A Marxist in the Czech parliament VRATISLAV VOTAVA, a supporter of IV's Czech sister publication, Inprekor, was elected to the Czech parliament in the elections on June 5-6, 1992, on the Communist Party initiated Left Bloc slate. His decision to stand on this slate was the subject of considerable controversy on the Czech anti-bureaucratic left. The following interview with Vrata is from the May 1992 bureaucratic Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSC). It is no longer the political backbone of a bureaucratic dictatorship, most careerists have left it along with those directly responsible for the crimes of the past regime. In its ranks a still unfinished process of differentiation and change is going on.
Given the weakness and fragmentation of the so-called independent (meaning non-Communist) left, it offers the only real organizational basis for a left politics which can resist the extremely aggressive rightwing offensive, which presents increasingly open anti-democratic features.
I think that collaboration in the framework of the LB will strengthen those current in the KSCM itself which reject both a dogmatic defence of the past (so-called "really existing socialism") and social democratic-style pragmatic integration into the emerging capitalist system, and who are seeking a new way forward on the basis of self-management. The origin of the Left Bloc has something in common with the formation of the Party of Communist Refoundation (PRC) in Italy, which members of the radical left organization The Velvet Divorce
Democrazia Proletaria have joined.
What is your electoral programme?
I consider as very important comprehensive support for forms of property based on self-management, including the formation of enterprises owned by their employees and cooperatives of the Mondragon type. I think that such forms should have been used during the so-called second privatization wave to defend bankrupt state and private firms and to develop cooperative enterprises.
In the Czech parliament I would like to contribute to the bringing together of the activity of the parliamentary left and the extra-parliamentary opposition, to the promotion of the demands of the citizens' initiatives, as a direct expression of the plurality of social interests in the spheres of so-called high politics.
I will also work for the defence of the social rights of young people — above all the right to free education, to work, to affordable accommodation as well as support for their non-commercial and nonconformist cultural activities. * issue of Inprekor. W HY on the Left Bloc slate? The Left Bloc (LB) is an electoral coalition of the Czech and Moravian Communist Party (KSCM) and the Democratic Left (DL) which has also been supported by a number of other left groups and personalities, including Egon Bondy (a well-known opposition Marxist poet) and Ivan Svitak (a philosopher, similarly well-known since the 1960s). Its programmatic aims are, of all those presenting themselves in these elections, the nearest to the Left Alternative (LA) Theses of November 1989 and to the LA's programme for democratic and self-managing socialism.
Pluralism, and equality of the participants and their different points of view are fully respected by the Left Bloc, without reference to how many members a group has. This holds out the hope that after the elections there will still be a union of left forces open to research into, and promotion of, democratic and socially just alternatives to the current process of restoring capitalism in our society. • Is there not a danger that the Left Bloc will be abused by the KSCM for their own ends?
The KSCM is already a very different 10 party to the pre-November Stalinist-
SATURDAY June 20 saw the signing of an accord between the leaders of the strongest parties in the Czech Lands and Slovakia, Vaclav Klaus and Vladimir Meciar respectively, calling for the resolution of the crisis of the Czechoslovak federation by the end of September. This may mean the break-up of the federation into two separate countries; Klaus' party, the ODS, "preferring two separate states to a confederation"
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This agreement between the Czech conservative right and the Slovak nationalist centre-left (Meciar's HZDS) - and the apparently friendly tone of their discussions - surprised many. In fact, it is mainly the result of the ODS' absolute determination not to allow their free market drive to be slowed or thwarted by a Slovak government eager to protect industry from such policies. Others, including president Havel, are attempting to mount resistance to the break-up, and Klaus' attitude has been much criticized on the Czech left.
As elsewhere in the countries of "no longer really existing socialism" the break-up would open a number of Pandora's boxes. in Slovakia, friction with Hungary, exacerbated by moves such as an attempt to impose Slovak as the sole official language on Slovakia's Hungarian inhabitants, seems inevitable.
Less clear is how relations will develop between the Czech Lands and Germany. Until now, the Czechoslovak government has only recognized as illegal (and therefore reversible) expropriations carried out after the Communist takeover in 1948. Between 1945 and 1948, millions of Germans lost their property in the so-called Sudetenland. The demands of the associations of Sudeten German exiles have at least the verbal support of the governing party of neighbouring Bavaria, the Christian Social Union. An upcoming agreement between Germany and Czechoslovakia may fall foul of the break up of the latter state.
In any case, the need for an independent broad movement linking Germany and Central Europe, dedicated to promoting friendship of the peoples by breaking the old pattern of German economic domination of mutually antagonistic Slav peoples, becomes clearer by the day - C. M. *
International Viewpoint # 232 • July 6, 1992