Jan Mervart1; 1 Institute for the Study of Totalitarian regimes, Czech Republic
Discussion
In state-socialist Czechoslovakia the period following the Prague Spring of 1968 was delineated by massive purges against communist intellectuals that previously supported the reform communist project. This was neither a coincidence nor an irrational act. The intrinsic logic of the purges lied in the belief commonly shared amongst the members of the newly established party leadership in 'restoring the order', which would replace the 'chaos' of the reform era. Nevertheless, the consolidation was achieved not only by a one-off purge but also by a continual focus on the counter-revolutionary threat of 1968 throughout the whole period of the 1970s and the 1980s. In this paper, I will focus on the shape the real socialist conception of culture took in the views of the consolidators. I will argue that on the one hand, the culture defined itself against the counter-revolutionary past and on the other, it was intended to shape the present and future through the moulding of the new 'Socialist Person'. However, the main goal of the paper lies in the question as to what extent the process of introducing the consolidated conception of culture was a success and to what extent it opened space for semiofficial cultural activities.
