The Czech Black Book

I first heard about Czechoslovakia as a kid because it was part of the Eastern Bloc, countries allied with (in some cases, maybe better described as under the control of) the Soviet Union.  I cheered against the Czechs anytime they were in an international sports competition along with the U.S. like the Olympics.  Later, a great uncle and aunt of mine served a mission in the post-Soviet Czech Republic, but I didn’t know my grandma’s extended family well, and that was really just a footnote in my life.  When I married a Czech, I figured that, out of courtesy, if nothing else, I should learn a little more about the country.  It’s proven more interesting than just that cursory look.  One place I started learning about the history of the Czech Republic was with the Prague Spring.

The Czech Black Book, edited by Robert Littell, is a collection of original source documents from the first week of the invasion.  There are press releases, official announcements, and news stories that were curated in response to Russian propaganda that claimed Russia and other Warsaw Pact countries came to Czechoslovakia to help and at the request of the Czechoslovaks (the Russians called their collection the White Book, hence the Czech one being black).  The documents from the Czechs show a much different picture.  The news reports feature interviews of high-level Czechoslovaks as well as from men on the street, and the feeling is that they simply wanted to be left alone and chart their own course through history unhindered by the Russians, whom they had previously considered friends.  There was often a feeling expressed that the invasion had done unrepairable damage to that relationship.  The government press releases and communiqués showed a government united around the reformers in the Czechoslovak Communist Party and a total disdain for the few leaders who preferred the Russian socialist path.  The Czechoslovak leaders weren’t ready to throw communism or socialism away (it reminded me of Gorbachev a little), but they certainly wanted to be able to choose their own way, and the Russians weren’t ready for their satellites to have that level of independence.  Trade unions, clubs, and other organizations also called on the citizens of Czechoslovakia to resist the invaders, although not violently, but by the interesting peaceful means of ignoring them.  They were to refuse to help the Russians whenever possible, to continue their everyday lives as if nothing was happening around them since strikes and other resistance would simply give the Russians the excuse they needed  to escalate the action.  Even when a few Czechoslovak citizens lost their lives, were arrested, or otherwise assaulted, the general population kept its cool, and the Czechoslovak leaders attributed the end of the invasion, in large part, to this reaction (or non-reaction, as the case may be) by the people.  In the end, negotiations were carried out, and the invaders left, although not under the conditions that the Czechoslovaks would’ve desired.

The book was interesting to read, but not at all the narrative that modern history books are.  This was simply a collection of documents.  It was dry in places.  Overall, though, I thought that there was a story being told.  The story was one of resistance and one of man’s yearning for freedom.  The Czechoslovaks had tried to break away in a slight way from the Soviet version of Communism because they felt it would work better for their country.  The Soviets rightly perceived that such a taste of freedom would only lead to Czechoslovakia moving further away from the Soviet sphere of influence.  It was interesting to read of the Czechoslovak resistance and the relative united front presented by the people and government.  At the end of the book, it was sad to see that despite this united front for freedom, the desire for liberty was crushed by the Soviets, and what the leaders and people had fought for did not come to fruition for another twenty years.  It was also a warning to us because it shows what not having freedom is like and what not letting an individual country chart its own path is like.  Signing away sovereignty is not something that leads to the best outcome.

This work, including all text, photographs, and other original work, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License and is copyrighted © MMXXI John Pruess.