“Are we still behaving as revolutionaries?”: Radovan Richta, theory of revolution and dilemmas of reform communism in Czechoslovakia

Abstract

This article is concerned with the concept of “scientific and technological revolution” (STR) as it was elaborated since the late 1950s and early 1960s by the Czechoslovak philosopher Radovan Richta. The aim of this text is to analyze Richta’s theory of revolution, which was a vital part of his STR research project, and to place it within the wider context of the thinking about revolution in post-war Czechoslovakia. The STR theory of revolution is discussed as part of a longer development from the discourse of “national and democratic revolution” in the immediate post-war years and transformations of the theory of revolution under Stalinism and post-Stalinism to Richta’s attempt to renew and rethink the issue of revolution as a part of the reform communist political and social thinking.