My Crazy Century

by Ivan Klíma

  Three days before the coup, members of the party quickly formed armed people’s militias. (This obviously illegal and unconstitutional action calls into question the claim by the Communist leaders that they achieved power legitimately.) Armed members of the Communist Party marching through Prague certainly influenced the quick transformation of a democratic society into a Soviet-style dictatorship.

  The Communist journalist Rudolf Černý compiled President Antonín Novotný’s memoirs from a series of conversations. Here, the president and the highest representative of the Communist Party supposedly demonstrated unambiguously the necessity of police terror during the second half of the 1950s and most of the ’60s.

  The new Communist government immediately removed from both the police and the army its real and probable opponents and replaced them with reliable members of the party. The changes primarily concerned State Security; the Soviet Union sent advisers who demanded the introduction of inquisitorial methods, which until then had been unthinkable, since the populace remembered all too well this practice by the gestapo. Some who survived questioning, and even some of the investigators, described how these interrogations were carried out. The accused were beaten, given electric shocks, deprived of water, and placed in unheated underground cells, and had their most sensitive parts burned. One of the most effective methods to break someone accused of an often nonexistent or absurd crime was to deprive him of rest.

  Most of the important political prisoners were interrogated at the Ruzyně prison. The head of the interrogators there was Bohumil Doubek, who wrote about the methods employed: Therefore, it was determined that if there was supposed to be a certain result in the investigation, it [the interrogation] must be conducted at least fourteen to sixteen hours a day. The prisoner was allowed to rest from ten in the evening till six in the morning. If he arrives at his cell at midnight, he won’t fall asleep because he’s still agitated from the interrogation, and in the morning he must get up at six. Moreover, he can be woken at night by the guards. Because he has to stand during the interrogation, he is then physically and mentally exhausted, and it is not difficult for the interrogators to acquire the incriminating evidence because the accused is more acquiescent. The reality was even more drastic because the interrogated often had to walk the entire night in their cells; their feet would swell, and they often lost control over their own words owing to exhaustion.

  The interrogations, conducted under the guidance of Soviet advisers, had only one goal: to compel the prisoner to confess to the accusation that had been prepared ahead of time: treason, espionage, sabotage, or another capital offense.

  People broken by long and relentless torture were told repeatedly that they had no hope but to confess—then considered a mitigating circumstance—and admit to the most absurd crimes. The quickly “trained” judges and prosecutors, together with those who were willing to fulfill unquestioningly the orders of the new government, then sentenced the tortured prisoner to a long prison sentence or to death.

  The investigators knew that the confessions had been coerced, that they lacked any real basis or were derived only from other confessions that had also been made under duress. Nevertheless, entire units of interrogators, without apparent hesitation, employed these methods, perfected during the Middle Ages. Just as in the Soviet Union, just as in Nazi Germany, the political police acted outrageously, not only with the awareness of the ruling power but also upon its orders, and the cynicism with which these deeds were carried out was stunning.

  Primarily, the organization [CPC] exhorted all of its members to display perseverance during interrogation and, just like the leadership of the investigation and the leadership of the ministry, support the view that anyone who was arrested was an enemy of the state and must be convicted no matter what. Therefore, they were to assist the diligence and persistence of the investigative organs. For example, the organization also supported and oversaw a competition for the best interrogation time, which was rewarded with book prizes for those who achieved the best average interrogation times.

  All this was made possible because the authorities abolished all basic civil rights; they raised repressive organs above the law, above judicial power. They adjudicated the status of those who had to take even the most absurd accusations seriously.

  Over several years, almost 200,000 citizens died in concentration camps; 178 political prisoners were executed by Communists. State Security provided the material for the trials, which, like the Soviet trials, had nothing in common with actual judicial processes. State Security also determined the judgments and the punishment, although, especially in the case of the death penalty for prominent defendants, the recommendation had to be approved by the highest organ of the party.

  At the same time, the secret police in all dictatorships is an essential component of power. After the Communist coup, the small unit of the National Security Corps became the most important security unit, which in the 1950s had five thousand permanent workers and employed the services of countless agents, petty informers, and denouncers. Even though State Security forces were also in charge of espionage, from the beginning their primary function, as determined by Lenin, was battling the internal enemy. Just after the coup, it was mostly democratic politicians, Western resistance fighters, and those with an inappropriate class origin (there were all sorts of those in our society) who were persecuted. But soon prominent Communists also were being victimized.

  Although, after the death of Stalin, the most brutal repressions ceased, the secret State Security became more important for the perpetuation of totalitarian power. Fiendish terror was replaced by agents who monitored, overheard, and admonished. It was necessary to ensure participation in elections, rallies, and brigades; to know what people said in private, what kind of jokes they told; to ensure that legal organizations did not become cells of resistance (as happened in artistic circles in the 1960s); to know if any illegal organizations were being established, if anyone was listening to “seditious” foreign broadcasts, if people were meeting with foreigners or even foreign diplomats, if they were exchanging “harmful” literature. Even after the Soviet invasion in 1968, State Security did not commit murder; instead it compiled long lists of unreliable citizens who were not allowed to go abroad, whose children were not allowed to study. No one from their families could be accepted into any qualified position, especially not one of leadership. It was necessary, at least on occasion, to monitor them, acquire informers from their neighborhood, photograph them, repeatedly summon them for interrogation, search their apartments (sometimes in their presence, sometimes in their absence), install listening devices. State Security employees wrote anonymous, threatening letters and collected incriminating material that could be used in a political trial. Active opponents had their driver’s licenses revoked and their phones disconnected. At times, State Security bundled someone into an automobile, drove him out to a distant forest, threatened him, and dumped him as far as possible from any road or inhabited place. (The musicologist Ivan Medek, for example, was beaten unconscious in a forest and thrown into a ditch.)

  The courts sometimes pretended to be real courts, and in some isolated cases they were not governed by the investigators. The fear of unfathomable repression combined with torture and the possible loss of life was lessening. The task of State Security was now to keep the citizens aware that if they refrained from any manifestations of resistance or protest, they could live in peace. He who protested, on the other hand, had only himself to blame for the loss of this peace.

  In its own way, this work was more demanding than outright terror. It came as no surprise, therefore, that when State Security was dissolved after the fall of Communism, it had more than thirteen thousand employees, almost twice as many as during the years of Gottwald’s terror.

  The Elite

  The dictionary definition of “elite” refers to the French word élite, which means select, the best. The elite of society are individuals exceptional in education and moral
s; in the military, the bravest. It is worth noting that the definition, stemming back to the middle of the nineteenth century, mentions education, morals, and bravery, not ancestry or property, both of which at that time were seen as entitling one to be considered a member of society’s elite.

  Of course, the concept of the elite was significantly influenced here by our National Revival. The property owners and the nobility belonged primarily to the German-speaking layers of society because revivalist thinkers, or simply Czech intellectuals, emphasized precisely these characteristics. However, in the Czech lands, just as in France at the time, those whom we called the cultural or spiritual elite enjoyed greater respect. Their members had neither power nor property but rather admiration and influence upon the behavior and thought of the people. (Let us recall the influence of Émile Zola on liberating the unjustly accused Alfred Dreyfus or Masaryk’s participation in the battle against the apologists for ritual murder in the case of Hilsner.)

  The respect enjoyed by Czech writers in the second half of the nineteenth century is well known. The funeral of Karel Havlíček Borovský became a sort of national demonstration; the funeral of the second-rate poet Svatopluk Čech, whose versified works came out in dozens of editions, looked like that of a leading statesman or a national hero. The collected works of Jan Neruda and Jaroslav Vrchlický, just like the History of the Czech Nation in Bohemia and Moravia by František Palacký, stood in the bookcases of both intellectuals and commoners. Manifestos published and signed by Czech writers at various key moments in history often changed, or at least influenced, the course of events. At the very last moment, Vilém Mrštík’s polemical essay “Bestia triumfans” roused the public and helped save historic parts of Prague from “modernization” (read: demolition). In May 1917, more than two hundred writers signed the “Manifesto of Czech Writers.” They demanded that Czech representatives in the Viennese Imperial Council fight for the self-determination of the Czech nation, the renewal of constitutional rights, and amnesty for political prisoners. The language of the document seems today inconceivably presumptuous.

  We turn to you, to the delegation of the Czech nation, who well know that we Czech writers, figures who are in our public lives active and well known, have not only the right, but also the duty to speak for the majority of the Czech cultural and spiritual world, even for the nation, which cannot speak for itself.

  In Prague’s parks and squares and on the walls of buildings we can see statues and busts—not of politicians, nobles, or generals, but primarily of artists, scholars, and writers.

  During the First Republic (1918–1938), this respect for writers continued. Several writers received more acclaim than members of other elites, for example, in the realms of finance and power. Even the president of the republic, Masaryk, who enjoyed extraordinary respect, was a representative of the spiritual elite and was characterized by the aforementioned characteristics: education, morality, and bravery. Masaryk also never severed his relationships with representatives of the cultural elite, the “Friday Men” in the home of Karel Čapek, where he met with the foremost Czech writers and journalists.

  At the end of the First Republic, Czech writers composed and published the passionate and insistent manifesto, “We Remain Faithful,” in which they asked society to defend democracy, freedom, and the integrity of the nation despite professional and class differences.

  Besides the cultural elites, power, political, and military elites were beginning to arise in our free country (although before the Nazi occupation, many of their members emigrated). Even though it is often pointed out that in the modern period, Czechs have never defended their country with military force, it cannot be claimed that they did not fight. Czech officers, primarily airmen, formed units with the help of the allies and were integrated into the armed forces fighting against Nazi Germany.

  Such activity is worthy of esteem if only because these forces were made up exclusively of volunteers who had chosen to take part in battle for the freedom of their nation.

  Members of our army abroad also participated in the mission to remove one of the most powerful and influential men in the Nazi Reich, Reinhard Heydrich.

  Even at home during the first months of occupation, there arose illegal resistance organizations composed of democratic politicians, citizens dedicated to democracy, members of Sokol (the youth sport and gymnastic organization), and officers of the former Czechoslovak army (they were joined by the Communist resistance after the Nazis attacked the Soviet Union). The gestapo (with the help of many Czech informers) uncovered most of these organizations, and their members were sent to concentration camps or executed.

  With the rise of cinematography during the First Republic, celebrities—that is, those who enjoyed the respect and admiration of society without the need of education, morality, or bravery—started to appear next to the cultural elite.

  The Nazi regime, which certainly did believe that persons it elevated would be well liked, did not object to the cult of Czech celebrities as long as they were loyal to the Nazis and if, when outbreaks of discontent threatened, they brought people consoling diversion.

  The Communist regime, which soon took the place of the Nazis, like every totalitarian regime, considered morality, independent intelligence, or unapproved bravery unwelcome. Like all riffraff, the Communists hated the elite with a vengeance. Consciously and unconsciously, they tried not only to degrade their cultural influence but also to humiliate them. They were willing to pardon only those who submitted unconditionally to the party. Over the course of a few months, they also removed from schools (primarily the universities) all professional organizations, especially those that enjoyed any kind of natural authority.

  Part of the elite, especially the political elite, managed to flee the country, as did at least some of those who were respected for their property or for their business success. Most intellectuals, however, stayed behind. The remaining political elite was replaced by the new Communist pseudoelite. Lack of education was given precedence over education, immorality over morality, and acquiescence over bravery. The primary virtues were supposed to be proletarian origin and class consciousness.

  The misfortune among the Czechs and Slovaks was that, after the rule of the Nazis, who had murdered part of the Czech elite and deprived the rest of a voice, a new elite did not have time to establish itself. Those returning after the war, which included soldiers and airmen who had fought with armies abroad against Nazism, were imprisoned by the Communists or executed. Those who remained free were at least partially blocked from public work, and most were able to acquire only menial jobs.

  The Communists tried to replace people who had achieved natural authority through their activities (the Communists had removed them precisely for this reason) with people they endowed with artificial authority. Loyal party members, who lacked even a college degree, received university titles; others were named lawyers or chief justices; second-rate artists or those who disowned their previous work and were willing to be propagandists received the title of Worthy or National Artist.

  Even though the Communists quickly enthroned terror, affecting part of the cultural elite, it cannot be denied that a considerable number of the elite failed. Those who sold out and consoled themselves with the thought that they were spokesmen for the nation (and also National Artists) were mistaken. They were spokesmen for and servants of only a felonious power. On the other hand, the Communists, having acquired at least a few members of the cultural elite during those first years, never fully trusted them.

  Many of those who failed gradually came to understand the wretched role they had been assigned and laboriously tried to win back some of their natural authority. This meant that they had to come into conflict with the current government.

  Throughout the rule of communism—perhaps with the exception of the brief Prague Spring—this conflict never ended.

  During the period of Soviet occupation, the cultural elite, in their battle with the illegitimate occup
ying power, acquired the credence and natural authority they had lost. (This applies not only to the activity of artists and intellectuals who had been officially repudiated but also to protest singers and artists from the so-called small theaters.) This went on despite the fact that the government did all it could to defile, discredit, and undermine this natural authority; it tried to elevate the false elite and especially the so-called celebrities, whose popularity and apparent significance were strengthened by their appearance on television. As long as they did not try to resist the government, the celebrities had unrestricted freedom.

  For four decades, natural authority was banished to the underground or to the very edge of cultural activity, banished from the entire country or at least surrounded by official and therefore formidable silence, and the false elite were forced upon society. All of this could not be prevented from influencing the majority of society—the decline of morality and even the distrust of intellectuals, which persisted not only during communism, but long after the Communists had ceased to rule.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  MY CRAZY CENTURY

  Also by the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Note from the Publisher

  Contents

  MY CRAZY CENTURY

  Prologue

  PART I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  PART II

  Chapter 14

  Photo Insert

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20