es In Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 1980s, the idea of social self-management developed in combination with a socialist (or at least non-capitalist) oriented political revolution. Those who supported these far-left views participated in the theoretical discussions in the independent movement about the reformability and non-reformability of the bureaucratic dictatorship and bureaucratic centralism. These polemics had a practical meaning in defining the political positions of Charter 77, particularly in the years leading up to 1989. They also played a role in the foundation of the Obroda socialist club and the liberal-socialist Movement for Civic Liberty (HOS) and in the activities of the Democratic Initiative (DI) petition movement.4 In political terms, however, the anti-Stalinist and non-reformist left in Czechoslovakia had almost nothing in the past to build on. The Left Opposition (LO) of the late 1930s was a small group, and the most well-known Czechoslovak "Trotskyists" Zavis Kalandra and Karel Teige were not members, though they co-operated with the group. Nor were Kalandra and Teige's anti-Stalinist positions identical with those of Trotsky and the Fourth International. Having said this, one could still identify in the 1970s and 1980s a cultural-political tradition created in the 1930s by several hundred "irreverent" left wing intellectuals, which to differing extents and at different periods opposed Stalinism, or its worst crimes. This tradition was the motor behind the high demand in preWW2 Czechoslovakia for Trotsky's works, and in particular for his criticisms of Stalinism. In just seven years, from 1930 until the 1937 edition of The Revolution Betrayed, an unbelievable fifteen of Trotsky's books were published.5 This is an unique record, both for a country and for a language, over such a short period of time. Then came the war, and the years of non-freedom. Even the overcast freedom of 1945-48 did not allow the publication of any more of Trotsky's works. The pro-Soviet Czech society would not have supported Trotsky's heresy. This was not unusual at that time - George Orwell had big difficulties having his Animal Farm published in England after the war too. It was not thought appropriate to disturb the anti-Hitler coalition. This was certainly a view shared by the overwhelming majority of leftwing Czechoslovak intellectuals. The witch-hunt of Trotskyists after February 1948 (the most significant moment of which was the judicial murder of Zavis Kalandra in 1950) did not hit the existing Trotskyists (unlike the similar trials in the USSR). The anti-Trotsky campaign was just an ideological label for the repressive charade which Stalinism used to strengthen its power. The first information about revolutionary Marxism available to the post-war Czechoslovak public had to wait until Spring of 1968, when the student newspaper Studentske listy serialised Isaac Deutscher's Stalin, and Literarni listy published The Unfinished Revolution (Nedokoncena revoluce) by the same author. The student and worker storms in many countries of the world during 1968 presented the Czechoslovak public with another interpretation of Trotskyism - as a political movement for social self-management. Revolutionary Marxism came to be understood, like in other parts of the world, as one of the orientations of the wide anti-authoritarian current in society, which drew not only from Lenin, Mao Zedung and Che Guevara, but also Bakunin and even Freud, Fromm and Marcuse.
A new, modern Czech translation of The Revolution Betrayed was prepared at this time by Lubomir Sochora. It was supposed to be published as the first title of the Flames (Plamene) series, a monthly publishing project of the Czechoslovak Union of Writers. The editors expected it to be the first and last title before the series was banned. But 'normalisation' spread more quickly than 'Flames' - the magazine was banned in April 1968, and the new version of The Revolution Betrayed was never published. The editors of the 1970s, Berlin-based revolutionary socialist magazine Information Materials (Informani materialy) clearly did not have this new translation at their disposal. This group, (some close to the Fourth International) came together under the influence of the 1971 Prague trials of Petr Uhl and others. These students and young people, left-oriented anti-Stalinism and non-reformists, including some Trotskyists, were sentenced to up to four years for their activities in the anti-normalisation Revolutionary Youth Movement (HRM). The Czech and German editors of Information Materials, with the help of their West German and French comrades, reprinted the original 1937 translation of The Revolution Betrayed in 1974. Several hundred copies were smuggled into Czechoslovakia. [...]. Several dozen copies of the new, Sochora translation were printed in samizdat at the beginning of the 1980s.®
Notes
1 This revised translation corrects a number of imperfections in the original Burian and 1960s Sochora translations, and standardises the 'socialist terminology to reflect developments in the Czech language over the last 50 years.
2 Zrazena revoluce, published by nakladatelstvi Ladislava Sotka, Prague. Translation by Vladimir Burian.
3 Some 1,000 facsimiles of the original Russian manuscript were published in Paris in 1972. There was a second, larger print run in 1988.
4 Including Memories (Pameti, 1930), Permanent Revolution (Permanentni revoluce, 1930), The Falsified Revolution (Zfalsifikovana revoluce, 1930)..A 1,000 page three volume edition of the History of the Russian Revolution (Dejiny ruske revoluce) was published by Frantisek Borovy in 1934 (one volume covering 1905 and two covering 1917).
5 Dissident opposition groups formed in the 1980s. For a detailed discussion of their programmes and activities see Czech Inprekor issues 6-10.
6 Thanks to the historian Karel Bartosek, some of them by the Krtek a datel samizdat publishing centre of Jaroslav and Danda Suk. To announce your publication in this free listing, send a sample copy to "Book reviews" c/o International Viewpoint, PECI, BP 85, 75522 Paris cedex 11, France
35 International Viewpoint #268 July 1995
Meet the challenge of the bomb!
even be a shift in the system of military and political alliances by Jean-Louis Michel in Europe.
Fifty years after the nuclear bombardment of Hiroshima and
And last but not least, of course, this has everything to do with
Nagasaki, 35 years after the explosion of the first French bomb the determination of this president and his party [RPR, conserat Reggane in Algeria [at that time a French colony], 10 years vative] not to take any risks with the trash of the National after the sabotage of the Rainbow Warrior, and only a few
Front. Half an hour of prime time defence of the glory of La weeks after the prolongation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
France, so bruised and tarnished by years of Socialist Party rule
Treaty, Chiracism shows its true colours without the slightest can only improve the rightist government's image among its complex.
potential supporters.
Particularly when
The reasons for this provocation are hardly one fails to explain to these voters that mysterious. First, there is the flash of lightgrandeur has an economic and social ning from a zealous has-been, boasting of coSt.
its force with tough gestures on the eve of a
The bomb already soaks up one third of number of important international military spending. And the armed meetings, in Washington, Halifax and forces take a massive 20% of the state
Cannes. Pathetic! After all, [French President budget. Not counting the element of
Jacques] Chirac is hardly the General De research spending which can be attri-
Gaulle. Nor is 1990s nuclear arms policy buted to military projects. The bigger based on the same calculation as the Genethe bomb project, the harsher the ausral's 'I have the bomb, therefore I exist' terity programme will be. But who mentality.
cares?
Second, there is of course the 'unpredic-
This is the moment for a large, comtable' side of Jacques Chirac. This worried mon initiative, bringing together men many of his backers even before his election and women, young people, political as President [on 7 May 1995]. It has certainparties, trades unions and other political ly added to the stupor this provocateur has institutions, citizens, cultural and religenerated in several European capitals.
gious organisations. There is a place for
The isolation of this country of ours, this all those who refuse the logic of death, caricature of dreams of faded greatness is the logic of human and ecological revealed by our narrow-minded identity-cridisaster. Through a series of demonstrasis. And what a detestable identity we are tions, here and in other countries, we proposed - part infected by Chirac, part should spin out this campaign on the infected by [National Front leader Jean-Marie] Le Pen.
international level. We should stop the restarting of the
The American-style mediatisation of the President's decision, nuclear test programme. If we can't stop the start, we should stop it as soon as possible. The final goal remains, of course, and the anti-democratic obscenity which his 'I have decided' represents, irritate people's consciousness, here and abroad, the abolition of all nuclear weapons. But the first step is to premuch more than we might have expected. This is a new epoch.
serve the moratorium on tests.
The decision to explode eight nuclear devices something which will assure lescence) of existing missiles. But we know that the goal is also
This article is the editorial of the French weekly Rouge, to make possible the miniaturisation of nuclear devices, which from 15 June 1995 will make it much easier to use them in a range of theatres of operations 1
1. See "US used radioactive bullets in 'Desert Storm'" in
Chirac's predecessors tried several times to manage this reversal
International Viewpoint #267, June 1995 p. 32 of 'traditional' nuclear deterrence policy, under constant pressure from the military hierarchy.
[This is all about how to make
The new peace movement nuclear weapons easier to use and] this is precisely why, if we don't stop these tests, we may see
From Tahiti to Paris via Sidney and New Caledonia, people are the development of a new arms race in some quite precise types of organising to stop France's colonial and militarist nuclear adventure. The
September issue of International Viewpoint land our French lanquage
For the time being, however, both the American and German sister publication Inprecor) will survey the new peace movement in these governments have other technoloand other countries 50 years after the outrage in Hiroshima and gical and military priorities. But there is a possibility of substantial
Nagasaki. You can order extra copies of this special issue from your agreement between Paris and regular IV seller or from the address on page two. But don't miss it! *
London. There could eventually
International Viewpoint #268 July 1995