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Czech Christian-Marxist Dialogue in the 1960S from the National Level to the Global Arena¹

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Czech Christian-Marxist Dialogue in the 1960S from the National Level to the Global Arena¹ Ondřej Matějka Social Engineering and Alienation between East and West: Czech Christian-Marxist Dialogue in the 1960s from the National Level to the Global Arena¹ In April 1968, the World CouncilofChurches (WCC), the most important interna- tional organization in the field of international ecumenicalrelations,organized a two-day debate among elite Christian theologians,Marxists from both sides of the Iron Curtain (some of whom werehighly-placed representativesofthe Com- munist Parties of the East),and scholars from Third World countries as well. This event attracted attention of both Western and Eastern observers of worldwide church affairs. TheTimes, L’Humanité, Swiss Weekly Tribune and even the Cze- choslovak Literární listy offered relativelyextensive coverageofthis “unique de- bate” between “old ideological enemies,” who weretrying to find common ground on issues related to “the humanizationoftechnical and economic devel- opment.”² Reporters particularlyemphasized the “global proportions and im- pact” of this dialogue.³ The surprising amountofinterest in this enterprise is quite understandable when one keeps in mind that ever since its beginning,the Cold Warwas per- ceivedand theorized as one of “great religious wars” by an important number of its protagonists, as well as by thosewho analyzedits history.⁴ Communist leaders did not conceal their belief thatitwas imperative to overcome religion (and at times to actively fight against it), regardingitasanessentialpart of the ancien ordre. Western, and in particular,USpolitical elites tendedtobase their anti-communist stance on an analogous “globalconflict between the god-fearingand the godless.”⁵ Iwould liketothank the FNS (project “Shared modernities or competingmodernities?Europe between West and East 1920s-1970s,” based at the University of Geneva) and the PRVOUK re- searchscheme (P17) at Charles University,Praguefor support in different stagesofthis project. “Marxists in Talks with Christians,” 17 April 1968, TheTimes; “Marxists,Christians Theorize Together,” 28 April 1968, Swiss Weekly Tribune; “Un colloque international entremarxistes et chrétiens s’est tenu aGenève,” ,22April 1968, L’Humanité. JanMilíč Lochman, “Dialogpřekračujemeze,” Literární listy 14 (1968): 13. Dianne Kirby, Religion and the Cold War (Houndmills: Palgrave,2013), 1. Ibid. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110534696-009 166 Ondřej Matějka The Geneva meeting in the Spring of 1968 was an obvious break with this dominant pattern of antagonism. This chapter argues that this rupture with the past constituted the most visiblemanifestation of the existenceofaparticu- lar “channel” of East-Westexchangethat had evolvedinvarious European coun- tries from the late 1950s.Overtime, this channel wasmore and more explicitly described by its proponents as areaction to the “de-humanizing” and “alienat- ing” effects of various kinds of social engineering and planning in Europe’s highlydeveloped industrial societies. Questions about the “place of the human being” in an ever more regulated and technicized society seemed funda- mental to bothChristians and Marxists of the time across the Iron Curtain which justifies the relevanceofthe analysis of theirdebates for amore general reflec- tion on planning and social engineering between East and West.Both camps found surprisingly compatible languagethatwas inspired, on the one side, by the Gospeland, on the other,bythe youngKarl Marx,who first addressed the issue of alienation in his 1844 Manuscripts. Anthropocentric resistance to the “de-humanizing” effects of both “Stalinist techno-bureaucracy” and “capitalist productivism” led the protagonists of the Christian-Marxist encounters to consid- er themselvesas“two minority sects.” They sawthemselvesasstrugglingagainst a “technicized indifference” linked to ever more computerized planning and management practices,and for “amorehuman world of man – todayand tomor- row.”⁶ Different countries could be chosen as the field of observation of these phe- nomena.The Czech case is especiallyinteresting and relevant for several rea- sons. First,inthe 1950s the Czech landsbecame asitefor experimentation in various forms of social engineering focused on rapid social transformation (i.e. the construction of a “socialist society”). An important component of those initiativeswas the attempt to accelerate the atheization of society in a plannedmanner.Projects aimed at “getting rid of religious obscurantism” wereimposed on Czechoslovakia with aheavier hand thaninother countries of the Eastern bloc. Such projects wereaided by the particularlyweak position of institutionalized religion in the country and astable groundingoflocal free-thinkingand anti-churchmovements.⁷ These concepts werefrequentlyreferredtobyboth Eastern and Western proponents of dia- logue, including JanMilíč Lochman, Church in aMarxist Society:ACzechoslovak View (Evanston: Harper &Row,1970), 192; Roger Garaudy, L’alternative (Paris:Éditions R. Laffont,1972); Milan Machovec, Smysllidského života:studie kfilosofii člověka (Praha: Nakladatelství politickélitera- tury,1965). Antonín K. K. Kudláč, Příběh(y)Volné myšlenky (Praha: Nakladatelství Lidovénoviny, 2005); Martin Schulze Wessel, Revolution und religiöser Dissens:der römisch-katholische und russisch- Social Engineering and Alienation between Eastand West 167 At the sametime, there was the tradition of debate between Czech Marxists and Protestant elites about issuesofmodernity and modernization that dated from the interwar period and created favorableconditions for national and inter- national exchanges, despite deepening political differencesafter 1948.⁸ Last but not least,Czech intellectuals of various confessions and political backgrounds profited from past connections to different Western networks that wereestablish- ed duringthe interwar period or even earlier.These networks werethe basis of the infrastructureofthe East-West intellectual exchanges⁹ in which Czech actors playedaremarkable role.¹⁰ My analysis will begin at the national level and in the first part will examine the so-called “executive phase” of one particular campaign of anti-religious of- fensive:itisanexample of social planninginpractice wherethe actorsthem- selves(in this case communist apparatchiks) used the then trendyP-word. Their effort in the mid-1950s had the objective of limiting the social influence of institutionalized religion in the public realm and hasteningdevelopment to- wards a “communist society” in a “scientifically controlled” way. Iwillthen re- construct the process by which aCzech Christian-Marxist spaceofexchange(a “channel”)was created, which appeared, in part,inreaction to this campaign. In fact,certain planners of atheization campaigns became progressively disen- chanted with “administrative” anti-church measures,began to reflect upon the shortcomings of their ownsocial-engineering practices and finally(at least some of them) opened themselvestoinspiring debates with their formerprinci- pal ideological adversaries (Christian theologians). In its third part,the chapter will explore the internationalization of this channel of interactionduringthe 1960s, taking into account the different motivations of the main Czech and West- orthodoxe Klerus als Träger religiösen Wandels in den böhmischenLändern und in Russland 1848–1922 (München: Oldenbourg, 2011). Forthis aspect see Ondřej Matějka, “Ageneration?Aschool?Afraternity?Anarmy? Under- standingthe Roots of Josef Lukl Hromádka’sInfluence in the Czech Protestant Milieu 1920 – 1948,” Communio Viatorum. ATheologicalJournal 3(2012): 307–320. Ioffer aperspective of longue durée on this aspect of the Czech Protestant milieu in my article “‘Unique Connections’:Uses of the Transnational Social Capital of Czech Pastors,1860s–1960s,” to be published in Cultural and Social History in 2019.This article connects my research to the type of reflection introduced by Katja Naumann and Sandrine Kott in this volume. The GenevaChristian-Marxist meeting held in April 1968 offers aparticularlystrikingillus- tration of this phenomenon. Therewerefour Czech participants among41eliterepresentativesof the principal world denominations and prominent East and West European Marxists.See Con- ference on Trends in Christian and Marxist ThinkingAbout the Humanization of Technical and Economic Development – List of Participants (April 1968), File 994.3.50.12, World Council of Churches Archives, Geneva. 168 Ondřej Matějka ern actors,aswell as the inner dynamics of one international organization, the World Council of Churches (WCC), which wasstrugglingfor relevanceinasecu- larizing world. This field of research in East-West dialogue has so far remained rather unex- plored.¹¹ Thischapter is thereforebased almost entirelyonprimary sources (both publishedand unpublished)which come from different places:the relevant files in Czech National Archivescovering the development of communist social engi- neering projects in the religious field;the archivesofthe Czechoslovak secret po- lice, which closelyfollowed all kindsofEast-West contacts;the privatepapers of influential actors;and the testimonies of local participants in dialogue activities. Iwas able to analyze the international aspect of these contacts thanks to my gainingaccess to relevant files in the WCCarchivesinGeneva. Planning asociety without religion It is undeniable that the vision of asociety freeofinstitutionalized religion was an important part of the project of communism in the Soviet bloc. In the late 1940s, the builders of socialism all over Central and
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