Krapfl, James. Revolution with a Human Face: Politics, Culture, and Community in Czechoslovakia, 1989–1992 (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 589 Krapfl, James. Revolution with a Human Face: Politics, Culture, and Community in Czechoslovakia, 1989–1992. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 2014. xxi + 260 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Figures. Tables. Notes. Chronology. Bibliography. Index. $45.00. The conventional wisdom about Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution or, to use the term preferred in Slovakia, Gentle Revolution, is that it was initiated by students and artists who managed to oust the old regime but that the driving force for the subsequent changes was elites gathered mostly in Civic Forum (OF) and Public Against Violence (VPN). The central argument of James Krapfl’s book is that ordinary citizens, local actors and ‘the square’ played a far more consequential role in the revolution and for a longer period of time than is conventionally acknowledged. To use the unfortunate phrasing common in social science, he is ‘bringing the public back in’ to the study of the fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia. These findings are based on the author’s attempt to sift through the enormous documentary record left behind by the revolution — the ‘tens of thousands of declarations, flysheets, bulletins, posters, and open letters’ (p. 4). To his credit, Krapfl focuses not just or even mainly on Prague and Bratislava, but also on small towns like Louny or Komárno. Even as major decisions were being made in the capitals, much of what was going on during the revolution took place in small and medium-sized towns across the country. Krapfl’s main findings concern two aspects of the public’s role. The first is an analysis of what might be called the phenomenology of revolution — how the revolution felt and what ordinary people experienced. His major point here is that the revolution created a new sense of community that participants experienced as sacred. This experience he argues was crucial for establishing the legitimacy of the new regime and goes beyond standard theories of contentious politics. Krapfl further traces changing interpretations of the revolution from this initial heroic romanticism to a comedic interpretation that emphasized reconciliation and then on to a tragic view which asked why the revolution had not fulfilled its promise and even a satiric interpretation that saw change as impossible. In response to claims by Furet and Habermas that there was nothing new in these revolutions, Krapfl tries to extract the main ideas from the mass of documents. He finds the originality of the revolution in the concept of humanness or human dignity that contrasts with the ideological orientation which characterizes the European revolutionary tradition. These sections of the book draw heavily on classics in literary theory (Frye, Girard) and sociological theory (Durkheim), perhaps a bit too heavily. The second pillar of the book concerns not how ordinary people and local actors felt and talked, but what they actually did and accomplished. He finds that their actions are far more consequential than commonly described. Two SEER, 93, 3, JULY 2015 590 findings in particular stand out: 1) Slovak (and Czech) nationalism did not emerge immediately after the revolution but grew only out of local patriotism and then regionalism. Using the heretofore unexplored case of Civic Forum branches in Slovakia, Krapfl shows how Bratislava ultimately ‘conquered’ Slovakia by stoking nationalism and how OF and VPN might have forged a different relationship between the two entities, and 2) local actors throughout the country played a central role in the revolution by conducting no confidence votes and recall elections that allowed them to oust workplace directors, democratize unions, reconstruct local administration and change political representatives. Without these actions, which often had to overcome significant resistance from entrenched powerholders, much of the Communist apparatus or at least its personnel would have remained in place. These new findings, as well as several others, are important and persuasive. Where the book falls short is in showing the roots of these phenomena and their consequences. Are the interpretations and actions of the public in Czechoslovakia specific to this country (if so, why?) or are they applicable to all revolutions? Both claims find some support in the text. What impact did this sort of public involvement have on future developments in the Czech and Slovak Republics? Krapfl claims that the symbolic...