Igor Lukes on the Long Road to Victory: a History of Czechoslovak

Francis D. Raška. The Long Road to Victory: A History of Czechoslovak Exile Organizations after 1968. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012. 250 pp. $55.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-88033-706-9. Reviewed by Igor Lukes Published on H-Diplo (July, 2013) Commissioned by Seth Offenbach (Bronx Community College, The City University of New York) Francis D. Raška’s previous book, Fighting not only a military role but also a political one-- Communism From Afar: The Council of Free for the benefit of the vast majority that remained Czechoslovakia (2008), studied the activities of the at home. Importantly, Czech culture managed to Czech and Slovak politicians and patriots who survive the Stalinist ffties and the decades of went into exile after the Communist coup d’état of Gustáv Husak’s “normalized” regime to a great ex‐ February 1948. It uncovered the “hardships, illu‐ tent thanks to exiled writers and artists. Just as sions, and disappointments of individuals who important were small-scale publishing houses worked relentlessly for the restoration of civil that operated outside Czechoslovakia, especially rights and democracy in Czechoslovakia” (pp. vii- Zdena and Josef Skvorecky’s Sixty-Eight Publish‐ viii). The present volume, The Long Road to Victo‐ ers in Toronto, Canada. ry, maps out and studies the labyrinth of Czech Nevertheless, many Czechs are uncomfort‐ and Slovak exile organizations in the aftermath of able, even suspicious of those who chose to live the Soviet invasion of August 1968. abroad during the years of foreign occupation, do‐ The Czech national cause has been advanced mestic misrule, and dictatorship. Herein lies a by exiles for many centuries: Jan Amos Komensky, paradox: the Czechs at home have repeatedly de‐ Thomas G. Masaryk, Milan Stefanik, and Edvard pended on the political and cultural support from Benes were all exiles. The Allies granted de facto those in exile, and yet the relations of the two recognition to the Czechoslovak National Council groups have been plagued with suspicion and dis‐ in October 1918 because of the more than 100,000 trust. It was true for Masaryk and Benes during Legionnaires who served on their side in France, World War I. It repeated itself twenty years later, Italy, and especially in Russia. The Czech and Slo‐ and again after the Velvet Revolution when Karel vak pilots who joined the Royal Air Force in World Schwarzenberg, a presidential candidate in the War II or soldiers who fought the Nazis fulfilled recent elections, was soundly defeated with the H-Net Reviews use of such arguments as nezil tady s nami (he spected by the Americans during the critical didn’t live here with us). The electorate preferred 1945-48 era. They brought him to the United his opponent, a former Communist Party mem‐ States in a clandestine manner with an eye to ber, over Schwarzenberg, who with his family putting him in charge of a yet-to-be established was forced into exile where they worked tirelessly Czechoslovak exile organization. on behalf of the elusive dream of a free Czecho‐ Zenkl’s chief rival for the leadership of the slovakia. The public gave preference to a chain- Council was Ferdinand Peroutka (1895-1978), a smoking self-declared alcoholic with multiple journalist and public intellectual. His position was chins and a blemished ethical record over an ele‐ strengthened by believable rumors that Edvard gant aristocrat whose patriotism could not be Benes, Czechoslovakia’s last democratic president, questioned because the former had stayed put would have liked to see Peroutka as his successor. during the Communist dictatorship, while the lat‐ The rivalry had to have been particularly painful ter had lived abroad. because Zenkl and Peroutka had survived the war Raška’s book thus deals with an intriguingly together as concentration camp prisoners. complex phenomenon. It opens with a review of The tensions between Zenkl and Peroutka re‐ the Council of Free Czechoslovakia. It then focuses sulted in several schisms and walk-outs, but Zenkl on a number of other exile groups seeking to kept the top position into his eighties--from 1949 overturn Communism and restore democracy in to 1973. This power struggle, and such issues as Czechoslovakia. Their locations indicate that ex‐ Czech-Slovak tensions, nearly immobilized the iles active in support of the cause were spread Council. Nevertheless, Raška credits it with sever‐ mostly in Western Europe. There was the Listy al positive achievements, e.g., assisting Czechoslo‐ Group led by Jiri Pelikan, who worked in Rome; vak refugees who--in far too many case--lan‐ the Paris-based journal Svedectvi edited by Pavel guished under abominable conditions in German Tigrid; the Czechoslovak section of Radio Free Eu‐ and Austrian refugee camps for years. He ac‐ rope in Munich; the Charter 77 Foundation, run knowledges that many members of the organiza‐ by Frantisek Janouch in Sweden; the Palach Press tion became disillusioned, and no wonder. In operation, organized by Jan Kavan in London, and choosing exile in 1948 most believed that Soviet the Documentation Center established by Vilem Communism would soon suffer a strategic defeat Precan in Scheinfeld, Germany. and that they would return to a liberated and free The Council of Free Czechoslovakia, the over‐ homeland. “It was difficult for them to appreciate arching organization of Czech and Slovak and accept the true realities of the divided world,” democrats formed in February 1949 in Washing‐ writes Raska, “especially the lack of sympathy of ton, was troubled from the beginning by conflicts Western governments for exile movements unless between Czechs and Slovaks, personal rivalries, they could be used for Cold War propaganda pur‐ infighting between representatives of the old po‐ poses” (pp. 12-13). litical parties, and large issues (e.g., the expulsions The Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion of of the Sudeten Germans) on which it was impossi‐ Czechoslovakia in August 1968 triggered a new ble to achieve any sort of consensus. Two men wave of refugees and injected new talent into the campaigned for the leadership position of the slumbering émigré organizations. It also caused Czechoslovak exile community. One was Petr Zen‐ new frictions: the post-1948 exiles tended to have kl (1884-1975), a cabinet minister in the interwar clean democratic credentials but quite a few of period and concentration camp prisoner during those who escaped in the aftermath of the inva‐ the war. He was the democratic politician most re‐ sion were disillusioned former Communist Party 2 H-Net Reviews members. This caused further tensions but also regime they had helped to establish, they re‐ brought much-needed energy. Raška quotes the mained--despite their mistreatment--fully commit‐ perceptive Pavel Tigrid: “To tell the truth, the ted to the values of Communism. Raška quotes a Czech and Slovak emigration acquired speed and rare British critic of Goldstücker, who noted that a more defined political expression only after the “[f]or Goldstücker, history begins and moral lows arrival of those who defeated us in 1948 and who coincide with the time when he himself suffers in‐ were themselves defeated in 1968-69. Only they justices. He then offers a very selective view of the gave the exile, so to say, pizzazz. The majority past. As we saw, only then was he willing to admit were former Communists, terribly industrious, his own share of guilt. Such a confession belongs very busy, who could not live without doing some‐ to an infantile universe, where a simple ‘I’m sor‐ thing” (pp. 71-72). ry’ erases damaging acts from the past and from Raška is right to stress the centrality of the the present responsibility for its consequences” human rights issue that emerged with the signing (p. 79). Despite his refusal to renounce Commu‐ of the Helsinki Final Act in 1975. The renewed nism, Goldstücker fourished in exile, effortlessly council--Mojmir Povolny had replaced Zenkl-- obtaining a professorship at an English university quickly saw the relevance of the Third Basket, i.e., and honorific membership in several prestigious human rights, of the Helsinki Protocol. This academies. proved to be the correct strategy, especially as the Other members of the Listy group, such as Jimmy Carter administration directed attention to Zdenek Hejzlar, had been uninspiring party bu‐ human rights violations in the Soviet Union and reaucrats or, like Ota Sik, Communist economists. Eastern Europe. This fortuitously coincided with Zdenek Mlynar, a college roommate of Mikhail the emergence of Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, Gorbachev in Moscow at the height of the Stalinist an organization explicitly lauded by Ronald Rea‐ era, rose to become a Communist Party politburo gan eleven years later, in 1988, when the collapse member in 1968--before he was expelled from of Communism had become a thinkable outcome “normalized” Czechoslovakia into a comfortable of the Cold War. Raška correctly concludes that exile in Austria. The group achieved considerable the council did not play a central role in defeating visibility in 1979 when Jiri Pelikan, the purger of Communist rule. But by “bringing all repressive Charles University during the Stalinist era, was actions of the Czechoslovak Communists to the at‐ elected in 1979 and 1984 to the European Parlia‐ tention of the Western public and politicians” it ment as a member of the Italian Socialist Party. certainly helped to keep the dream of democracy Pavel Tigrid, the editor of Svedectvi, had alive (pp. 46-47). brought to exile the values of the prewar demo‐ The Listy group, which Raška examines in de‐ cratic Czechoslovakia of Thomas Masaryk but also tail, represents a counterpoint to the conservative the political acumen and skills so amply exhibited council. It attracted the reform Communists who by the leftists around the Listy group.

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