happen anymore. Should I be grateful? I get no joy out of it because I'm afraid. I have no firm guarantees...
"It must be admitted that not one human problem has been solved in the last twenty years -- neither such elementary needs as housing, schools, economic prosperity nor spiritual needs which the undemocratic systems of the world cannot provide for, such as the creation of a feeling that politics are subordinate to ethics, a belief in the meaning of humble work, the need for mutual confidence among people, education of the people as a whole.
"In conclusion, I would like to state explicitly what is surely implicit in my entire speech: I do not pin ny criticism of Power in this state on the brow of Socialism because I am not convinced that these developments were necessary in our country, and because I do not identify this Power with Socialism although that is just what the Power would like me to do. Not even their destinies need be identical. And if the people who exercise this power...were to come here and pose the question as to whether the dream of a government at one with the citizen can be achieved, they would have to accept the following answer as an expression of my good will and highest civic loyalty: 'I don't know.'"
Vaculik's question mark over the possibilities of reforming the regime is pregnant with revolutionary implications. He has reportedly given the following advice to party people who think like him-
self. "They should end this isolation from each other and begin to develop relationships among themselves. They must get to know each other, to count on each other, so that some day they can be ready - " This is the formula for a Petofi lub.
After a two-month delay the Communist party cracked down on the rebels. On September 27 the Central Committee ousted Jan Prochazka, one of the country's best-— known writers, as a candidate member of the committee, expelled Vaculik and two other writers, Ivan Klima and R.S.Riehn, and curbed the leading Czechoslovak literary magazine, Literarni Noviny. Although the actions came as no surprise, they were harsher than anticipated.
Prochazka belonged to the liberal wing of the party and, although not associated with the attacks on the party's monopoly of power at the Writers' Congress, he was probably punished because he worked to intercede for the dissidents.
Literarni Noviny, the most popular and outspokenly liberal publication in the country, was placed under the control of the Ministry of Education and Culture which effectively eliminates its independence. The Central Committee communiqué said that the magazine had "become an organ of opposition political views." The three critics expelled from the party were all on its editorial board and the communiqué charged that they had fallen under "narrow, sectarian and even foreign influences."
In the wake of the furor provoked by the party's disciplinary measures and the reinforcement of its censorship, the London Sunday Times printed a "manifesto" allegedly signed by 329 Czech intellectuals, whose names were not given, which appealed for help "to rescue the spiritual freedom and fundamental rights of every independent artist threatened by the terror of the state powers." [See World Outlook September 22, page 790.] This document was branded as spurious by the Prague government and is said to have emanated from a small group of emigrés in West Germany.
Despite its dubious character, the "manifesto" set off a series of declarations which have elevated the struggle of the Czechoslovak writers into an international issue. It specifically called upon three noted German writers, among other leftist intellectuals, to raise, their voices in protest, These were Gunter Grass, Heinrich Boll and Peter Weiss.
Grass addressed an "open letter" to Czech President Novotny supporting the demand of the Czechoslovakian artists for freedom of expression and an end to censorship. "In just a few years the Czech artists have won worldwide esteem for your country," he reminded the head of state. “And it is not in the uniform opinions of your party meetings where you sullenly deliver your dictums that we hear your message, but in the Czech poetry, the Czech film, the new Czech theater which has reached, moved, and changed us. And you want to give up this wealth?"
Grass went on to say: "I also write in a country that has known terror. The damage that remains after every political terror has not been undone here either. It continues, whether it is in the creeping censorship called ‘voluntary self-control' or in the recently uncovered criminal measures of Springer's spies. [Springer is the West German press lord. ] So we have no ground to harp on the freedom of the West. There is no room for arrogance and for that reason I refuse to write this letter from the popular podium of anti-Communism. The crisis of democracy is worldwide. If the Communist states petrify under the dictatorship of Party bureaucracy the Western democracies stagnate because their parliaments are corrupted by the bonds of interest groups."
His plea was seconded by Heinrich Boll who pointed out that “our position here is also very difficult and ambiguous. A number of Western writers issued reports against both the arrest of Daniel and Sinyavsky and the Vietnam War. All the several hundred West German newspapers published our protest against the arrest of the two Soviet writers, but only a few printed our protest against the Vietnam War. You can see how easily the freedom which every newspaper here enjoys is transformed into self-censorship, by using this freedom to report only the news items that are convenient..."
Grass's letter elicited a reply from the rebel playwright Pavel Kohout who explained that he was "one of the four participants at the Fourth Congress of the Czechoslovak Union of Writers whose names were stricken from the list of candidates for the new Central Committee of the Union." He repudiated the "manifesto" and declared it to be a fraud on its very face because it resorted "to the terminology of frayed anti-Communist propaganda."
Kohout stated that "the frank revelations of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the simultaneous recognition that the revolutionary power in our own country had also become despotic, was a hard psychic blow to Communist artists in particular. Yet, the team-generation was already too mature to scatter in all directions like a gang of young kids in front of a smashed window pane. With few exceptions, they understood there was only one possibility
for them: continuance of the revolutionary process...
"The struggle for genuine Socialism pervades my entire party and all strata of our society. People are joining together in the struggle not by virtue of their occupation but on the basis of how mature their thinking is. You will find more than one intellectual amongst us who rejects this forward movement because it would bring an end to the conformist period in which his meager talent found recognition. On the other hand, you will find 'functionaries' who for years have consciously been clearing the way for this movement...
"IT have no intention of saying, dear Gunter Grass, that your rush onto our battlefield was useless," he continued. "It is never useless to raise one's voice in defense even when it is the result of an error. An error of this kind is a hundred times more honorable and useful than indifference to the fate of others which can lead to overlooking crimes. I am writing to you because I recognize this. It is good to know that none of us lives on a desert island, that the awareness of a common human fate also exists in our insane, divided world and that it is growing..."
Upon his return from a two-month stay in Cuba, the internationally known dramatist, Peter Weiss, the author of Marat Sade, entered the controversy in connection with an invitation from the Czechoslovak Union of Writers to attend an international writers' conference scheduled for Prague on November 29, 1967. He, too, doubted the authenticity of the document for valid reasons.
Nevertheless, he stated that "I consider it extremely necessary to discuss the issue of freedom of speech and opinion publicly, of creative freedom and the abandonment of political censorship. I am, therefore, requesting the Czechoslovak Union of Writers to take up again the theme of the writer's position in a Socialist society..
"We Socialist writers who are mainly active in the West are just as much affected by the cultural restrictions in the Socialist countries as our colleagues in the East...We believe the Socialist countries are strong enough today...to have the courage to accommodate openly a major cultural conflict, deal with all inflammable questions and refrain from suppressing any of their aspects. Socialist and other progressive international writers can no longer accept having the conflict pushed aside by partisan party decisions.
"It is extremely important to me to have my works discussed not only in the Western world but in the Socialist countries as well. My own evolution to Marxism passed through many stages, from surrealistic experiments...to a radical political position. Isee no reason why artists in a Socialist state should be hanpered in their own natural development... Let us not forget that this society is incomplete in many respects and full of contradictions and that criticism and opposition are signs of vitality which can contribute to the progress of humanistic Marxism.
"We must examine how far the required freedom of expression can be extended before it can be exploited by reactionary and counterrevolutionary tendencies...We must discuss what we mean by progressive art.
"Is Socialist realism progressive in relation to modern, socially critical works of art that have their origins in the bourgeois world, or does this realism live on forms which stem from a lower middle-class view of reality? The ques-— tion must be asked whether it is the task of cultural institutions in Socialist countries to encourage statements that are historically and socially truthful about the complex structure of society, or whether they should engage in nurturing a conformist and idealistic picture of the present situation.
Weiss asked for an answer from the Union of Writers before he would consent to participate in its international synposium. We do not know whether he received one or what he decided to do.
The questions concerning artistic and intellectual freedom posed by Peter Weiss do transcend national boundaries and even opposing social systems today; they are of common concern to writers of both East and West. The students and writers of West Germany, faced with the reac-— tionary Springer press combine and the restrictions of the Bonn Republic, and the dissenting American intellectuals demonstrating against the Vietnam war, who are beaten by cops and accused by Johnson and his echoers of aiding "the enemy," are engaged in the same battle for freedom of expression as the Czechoslovak and Soviet writers. As Grass and others indicate, it is not easy to conduct this struggle in a principled way and avoid entanglement in the webs of imperialist propaganda and intrigue against the countries with a socialist economic base and the colonial revolution. Yet it is unwarranted to remain silent and shirk solidarity with the persecuted intellectuals on either side.
The ferment among the Communist intellectuals in Czechoslovakia testifies to the irrepressible thrust of the de- Stalinization processes which were long delayed in that country. They began only
in 1963 but have moved quite fast since then. They are bound to go further.
Novotny's repressive measures against the unorthodox writers should do more to stimulate than to stop the demands for reform in many spheres which reflect deep dissatisfactions within Czech society and reach into the upper circles of the party itself.
"The writers' protest," observed Richard Eder in the November 12 New York Times, “is the most dramatic event that has taken place" in Czechoslovakia since the Communist conquest of power. It may be taken as the precursor of bolder acts of opposition to come.