There is a view, common in the former West and often supported by distinguished scholars, that the anti-totalitarian revolutions of 1989, which ended the Soviet domination of East-Central Europe, were in principle nothing but the return of this part of Europe to an accustomed liberal democratic political order.(135)-(136) The apparent assumption behind this line of reasoning is the hypothesis that the totalitarian system of domination, although brutally violent, was merely an artificial and superficial obstacle preventing the free trend of the human spirit and of human action towards democracy. This view does not and cannot grasp the heart of the matter, but remains on its surface. Consequently, it is also unable to analyze the opportunities presented by this historic convulsion, of which we all have been, and still are, the witnesses.
Long experience with a totalitarian regime, and efforts to grasp the nature of its manipulation of human psychology and activity, indicate the validity of the explanations by George Orwell, Arthur Koestter, Hannah Arendt, Kurt Vonnegut and Alexander Solzhenitsyn of this typical spiritual and political phenomenon. In contrast to most Western analysts, these five interpreters had experienced personally the phenomenon of totalitarianism. Czech political philosophers who had been similarly affected, had in addition significant background in a relatively successful liberal democracy and a much deeper tradition of spiritually and morally grounded political reflection. The most outstanding representative of this tradition, T. G. Masaryk, founded the Czechoslovak state.
TOTALITARIANISM
When, after returning from exile, Masaryk wrote World Revolution(137)
during those first years of an independent Czechoslovakia, he was convinced of the irreversible superiority of democracy, just as much as he was
convinced of the final defeat of dictatorship in Europe. However, this state
of enthusiasm soon gave way to a more sober assessment. It was not that he
gave up his convictions about the basic trend of historical change, but he
saw that the world democratic revolution would have to encounter another
conflict with a more barbarian European adversary. Masaryk made a cogent
judgement that the adversary was the prevailing cultural and spiritual half-heartedness and semi-education.(138) The Socio-political diagnosis of the
working of a totalitarian system--found convincingly in Hannah Arendt's
criticism of Masaryk--seemed to have proved him to be wrong, however,
for totalitarianism proved to be a much more tenacious system of ruling
society than he had presumed.(139)
He was deeply convinced that all political, social and economic problems are in principle ethical problems. Such a proposition naturally
provoked those of a liberal position, primarily those who take the liberal
and democratic political environment for granted. However, the nature of
the democratic environment is not self-evident, but has deeper moral roots.
This became evident recently, when post-totalitarian societies opened themselves fully to contact with developed Western democracies. This post-totalitarian situation revealed, for example, that the obvious inability to
adopt the principles of a free market completely and all at once was due
primarily to the essentially different moral habits of a people brought up in
a totalitarian regime.
The transformation of a previously democratic Czechoslovakia into a
totalitarian political system occurred when the moral support of the nation
had been removed, leaving it defenseless before the aggressive onslaught,
both from within and from without, of the totalitarian left. From that time
on, the totalitarian managers tried to create a new society and a new man--what is more, they succeeded. They began by abolishing any true distinction
between civil society and the state. Both spheres operated only as systems
for transmitting the decisions of the ruling party's center. Both of them
were, in reality, thereby liquidated. Terror as the principle of existence and
ideology as the principle of the "political" action of totalitarianism penetrated into the very capillaries of society, including its mental habits, thereby
decisively influencing the conduct and experience of everyday life.
Communist domination resulted in a radical resignation of individual
responsibility for the course of one's life and its moral meaning. The type of
ideal human being and social model imposed by the totalitarian system was
one response to the increasing complexity of a modern secularized liberal
world. In place of the synthesizing power of the religious life, conceived
and encouraged by the medieval Church, it offered a relatively easy life of
ideological and material compulsion. From the ideological point of view,
the awful complexity of life and world suddenly disappeared; everything
was supposed to become as clear and simple as it had been in the happy
period of childhood.
However, totalitarianism conquered complexity, not by simplicity,
but by vagueness. This required responsiveness opposite to the moral and
political responsibility of the individual; it was rather permanent readiness
to comply with every ideological shift. Consequently, every trait of independent individuality should be eliminated: this was the citizen's first and
final duty to the Communist regime. Once they accepted the ideology,
either as the highest possible knowledge, or as the ruling and compelling
reality of power to be respected as the framework of individual careers, all
existential problems of human life were resolved. They disappeared once
and for all, so that the world was no longer problematic and complex, but
became a very simple entity. Anything that did not fit into such a polarity
was either wrongly understood, or a remnant from some previous and no
longer relevant or realistic time.
The key spiritual meaning and purpose of totalitarian politics consists
in the dominating role of vagueness at all levels of society, and, therefore,
in the liquidation of all activities independent of the official ideological
canon. A considerable part of this was realized in communist Czechoslovakia. People who chose vagueness abdicated thereby all personal
responsibility for their lives in exchange for the security of immediate
orders. They then began to hold that everything is relative and, therefore,
that their obedience should not be blamed because it too can be shown to be
right. This kind of totalitarian sophistry became the reasoning of the "new
socialist man", homo sovieticus, for whom vagueness was the proper
meaning of life and of the world. In this respect totalitarianism carried to
sinister fruition the spiritual uncertainty of modern Western civilization.
HISTORY OF REVOLUTIONS
The victory of the world democratic revolution in Europe came about
only in 1989; in the last analysis, it was achieved in the sense in which Masaryk comprehended democracy. The basis of the East-European political
revolutions--with the partial exception of Romania--were not violent
military operations, but commonly shared moral rejections of totalitarian
regimes. The democratic attitude of the Soviet block citizens in 1989 grew
out of their moral orientation. Masaryk's final summary of the meaning of
history which closes his World Revolution--that symbolic résumé: "Jesus,
not Caesar"--was fulfilled. Masaryk's influence was manifest clearly in
Czechoslovakia in 1968 and in the actions of the Czechoslovak democratic
opposition which followed. It had a very basic, though indirect, share also
in the character of the East-European revolutions of 1989: his alleged
naïveté had become historical reality.
The revolutionary spring of nations in 1848 was the rebellion of
awakening citizenship in continental Europe against the basic certainties
and orders of the Holy Alliance. That international pact had been intended
to hold back the revolutionary democratic contagion of French origin in
non-democratic Europe. The 1848 democratic revolution failed in Eastern
and Central Europe mainly because of Russian military intervention. It was
not successful until 140 years later, in the year of the 200th anniversary of
the French revolution.
The Communist totalitarian system from the Soviet Union was the
object of this democratic revolution, which consisted in the pervasive
disintegration of the system. Gorbachev's ascension to power had been the
response of the totalitarian Soviet leadership to their impasse, which, in
turn, had resulted from the conflict of that totalitarian system with the
political approach of the oldest modern democracy, that of America. The
political failure of the totalitarian system can be understood as the victory of
morals and moral politics over totalitarian ideology with its direct dependence upon the allegedly objective laws of natural historical development.
The practical side of the ideology was its day-to-day application of these
alleged laws to political dealings according to the situation. Such
application does not, of course, acknowledge the moral principles which, in
the totalitarian ideological view, can provide only an ideological super-structure to the historically outdated phases of historical development.
The Soviet Union's totalitarian approach to the USA was based on
this ideological standpoint and presumed, moreover, that its big-power antagonist at best would act similarly--should it manage to overcome its allegedly historically belated moral attitudes. This presumption was correct in
the days of the Johnson, Nixon and Ford administrations. However, the
subsequent return of American foreign policy to its original moral-political
ideals and principles proved fatal to the totalitarian Soviet regime, for
anything of that sort went beyond the possibilities of an ideological interpretation of historical reality. As H. Arendt presumed they would, the
Soviet totalitarian rulers became tricked tricksters. They had to yield to the
pressure inspired by the United States for the observance of basic human
and citizen rights, linked to a firm and realistic attitude in the matter of
disarmament and economic relations. The result was the arrival of
Gorbachev, who presented his policy as a morally principled democratization of the totalitarian empire of his day.
The fall of Brezhnev's Neo-Stalinism began to have an effect in Eastern Central Europe similar to that of the fall of Metternich in Austria. The
Hungarians were the first to take this opportunity to change their political
system and their position was relatively the most favorable. Their leader,
Kádár--upon whom Kruschev and Tito had agreed just before crushing the
Hungarian democratic revolution of 1956--directed his efforts toward economic reforms and included a partial loosening of the ideological clamp
upon society. He did this on a continuing basis, even though he adjusted to
pressure from the Soviet Union. What was decisive was that Kádár and his
people managed to exclude the influence of the Stalinists in creating state
policy by forcing them into positions of regional power. After removing
their teacher, who had gone about his reforms by halves, Kádár's pupils set
about democratizing the social system toward a clear political democracy.
That is to say, in Hungary the revolution came clearly from the leaders,
which allowed a non-violent revolutionary people's movement, dominated
by the non-party Democratic Forum.
Practically simultaneously with Hungary, most of the Poles decided
for a democratic, anti-totalitarian revolution, represented by their repeatedly
legalized Solidarity, i.e. their political non-Party union. The founding of
Solidarity in the summer of 1980 was a truly radical break in the long tradition of violent Polish revolutions. The negative prospects of revolutionary
violence had become obvious to the Polish participants in the revolutionary
workers' rebellions of 1970 and 1976. The founding of Solidarity was the
intended beginning of the non-violent people's supra-party movement for
democracy in Poland. A lasting alliance was formed between Solidarity and
the Polish Catholic Church to constitute a traditional national organization,
spiritual and anti-totalitarian in character.
East Germany's turn came in October 1989 on the occasion of the
celebrations of the fortieth anniversary of the totalitarian Communist regime. Gorbatchev's personal instigation of folk demonstrations was obvious. In spite of the usual non-democratic German traditions, the German
Democratic Republic became the site of the origin of a mass movement for
democracy, in which the New Forum played a fundamental role.
There followed the citizens' movement for democracy in Bulgaria,
with a original ecological motive through basically political. Here, too, we
see basically a supra-party, democratic political trend.
The number of democratic revolutions in eastern Central Europe in
1989 was supplemented by Czechoslovakia on November 17th. Its relatively belated beginning was the result of the exceedingly thorough restoration
and tightening of the totalitarian regime after the crushing of earlier non-violent Czechoslovak democratic movements. The Czechoslovak revolution
of November and December 1989 provides an excellent opportunity to
study the relationship of morality and politics--that is, of moral and immoral
politics. Without exaggeration, it can be maintained that the Czechoslovak
revolution was predominantly and quite obviously a clash between the
moral attitudes of the citizens and the totalitarian policy whose outer form
constituted the explicitly barbarian essence of the totalitarian regime. The
Marxist interpretation of history and social movement had proved a failure.
The moral rebellion of the people who economically were relatively well-off, was articulated through a political revolution which swept away the
totalitarian regime practically overnight and opened the path to democracy.
The rapid founding, the character, activity and primarily the massive spread
of the political movements, Civic Forum and Public Against Violence,
presented a possible future model for Czechoslovak democracy.
The attitude of the citizens' non-violent stance against totalitarian
violence had emerged for the first time in East Central Europe in 1968, in
Czechoslovakia in the revolutionary democratic reform movement called
the "Prague Spring". This included the spontaneous and simultaneously
organized reaction of citizens to the military invasion on August 21st and
the several months that followed. The Civic Forum, Public Against Violence and originally the Movement for Citizens' Freedom continued the
tradition founded in 1968 by the Club of Committed Non-Party Members.
There were other citizens' associations, beyond Czechoslovakia.
Non-violent and supra-party civil courage found its organized form of expression in Polish Solidarity, the Hungarian Democratic Forum, the Bulgarian Citizens' Democratic Movement and to a large degree in the East-German New Forum. With the exception of Romania, the Czechoslovak
Civic Forum and Public Against Violence closed the chain reaction of non-violent people's movements for human rights and democracy against the
communist totalitarianism from the Soviet Union.
NON-VIOLENT REVOLUTION
Whence did this non-violent revolutionary form spring, and what is
its significance for politics and political theory? We would note three
sources of contemporary, non-violent supra-party and non-party democratic
movements in the European countries of the Soviet block. The first is the
Czechoslovak Prague Spring of 1968, suppressed through military violence,
but why was it non-violent? The decisive reason for the peaceful course of
that democratic anti-totalitarian revolution was the predominant, nearly
universal, social consensus which did not seek revenge upon the long-term
oppressors. Its reason can be found in the character of that stage of the
Novotný regime as a relatively perfect Schweik-like metamorphosis of the
previous classical stage of totalitarian terror and class ideology. Ideological
supervision over the cultural sphere, the university and sometimes even
high school teaching was more liberal and rather decisively relaxed.
Moreover, economic activity was marked by more liberal tendencies. All
this happened under the outward mantle of socialism and in close
connection with the then totalitarian Soviet Union. In Czechoslovakia the
majority of the inhabitants did not mind this. The implications of this more
liberal culture, which more or less followed the democratic traditions of
Masaryk's First Republic, appeared slowly and gradually.
When the inevitable clash came with those in power, the top decision-makers were already aware of the crack in their orthodox totalitarian
facade. A certain liberal and universal social consensus existed, from the
highest levels to the man-in-the-street. As soon as freedom of expression
and assembly became possible, there was no real need of general violence.
Thus, the democratic Czechoslovak revolution ran its course non-violently
and with a strong element of morality. Its unique form left strong and
indelible marks in the memories of those who were able to watch or actually
participate in it, whether in agreement or as critics.
The second reason for the contemporary non-violent democratic
revolutions in most countries of East Central Europe lay in the origin and
effect of Charta 77. The spiritual, non-violent cultural heritage of 1968 in
Czechoslovakia and Masaryk's influence were concentrated and deepened in
Charta 77, which remolded them into a form as yet unheard of in European
and world history. It was an initiative of several hundred publicly named
and unnamed citizens who radically criticized the tight totalitarian system
which had managed to frighten into obedience and neutralize the majority
of the inhabitants of Czechoslovakia. At first sight it seemed a simple idea:
that pacts regarding human and civil rights must be applied consistently.
This natural demand which hit at the very foundations of totalitarianism was
given an existential neo-Socratic philosophical basis by Jan Patoka through
a radical contemplation upon the common source of philosophy and politics
(see Chapter VII below). This attitude, emanating from a radical questioning of the meaning of life, critiqued seemingly self-evident social and political institutions. Past Czech traditions of political thought, represented in
modern times by Havlíek, Palaký and Masaryk, and founded on morals,
thus gained a philosophical base for addressing power.
Moreover, not solely an individual standpoint, but a solidarity of
thought was founded by this attitude. Patoka called it the solidarity of the
deeply shaken, "who are capable of comprehending the meaning of life and
death and their consequences in history: that history is a conflict between
minimal life, bare and shackled by fear, and life at the peak which does not
concern the details of workaday life, but sees clearly that its life and `peace'
are finite."(140) The criticism of the political regime from the viewpoint of the
rights of the human being and citizen is therefore a continuous criticism of
the institutions from the viewpoint of the actual meaning of human
existence. Charta 77 grew from a philosophically founded moral attitude
which asks the meaning of political and social institutions from the point of
view of the meaning of human life. The thought of Charta 77 therefore is
not limited to criticism of the totalitarian regime, but concerns all political
and social systems without exception. Hence, it could never organize a
political organization, but expressed a supremely moral standpoint toward
political and social realities.
The third source of the non-violent democratic revolutions in East
Central Europe was the phenomenon of Polish Solidarity. This presented the
immediate and natural metamorphosis of an independent trade union movement into an anti-totalitarian political movement of non-party members
developed upon democratic organizational principles. When such a non-violent mass movement is led by political personalities with expert advisors,
the totalitarian regime has an absolutely indestructible antagonist. Its superiority can be put off only temporarily by the use of outright violence, as was
shown clearly by the Jaruzelski military putsch of December 13, 1981, and
by the period that followed.
The mainly non-violent democratic revolutions in Eastern Europe
are, from the viewpoint of political theory, in their typology and revolutionary development events which deserve the greatest attention. The
bicentenary celebration of the French Revolution brought about an end to
the era of revolutions in the French manner, which had been the revolutionary paradigm for modern times. In other words, the Central European
revolutions of 1989--with the partial exception of Romania--meant the end
of violent revolutions which logically culminated in terror.
FREE POLITICAL ASSOCIATIONS
The recent non-violent anti-totalitarian wave of revolution amongst
the nations of East Central Europe had two determining common denominators. The first was non-violence; the second was the clear aim of founding
historically proven and typically free political associations which are
absolutely different from political parties. It is in these non-party and supra-party institutions that elementary citizenship is applied: the basic political
dimension of free and open discussion on public matters and consequent
decision-making, that is to say, the principle of initiative as well as
referendum.
This is an institution of new origin; it is the effect of political freedom and power unlimited by any party ideology or political regulations of
hierarchic organization; instead, its political organizational structure is horizontal. In view of long-term experience with the totalitarian system, these
free citizen associations are characterized by healthy mistrust "in any kind
of one-and-only correct solution as the way to salvation" (Ivan Fiera).
These types of free associations for political action by citizens are a clear
expression of elementary civil action: it is politics in the original sense of
the word. In this politics par excellence, moral politics became the victor
over its direct opposite, totalitarianism, whose profound determinism had
eliminated responsibility for public matters and any authority on the part of
the individual moral conscience.
To date, the historical fates of free civic associations as places where
citizens could apply their authentic will to discuss and determine public
affairs have all been temporary, with the exception of the American Revolution. In the violent French Revolution of 1789 the spontaneously so-called
free associations did not survive. The same fate befell the councils after the
Russian Revolution of 1905, created by members of the coalition of democratic parties. This was true as well in 1917 when, significantly, Lenin saw
them as the main threat to the realization of his totalitarian political conceptions. The same applies to the violent suppression of the civic associations
originating from the Hungarian anti-totalitarian revolution of 1956 and the
Czechoslovak Councils of Workers and Clubs of Committed Non-Party
Members of 1968. The real contemporary turn for the better, and in this
respect the real success, was Polish Solidarity.
From the historical point of view and for the world political scene the
unique case of the United States is noteworthy; H. Arendt analyses it in her
work On Revolution.(141) There the free civic associations became the basis of
political life long before the revolution of 1776, so that the revolution did
not end in a reign of terror as was the case in the French revolution of 1789.
The incessantly spontaneous creation of political associations of a non-party
and supra-party type is a natural and normal state of affairs for contemporary America, as is the relatively small importance of political parties or
party machines. A Congressman is primarily the delegate of the citizens, not
the spokesman of party organizations and their political coalitions and
covenants.
The 1989 democratic anti-totalitarian revolution of nations in East
Central Europe bears that out; these were non-violent movements based on
horizontal non-party and supra-party types of political organization. Obviously, this was a possible beginning for a new European political tradition
of authentic civic life, in which party machines and their coalitions would
not play a decisive role.
After the non-violent revolutionary removal of totalitarian Communist domination in Czechoslovakia, the political movement, Civil Forum,
which had been started by the previous ethically-grounded anti-totalitarian
opposition, itself manifested the complexity and uncertainty inherent in the
political order. Activists from previous totalitarian structures, as well as
various office-hunters, often succeeded in infiltrating Civic Forum and
exploiting some of its politically naive members. Hence, supporters of the
classical party mode of politics were strengthened considerably in their
conviction that Civic Forum contained an inherent political danger. Since
then the Forum has split into a number of political parties. In the
contemporary political atmosphere, some politicians have stubbornly refused to take up the demanding Czech tradition of non-political politics, so
that a huge crowd of semi-intelligentsia of all stripes now prevails.
Democracy as an attitude towards life is now more distant from the majority
of politicians than from the considerable number of citizens, who, in a way,
regret that Civil Forum no longer exists.
Czech democracy is far from becoming a commonly accepted way of
life. It is an open question when, how, and if it will succeed in assuming the
moral and spiritual attitudes toward politics in which the regenerated political freedom of Czechoslovakia originated.
By the same token, the removal of the totalitarian management of
society spelled the disappearance of its pseudo-moral support of general
totalitarian behavior. The people who were used to that became bewildered
and more vague, for they had lost all reliable security without any corresponding compensation. As a result, in the Czech Republic those committed
to a democratic course for the country constitute the contemporary government coalition. They are the young and middle generations, 45 years of age
or under who live in big cities (especially Prague), and are more highly educated. In sum, these constitute slightly over 50 percent of the adult
population. The rest are now evenly divided between the indifferent and
those who support the present liberal democratic system.
A promising and lasting change from this dark side of the post-totalitarian Czech democracy can be achieved by stable support for the hierarchy
of values anchored in the spiritual principle of individual moral and political
responsibility. This democratic hierarchy of humanist values must
inevitably grow out of moral judgement and coping with the recent
totalitarian past. This task, in fact, is even more pressing than in the case of
Germany after 1945, because, there, the totalitarian regime was in power for
only twelve years. In the Czech region, after six years of Nazi domination
and almost three years of semi-democracy under Soviet surveillance, the
Communist totalitarian regime lasted, with the short interruption of 1968,
for four decades. This made possible its very efficient transformation into
sophisticated social and psychological rule, distinguished by the subtle
terror of 70s and most of the 80s.
The first key legislative step in coping with this heavy totalitarian
legacy was the so-called lustration law, excluding higher Communist functionaries and agents of the political police from leading positions in the state
sector for five years. The repercussion of this law was highly instructive.
The strong, radical opposition against it in the first post-totalitarian federal
Czechoslovak parliament originated from political parties which were
afflicted with the hereditary taint of the Communist totalitarian regime and
from some segments of the public in Western democracies. In addition to
the Marxist and the "politically correct" strata of intellectuals, many
committed to the principles of human rights voiced their protest. It is conspicuous that a similar and even more stringent regulation in East Germany
is not criticized, nor is the process of de-Nazification in the Western part of
Germany, which is generally considered lawful, recalled. In such cases,
human rights are re-interpreted in order to cope with the phenomenon of
totalitarian crime.
The second legislative step was the Czechoslovak law defining as a
crime the support and propagation of movements aimed at the suppression
of the rights and liberties of citizens. The third step, by the Czech parliament in 1993, seems extremely important from the ethical point of view. It
comprises three issues. (a) It unequivocally brands the whole period of the
Communist regime in Czechoslovakia illegitimate, illegal, criminal and
destructive of the entire body of value of European civilization. (b) It proclaims resistance against the Communist regime to have been legitimate and
deserving of respect. (c) It removes the statute of limitations from all
unpunished crimes committed during the Communist era.
All these laws are indispensable as a foundation for the legal restoration of moral public life in Czech society. The present opposition to them
is not so rationally controlled as it is agitated and scared. Its heralds seem to
be led by their apparent compromises with the Communist regime and its
ideology. In their words, such laws as that regarding the anti-communist
resistance would evoke a witch-hunt, promote a search for revenge, and
divide people into a first and second class, etc. Czech Communists even
claimed that all the Communist crimes were caused by big powers who
pressed Czechoslovakia into the Soviet sphere of influence and into the
Warsaw Pact, thereby publicly revealing their deeply rooted totalitarian
mentality: they own no responsibility; only others are guilty, not we. However, such a mentality is far from being limited to Communists. All who
feel affected protest loudly and feel afflicted by the sheer fact of such
resistance with its victims and heros. The affected circles try as in the case
of the lustration law, to gain an influential support among the Western
liberals. In the long run, however, such legal provisions by their unequivocal moral impact will stabilize the radical turn towards liberal democracy in
the Czech Republic.
MORAL POLITICS
The recent general turn toward civic life in East Central Europe was
a turn toward the institution of moral politics which, particularly in the case
of young people, motivated the question of the possibilities and limits of
totalitarian systems. A totalitarian social regime obviously could not
manage permanently to prevent the origin and articulation of individual
uniqueness, by which it is mortally endangered. As Augustine says, and
after him Hannah Arendt: "Every new person is a new beginning."(142) The
principle limits to the functioning of the totalitarian system are the social
psychological consequences of morality. That is why the totalitarian regimes try so intensely, as they say, to form the social consciousness of
young people. But the phenomenon of the uniqueness of every newcomer to
this world cannot be removed that way, for a totalitarian ideology has nothing to say in this regard. It is here that the ideological faith in allegedly
objective laws of historical development meets an insurmountable obstacle.
This basic manner of thinking on the part of totalitarian decision-makers does not comprehend the uniqueness of each human being and the
irreplaceability of every newcomer to this world. In the eyes of the totality,
the human individual is primarily material to be disposed of according to an
ideological attitude regarding social and historical development.
Totalitarian ideological thinking, therefore, is incapable of comprehending
the essence of history as incessantly surpassing whatever can be planned: as
a possible radical crossing-out of any engineering of human souls. On the
contrary, the total crossing-out of the totalitarian comprehension of
philosophy, history, politics, sociology and psychology is the result of
action based on the decisions of specific persons in a specific historical,
political, and social-cultural situation. The actions which began the recent
democratic, anti-totalitarian revolution of the nations of East Central Europe
were morally motivated, with major emphasis on non-violent forms; (the
economic and strictly social elements were of secondary importance). The
moral meaning of history as such, and of the present stages of the world
democratic revolution in particular, were expressed clearly.
The revolutionary movement in this region showed that a unified
comprehension of the phenomenon of revolution is indispensable. Revolution is not only a question of social and economic conditions or, for example, of a suitable type of rationality. Rather, it is primarily a spiritual and
moral question--one of conscience--because the meaning of political
revolution is anchored in the transcendent movement of Man.
As a matter of fact, our century has been an era of world wars: two
hot and one cold thus far. Upon their conclusion, these three world cataclysms were succeeded by common enthusiasms and courageous designs for
a world organization of nations. Recently, this has meant considerable
strengthening of the United Nations organization. Now, similar to the defeat
of President Wilson and the breakup of the strange coalition between the
Western democracies and the totalitarian Soviet Union after 1945, we experience an unpleasant return to earth, i.e., to the real present situation of
humankind.
The lesson of our present disillusion teaches us that the totalitarian
menace is by no means an issue of the past. Contemporary chauvinist nationalism in post-communist regions are not comparable to the native
nationalism in Western Europe. The essential difference consists in the
obvious abuse and manipulation by powerful communist networks of basic
national needs in these areas, including the secession of Slovakia from the
Czech Lands. Such "post-communist" nationalism is in reality the last stage
of communism. It results in preservation of communist power in changed
circumstances; by the same token it paralyses any radical political and economic transformation of previously totalitarian regimes toward stable
democracy and a free market. The phenomenon of "nation" is being
manipulated against the citizens in order to suppress the civic dimension of
human existence, for the manipulation consists in an identification of the
nation with strong totalitarian authority on the part of the central power,
eliminating the personal responsibility of the citizens. In this way, effective
neo-communist abuse of the national principle fosters a totalitarian pseudo-citizenship.
Philosophically, the historic rise and development of nations appears
to be a specific expression of the trend of the human spirit toward individual
freedom. The same pertains to the rise and development of the principles of
human and civic rights. Accordingly, positive nationalism and citizenship
present two irreplaceable, mutually irretrievable and correlative levels of
the human struggle for freedom and equality. In this context it should be
noted that the anchor of the historic path of humanity toward freedom and
equality by non expendable human individuals consists in the spiritual
meaning of life and the world from the point of view of eternity. Only on
this condition can freedom not turn into arbitrariness, or equality into
uniformity.
Totalitarianism, as a typical phenomenon of our century, represents a
systemic incorporation and intensification of vagueness as an inharmonic,
oversimplifying, discordant and inorganic mode of rationality. A totalitarian
political system can arise, if in a given society such characteristics prevail
that a given society is not able spiritually, morally and legally to eliminate
political movements of this type. This is true not only of post-totalitarian
countries, but also of the democratic world in its confrontation with
totalitarian regimes in our century. It is the most important problem of the
contemporary Czech Republic and its newly regenerated democracy.
The classical principles of human rights, as the basis of modern
democracy, should be thoroughly reflected upon in the light of the experience of our century when totalitarianism appeared to present a real alternative for human existence. Both moral and legal principles should be sought
with a view to preventing such arrogant authority from destroying democracy. By the same token, regulations in post-Communist countries, following the precedent of de-Nazification, should be understood against the background of the indispensable spiritual, moral and legal re-founding of human
rights. Having experienced the classical liberal period between two world
wars, and then forty years of the totalitarian annihilation of European
values, Czech democracy--and, mutatis mutandis, all contemporary
democracies--must not enter the same water for a second time. Czech
democracy does not return to itself and to the West like a prodigal son, but
with a demand for new moral and political vigilance against the totalitarian
disaster of 20th century. This vigilance should become a new source of
development for democracy, as well as of its deeper foundation in spirit and
in morality.
Institute of Philosophy
Czech Academy of Sciences
Prague, Czech Republic