Soudobé dějiny

Unrest before the storm: Membership base of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia toward the end of the normalisation period

The study maps out changes in the membership base of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and changes in moods, opinions and attitudes of party members at the end of the 1980s, i.e. at the time when the crisis of the normalization regime was increasing. To this end, the author makes use of, in particular, information reports prepared by the party apparatus on the basis of letters and complaints of party members and other citizens addressed to Communist Party leaders, other internal documents of the party, and period public opinion polls. He systematically identifi es and examines each of the problematic areas which were regularly refl ected in these documents: dropping interest in the membership in the Communist Party, manifestations of disobedience among party members, violations of party standards, and corruption; criticism of slow implementation of reforms, or, on the other hand, of too fast-advancing and far-reaching democratization; dissatisfaction with information presented by the media, alleged ideological defensive, and yielding to “opposition elements”; concerns about the future of socialism and a potential return of capitalism, also in connection with developments in the Soviet Union, Poland, and Hungary; national resentments, particularly in relation to the Hungarian minority in southern Slovakia and the government´s plans to establish German military cemeteries in the territory of Czechoslovakia; historical resentments, especially as regarded a partial reevaluation of the period of the fi rst Czechoslovak Republic and the foundation period of the Communist regime; and, last but not least, various, mostly verbal anti-Communist incidents refl ected in the letters and complaints. The author states that the empirical data on the development of the membership base of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and opinions of party members presented in the study does not confi rm a conclusion to the effect that the policy of the Communist Party leadership enjoyed support of an overwhelming majority of party members, which was what party reports and excerpts from the letters mentioned above might suggest. He also examines the reasons why supporters of conservative and dogmatic opinions prevailed over “liberal” party members among the critical voices. In his opinion, the growing dissatisfaction among party members made a signifi cant contribution to the helplessness of leaders of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in dealing with accumulating problems of the country, which became fully manifest after November 17, 1989.

Keywords: Czechoslovakia; Communist Party of Czechoslovakia; Czechoslovak normalization; perestroika; social criticism; complaints of citizens; public opinion