McDermott, Kevin Communist Czechoslovakia, 1945–89: A Political and Social History (review)

Abstract

SEER, 94, 3, july 2016 574 however, what she calls ‘affective solidarities’ can be traced between people in the GDR and Vietnam as a direct result of aid programmes carried out in the post-war reconstruction of Vietnam. That such forms of sentiment are still alive today, outliving the official, state-led narratives that they emerged under, proves that it is possible to draw a distinction between the two. This is an important volume, providing a number of helpful interventions to a growing field. It ought to be commended for its unorthodox inclusion of primary sources, as well as its broad interdisciplinary approach, which reflects the multi-faceted nature of the topic it approaches. The collection may have benefited from more focus on the more microscopic level of social interaction and exchange. More qualitative work is needed generally in order to expand the full complexity of solidarity practices, particularly how actors negotiated, upended, or transcended the narratives that guided such practices: to this aim however, this volume provides an excellent start. UCL SSEES George Bodie McDermott, Kevin. Communist Czechoslovakia, 1945–89: A Political and Social History. European History in Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2015. xix + 252 pp. Glossary. Chronology. Notes. Bibliography. Index.£21.99: $33.50 (paperback). Right away, the author of this book promises that it will not be another ‘Communism was awful’ story. While not glossing over the crimes, iniquities and defects of the state in Czechoslovakia under Communist rule, McDermott skilfully balances them against factors such as bursts of class mobility and escape from poverty, popular values such as egalitarianism and material security, and mass sentiments such as the ‘Munich syndrome’ and postwar anxiety about Germany and Hungary to explain much of the regime’s endurance. The result is — almost — the best introduction one could ask for to the political narrative and social intricacies of 44 of the 67 years in which Czechoslovakia existed as a unified state. Throughout the book runs a theme of ‘critical loyalty’, which sums up the attitude of most Czechs and Slovaks to a party that took power by force but also by dint of real ‘rootedness’ in the working class and intelligentsia. In line with recent historiography, McDermott emphasizes the radical shift in values in 1938–45 after the demise of the interwar First Republic, the trauma of occupation and the expulsion of the country’s large German-speaking population, which left Czechoslovak society more receptive to statist policies REVIEWS 575 and harsh methods. The Soviet element is not discounted, but only a portion of blame can be placed on Moscow for the excesses of local Stalinism, which took on a nationalist overtone in a bid for legitimacy. Using vivid extracts from his own research in archives, McDermott draws out the very wide range of responses in the workforce to the demands placed on it by breakneck plans and rash decisions such as the currency reform of 1953, and to the show trials. This is a tale of several Communist Czechoslovakias, and a palpable shift occurs in the mid 1950s, toward the consumer-oriented lifestyle that most European countries, East and West, were pursuing. Unrest was averted in 1956, but recession in 1962–63 forced the party’s leaders onto a zigzag path of liberalization that culminated in the Action Programme and brief suspension of censorship and police surveillance in 1968. Here, as at all critical junctures in the book, McDermott combines élite political developments with the view ‘from below’, mindful of the initial ambivalence of many workers toward reforms that might result in price increases and layoffs, but which also held out the promise of self-management and genuine trade-union representation. That perspective is retained when detailing the resistance to the Soviet-led invasion and ensuing ‘normalization’, with the distractions of relatively comfortable, albeit drab and polluted, ‘real existing socialism’. Throughout the book, McDermott assiduously avoids sweeping generalizations about a society that was more homogeneous than it had been before the Communist takeover but still had important divisions. At every turn, he distinguishes the experience of women from that of men, of Slovaks from that of Czechs, of the Hungarian minority from that of Slovaks, of dissidents from that...