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A “Polyphony of Voices“? Czech Popular Opinion and the Slánský Affair

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Kevin McDermott
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Abstract

The trial of Rudolf Slánský and his thirteen codefendants in Prague in November 1952 represented the culmination of Stalinist political terror in postwar central and eastern Europe. Ever since, it has attracted much scholarly attention focusing largely on the origins, processes, and outcomes of the trial. In this article, Kevin McDermott examines a crucial, but almost totally unresearched aspect of the affair: Czech popular reactions to Slánský's arrest and trial. Using documents from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and secret police reports from the Ministry of Interior archives, McDermott demonstrates that popular opinion was extremely diverse, ranging from strident and selective support of the official version of the court proceedings; to passive compliance and resigned accommodation; to apathy, guarded dissent, and overt opposition. Two findings are particularly noteworthy: first, virulent antisemitic sentiment was endemic; and second, many workers, rankand- file party members, and even lower-level functionaries were highly critical of the country's communist leaders. In conclusion, McDermott proposes that the archival record reveals the relatively broad diffusion of antisemitism in Czech society, the limits of the “Stalinization” process in the Czechoslovak party, and the failure of Stalinist terror to intimidate the population into submission and eradicate independent thinking.

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Articles
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Slavic Review , Volume 67 , Issue 4 , Winter 2008 , pp. 840 - 865
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2008

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References

I wish to thank Jaroslav Andel, Miriam Dobson, Eva Harm, Michal Kopecek, Ivan Margolius, John Morison, Matthew Stibbe, and especially the two anonymous reviewers for Slavic Review tor their perceptive comments and suggestions. Needless to say, all errors and oversights remain my own. Thanks also to Ivan Vomacka for his expert help in translating several Czech archival sources.

1. The standard work in English is Karel Kaplan, Report on the Murder of the General Secretary (London, 1990). Other essential texts are Igor Lukes, Rudolf Slánský: His Trials and Trial (Washington D.C., 2006); Lukes, Igor, “The Rudolf Slánský Affair: New Evidence,“ Slavic Review 58, no. 1 (Spring 1999): 160-87CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Pelikán, jiří, ed., The Czechoslovak Political Trials, 1950-1954: The Suppressed Report oftheDubcek Government's Commission of Inquiry, 1968 (London, 1971)Google Scholar. Among the voluminous Czech literature, see Karel Kaplan, Nekrvavá revoluce (Prague, 1993); Karel Kaplan and Pavel Paleček, Komunisticky rezim a politicke procesy v Ceskoslovensku (Brno, 2001); and Pernes, jiří and Foitzik, Jan, eds., Politické procesy v Ceskoslovensku po roce 1945 a ‘pripad Slánský’ (Brno, 2005).Google Scholar

The main memoir literature is Eugene Loebl, Sentenced and Tried: The Stalinist Purges in Czechoslovakia (London, 1969); Artur London, On Trial (London, 1970);Josefa Slánská, Report on My Husband (London, 1969); Marian Šlingová, Truth Will Prevail (London, 1968); and Kovaly, Heda Margolius, Prague Farewell (London, 1988)Google Scholar. See also Ivan Margolius, Reflections of Prague: fourneys through the 20th Century (Chichester, Eng., 2006).

2. The bulk of my evidence refers to Czech responses. For Slovak reactions to the trials, see Stanislav Sikora, “K reakcii slovenského obyvatel'stva na politické procesy v 50. rokoch,” in Pernes and Foitzik, eds., Politické procesy, 171-78.

3. Kershaw, Ian, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich: Bavaria 1933— 1945 (Oxford, 1983), 6, 10Google Scholar. Emphasis in the original.

4. Davies, Sarah, Popular Opinion in Stalin's Russia: Terror, Propaganda and Dissent, 1934-1941 (Cambridge, Eng., 1997), 9–17, 183, 186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Fitzpatrick, Sheila, Everyday Stalinism. Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s (New York, 1999)Google Scholar; and Mark Allinson, Politics and Popular Opinion in East Germany, 1945-68 (Manchester, Eng., 2000).

5. Stephen Kotkin, review of Sarah Davies's book in Europe-Asia Studies 50, no. 4 (1998): 739-42. The most recent critical overview of this methodological dilemma is Moritz Föllmer, “Surveillance Reports,” in Dobson, Miriam and Ziemann, Benjamin, eds., Reading Primary Sources: The Interpretation of Texts from Nineteenth- and Twentieth- Century History (London, 2008)Google Scholar.

6. These files can be found in the National Archive of the Czech Republic (NA), specifically the archive of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (ÚV KSČ), and in the Archive of the Ministry of Interior of the Czech Republic (AMV), fond of the Secretariat of the Headquarters of State Security. As far as I know, this is the first time these secret police reports have been explored by a historian. I have been unable to locate other relevant sources such as personal diaries and citizens’ letters to party and state dignitaries and to the press. I did manage to find several summaries of letters compiled by state security officers, but these refer mainly to 1953 and 1954. I also interviewed Jaroslav Šabata, a prominent communist and later dissident in Brno, who kindly responded to a questionnaire on the Slánský affair, as did other acquaintances.

7. In rare cases, the most we can glean about the identity of any StB informer is their number—“Agent 976“—and their place of operation—“he works in the coal storehouse in Prague 2.” See AMV, fond (f.) 310-111-3 (Agent information on the trial of Slánský and associates), list (1.) 1.

8. I am grateful to Eva Hahn for the idea of the “nonrecorded voice.“

9. Bradley Abrams, “The Politics of Retribution: The Trial ofJozef Tiso in the Czechoslovak Environment,” in Deák, István, Gross, Jan T., and Tonyjudt, , eds., The Politics of Retribution in Europe: World War II and Its Aftermath (Princeton, 2000), 252.Google Scholar

10. Frommer, Benjamin, National Cleansing: Retribution against Nazi Collaborators in Postwar Czechoslovakia (Cambridge, Eng., 2004), 33–62 Google Scholar. Public criticism of the anti- German violence and condemnation of so-called Czech Gestapoism were expressed soon after the events. I wish to thank Eva Hahn for bringing this to my attention.

11. See Jan T. Gross, “Themes for a Social History of War Experience and Collaboration,“ in Deák, Gross, andjudt, eds., Politics of Retribution, 15-35, esp. 22-23.

12. The most recent text in English is Bradley F. Abrams, The Struggle for the Soul of the Nation: Czech Culture and the Rise of Communism (Lanham, Md., 2004). The latest contribution by Czech and Slovak historians is Zdeňka Kokošková et al., eds., Československo na rozhrani dvou epoch nesvobody (Prague, 2005).

13. Kaplan, Karel, Political Persecution in Czechoslovakia 1948-1972 (Cologne, Germany, 1983), 7–11 Google Scholar. The Czech National Socialists bore no ideological relation to their German namesake.

14. Ibid., 24. These figures are at the upper end of die scale; other sources suggest lower numbers.

15. Statistics and information are from Jan Foitzik, “Souvislosti politických procesů ve střední a východní Evropě,” and Karel Kaplan, “Politické procesy 50. let v Ceskoslovensku,“ both in Pernes and Foitzik, eds., Politické procesy, 11, 13, 15-16, 109; Pelikán, ed., The Czechoslovak Political Trials, 56-57; and Bartosek, Karel, “Central and Southeastern Europe,” in Stephane Courtois et al., eds., The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression (Cambridge, Mass., 1999), 394–456.Google Scholar

16. For Stalin's direct interventions in the Rajk affair in Hungary, see Mevius, Martin, Agents of Moscow: The Hungarian Communist Party and the Origins of Socialist Patriotism, 1941- 1953 (Oxford, 2005), 244, 249.Google Scholar

17. On Stalinist repression in postwar eastern Europe, see Kevin McDermott and Matthew Stibbe, eds., Stalinist Terror in Eastern Europe: Elite Purges and Mass Repression (Manchester, Eng., 2009).

18. In an autobiographical form filled out in May 1945, the question “Jude? Žid?” was crossed out, presumably by Slánský himself. See NA, f. 100/50, svazek (sv.) 1, archivni jednotka (a.j.) 3 (Autobiographical information on Slánský), 1. 10. In his prewar party autobiographies, he makes no reference whatever to his Jewish background. See NA, f. 100/50, sv. 1, a.j. 1 (Autobiographical information on Slánský), 1. 15. Soon after the war, Slánský advised a budding communist to change his “German-Jewish” name to the Czechized “Zlatistý.” See Eduard Goldstücker, Vzpominky 1945-1968 (Prague, 2005), 17-18. There is, however, no truth in the “persistent rumor” that Slánský's original name was “Salzman.“ See Lukes, Rudolf Slánský, 4.

19. Lukes, “The Rudolf Slánský Affair,” 164«32.

20. Kaplan, Report on the Murder, 128. A copy of the letter can be found in NA, f. komise 1, sv. 2, a.j. 13 (Stalin-Gottwald correspondence), 11. 6-7. Only four days earlier, however, on 20 July, Stalin had sent a note to Gottwald saying the “incriminating evidence“ against Slánský was “insufficient” to charge him. Gottwald fully agreed. See NA, f. 100/24, sv. 108, a.j. 1405 (Information on Slánský, Šling, and Švermová), 11. 43-44.

21. For instance, Kaplan, Report on the Murder, 236-42.

22. See, for example, Robert Levy, Ana Pauker: The Rise and Fall ofajexvish Communist (Berkeley, 2001).

23. Kaplan, Report on the Murder, 139-45.

24. Lukes, Rudolf Slánský, 35-46, 59-63; Lukes, “The Rudolf Slánský Affair,” 160-87.

25. See Pernes, jiří, Brno 1951: Příspěvek k dějinám protikomunistického odporu na Moravě (Prague, 1997)Google Scholar. A report drawn up by the local state security authorities estimated that “around 6,000 people” participated in the demonstration. AMV, f. A2/1, a.j. 1861 (StB Report on Brno events, November 1951), unpaginated file.

26. For indications that some party members associated Slánský with material shortages and price rises, see NA, f. 100/24, sv. 108, a.j. 1401 (Information on R. Slánský), 11. 77-78; Slánský's arrest was linked to the disturbances in the Brno area by a local party functionary, Juran. See NA, f. 01, sv. 18, a.j. 29 (2) (Materials from the Central Committee plenum, December 1951), 1. 132.

27. See Murashko, G. P., “Delo Slanskogo,” Voprosy istorii, no. 3 (1997): 3–20 Google Scholar and no. 4 (1997): 3-18. Soon after his arrest, party luminaries speaking at a Central Committee plenum queued up to lambaste Slánský's “authoritarianism,” “high-handedness,” and “conspiratorial” approach, which had resulted in a “dictatorship of the apparatus” and a “regime of real autocracy.” See NA, f. 01, sv. 18, a.j. 29 (2), 11. 50-51, 82 and a.j. 29 (4), 11. 7-11. Still, a few courageous officials, such as Vaclav Sova, expressed surprise at Slánský's demise, regarding him as a “model Bolshevik worker.” NA, f. 01, sv. 18, a.j. 29 (3), 11. 272-73. Sova's fate is unknown. Czech

28. NA, f. komise 1, sv. 2, a.j. 16 (Letters from Slánský, November 1951), 11. 3 - 4. Under interrogation, Slánský later named several of the “evil people” and “enemy elements“: Karel Šváb, Osvald Závodský, and Otto Fischl. NA, f. 100/24, sv. 108, a.j. 1404 (Report on the interrogation of Slánský, February 1952), unpaginated file.

29. For details on the brutal interrogation methods and Slánský's attempted suicide, see Lukes, Rudolf Slánský, 53-57; and Kaplan, Report on the Murder, 152-60, 168-75.

30. The other members of the “Center” were Vladimír dementis, Otto Fischl, Josef Frank, Ludvík Frejka, Bedřich Geminder, Vavro Hajdů, Evzen Lobl, Artur London, Rudolf Margolius, Bedřich Reicin, André Simone (Otto Katz), Otto Šling, and Karel Šváb.

31. Ministry of Justice, Proces s vedenim protistdtniho spikleneckeho centra v cele s Rudolfem Sldnskym (Prague, 1953). Nothing was left to chance. Bohumil Doubek, the head of the StB Interrogation Bureau, testified in 1955 that a few days before the trial all the accused assured Karol Bacilek, the minister of national security, that they would behave well before the court. In turn, Bacilek deceitfully told Slánský that his family would not suffer. See NA, f. komise 1, sv. 2b, a.j. 24 (Account of the case of Slánský and associates), 1. 48.

32. This term is used by the Czech novelist, Josef Skvorecky Headed for the Blues: A Memoir (Hopewell, N.J., 1996), 119.

33. Vaclav Brabec, “Vztah KSC a verejnosti k politickym procesum na pocatku padesatych let,” Revue dejin socialismu, no. 3 (1969): 364, 365, 366, 368.

34. Pelikán, ed., The Czechoslovak Political Trials, 140-47; Kaplan, Report on the Murder, 229, 235; and Sikora, “Kreakcii slovenskeho obyvatel'stva,” 171-78.

35. NA, f. 014/12, sv. 8, a.j. 64 (Information bulletin, no. 63, 28 November 1952), 1. 8. Secret police reports also noted “a very fierce … mood against Jews” at Zbrojovka. See AMV, f. 310-114-6 (Reports on the reception of the trial), unpaginated file.

36. NA, f. 014/2, sv. 9, a.j. 71 (Information bulletin), 1. 9. Similar sentiments were aired at party meetings in the Ostrava region. See AMV, f. 310-114-6 and f. 310-114-19 (StB reports from Ostrava), unpaginated file.

37. NA, f. 014/2, sv. 9, a.j. 71,1. 15.

38. NA, f. 014/12, sv. 8, a.j. 61 (Information bulletin, no. 60, 26 November 1952), 11. 21, 24.

39. NA, f. 014/12, sv. 8, a.j. 61,11. 8-9.

40. NA, f. 014/2, sv. 9, a.j. 71,1. 9; NA, f. 014/12, sv. 8, a.j. 61,1. 7.

41. See NA, f. 014/2, sv. 9, a.j. 71,1. 7; NA, f. 014/12, sv. 8, a.j. 64,11. 3, 4, 13; NA, f. 014/12, sv. 8, a.j. 61,11. 3,4-5,11,15,19; NA, f. 014/12, sv. 8, a.j. 59 (Information bulletin, no. 58, 24 November 1952), 11. 4, 6; NA, f. 05/1, sv. 416, a.j. 2460 (Reception of the arrest of Slánský, November 1951), 1. 1; NA, f. 05/1, sv. 391, a.j. 2327 (Information from the KSC Prague Regional Committee, November 1952), 1. 181.

42. NA, f. 05/1, sv. 391, a.j. 2327, 11. 167-68. Similar views on “vulgar antisemitism“ and the “race question” were repeated in secret police reports on the public reaction to the trial. See AMV, f. 310-111-3, 1. 9; f. 310-114-6; f. 310-114-11 (StB reports from České Budějovice), unpaginated file.

43. AMV, f. 310-114-6. “CSR” was the standard abbreviation for the Czechoslovak Republic. The capitalization replicates the original.

44. AMV, f. 310-114-9 (StB reports from Plzen); f. 310-114-11 (České Budějovice); f. 310-114-12 (Liberec);f. 310-114-13 (Hradec Králové);f. 310-114-16 (Brno); f. 310-114-19 (Ostrava). All these files are unpaginated.

45. AMV, f. 310-114-6; f. 310-114-9; f. 310-114-12; f. 310-114-16.

46. AMV, f. 310-114-6; f. 310-114-7 (Regional StB reports, November 1951); f. 310- 114-9; f. 310-114-11; f. 310-114-12; f. 310-114-13. See also NA, f. 19/13, a.j. 122 (2) (Party bulletin, Brno region, 5 December 1952), 1. 127.

47. AMY f. 310-111-3,1. 13.

48. Čeněk Adamec, Bohuš Pospíšil, and Milan Tesaf, What's Your Opinion? A Year's Survey of Public Opinion in Czechoslovakia (Prague, 1947), 23.

49. See Kieval, Hillel J., Languages of Community: The Jewish Experience in the Czech Lands (Berkeley, 2000)Google Scholar; and Frankl, Michal, “The Background of the Hilsner Case: Political Antisemitism and Allegations of Ritual Murder, 1896-1900,” Judaica Bohemiae, no. 36 (2000): 34–118.Google Scholar

50. Kieval, Languages of Community, 198, 206, 213-16.

51. EvaSchmidt-Hartmann, “The Enlightenment That Failed: Antisemitism in Czech Political Culture,” Patterns ofPrejudice27, no. 2 (1993): 119-20. My emphasis.

52. Kateřina Čapkova, Češi, Němci, Židé? Ndrodni identita Židu v Cechdch, 1918-1938 (Prague, 2005), 26,172-74,268. The author exempts Poland from “the neighboring states.“

53. This reading accords, in part, with Jan T. Gross's insight that venomous postwar antisemitism in Poland, which was far more violent than in Czechoslovakia, was rooted “not in collective hallucinations nor in prewar attitudes, but in actual experiences acquired during the war years.” See Gross, , Fear. Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz: An Essay in Historical Interpretation (New York, 2007), 246.Google Scholar Emphasis in the original.

54. These statistics are calculated from Helena Krejcova, “Cesky a slovensky antisemitismus 1945-1948,” in KarelJech, ed., Strdnkami soudobychdejin: Sbornikstatikpetasedesdtindm historika Karla Kaplana (Prague, 1993), 159, 165.

55. Heitlinger, Alena, In the Shadows of the Holocaust and Communism: Czech and Slovak fews since 1945 (New Brunswick, N.J., 2006), 19.Google Scholar

56. Krejcova, “Cesky a slovensky antisemitismus,” 164-71.

57. Helena Krejcova, “K nekterym problemum zidovske mensiny a Českého antisemitismu po roce 1945,” in Jerzy Tomaszewski and Jaroslav Valenta, eds., Židé v České a polske obcanske spolecnosti (Prague, 1999), 65-77.

58. Cited in Karel Kaplan and Pavel Kosatik, Gottwaldovi muzi (Prague, 2004), 236.

59. NA, f. 01, sv. 18, a.j. 29 (2)v, 11. 169-74.

60. I am indebted to Jaroslav Šabata for the idea of “national unity.” Interview, Brno, 24 June 2007.

61. Cited from the former KSC archives in Kaplan, Report on the Murder, 16.

62. NA, f. 100/45, sv. 13, a.j. 223 (Kreibich's letter to the Political Secretariat), unpaginated.

63. A poor quality microfilm copy of the letter, dated 2 December 1952, can be found in AMV, f. A2/1, a.j. 1564 (Kreibich's letter to the Secretariat, Central Committee of the KSC), unpaginated; see also Brabec, “Vztah KSC,” 370.

64. NA, f. 014/12, sv. 8, a.j. 56 (Information bulletin, no. 55, 22 November 1952), 11. 7-8; NA, f. 014/2, sv. 9, a.j. 71,1. 12.

65. For fearful Jewish reactions, see AMV, f. 310-114-6; f. 310-114-9; f. 310-114-11; f. 310-114-16; and NA, f. 05/1, sv. 391, a.j. 2327,1. 174.

66. This figure is given in NA, f. 014/2, sv. 9, a.j. 71,1. 2.

67. Many of the resolutions, amounting to several hundred pages, can be found in NA, nespracovany fond and NA, rezoluce Slánský, nespracovana cast fondu. Similar files exist from November and December 1951, the time of Slánský's arrest.

68. NA, f. 12,jedn. 59 (KSCNational Conference, December 1952), 1. 57. Gottwald's distinction, however, did little to help befuddled local party officials, many of whom urged the central authorities and state media to clarify the differences so that they could explain it to “confused” workers and rank-and-file members. See NA, f. 014/12, sv. 8, a.j. 64,1. 3; NA, f. 19/13, a.j. 122 (2), 1.118; AMV, f. 310-111-3,1. 9.

69. NA, f. 05/1, sv. 416, a.j. 2460,1. 2.

70. AMV, f. 310-114-7.

71. NA, f. 014/12, sv. 8, a.j. 56,1. 6.

72. NA, f. 014/12, sv. 8, a.j. 59,1. 7.

73. NA, f. 014/12, sv. 8, a.j. 61,1. 26.

74. NA, f. 014/12, sv. 8, a.j. 64, 1. 7. Similar doubts surfaced in Slovakia. See Sikora, “Kreakcii slovenskeho obyvatel'stva,” 174.

75. NA, f. 014/12, sv. 8, a.j. 61, 11. 8-9. The comment “three dress rehearsals” probably refers to preceding show trials in which defendants had not always “performed” their lines correctly.

76. AMV, f. 310-114-9; see also f. 310-114-16.

77. AMV, f. 310-114-13.

78. AMV, f. 310-114-16.

79. AMV, f. 310-114-6; f. 310-114-9; f. 310-114-11; f. 310-114-16.

80. AMV, f. 310-114-13.

81. AMV, f. 310-114-6.

82. AMV, f. 310-114-11.

83. AMV, f. 310-114-7.

84. AMV, f. 310-114-9. Eduard Goldstiicker also considered Slánský to be a “very clever man with an excellent political brain and, what is more, he had great experience, but his manner could put people off.” Goldstiicker, Vzpominky, 18.

85. AMV, f. 310-114-6. I am grateful to Ivan Margolius for information on the relations between Hanus and Rudolf Margolius.

86. Margolius Kovaly, Prague Farewell, 164.

87. AMV, f. 310-114-7; f. 310-114-9. Contradictory attitudes were also expressed about another defendant, Otto Sling, former party secretary of the Brno region. See AMV, f. 310-114-6.

88. Timothy Johnston, “Subversive Tales? War Rumours in the Soviet Union, 1945- 1947,” in Juliane Fiirst, ed., Late Stalinist Russia: Society between Reconstruction and Reinvention (London, 2006), 73. The quotation relates to the USSR at the end of World War II, but it apdy describes the situation in Czechoslovakia in 1951-52.

89. NA, f. 014/12, sv. 8, a.j. 56,1. 8; NA, f. 05/1, sv. 416, a.j. 2460,1. 2; NA, f. 100/24, sv. 108, a.j. 1404,1. 18; AMV, f. 310-114-6; f. 310-114-11; f. 310-114-13.

90. AMV, f. 310-114-6; f. 310-114-7; f. 310-114-11; f. 310-114-16.

91. AMV,f. 310-111-3,1.10.

92. AMV, f. 310-114-9. The high cost of living, low wages, and shortages of goods remained constant headaches for Czech consumers, as shown by secret police reports on perlustrated letters from 1953 and 1954. See AMV, f. A2/1, a.j. 557 (Notes on the mood of the population), unpaginated file.

93. AMV, f. 310-114-13.

94. AMV, f. 310-111-3,1. 11.

95. NA, f. 05/1, sv. 359, a.j. 2176 (Reports from party and factory meetings, Prague region, October 1951), 1. 34. Even high-level party officials recognized the dire state of public consumption and the need to improve the situation rapidly. See NA, f. 19, a.j. 3999 (Meeting of die Prague Regional Committee, 23 December 1952), 1. 8.

96. NA, f. 014/12, sv. 10, a.j. 103 (Reactions to Stalin's death), 1. 2; NA, f. 014/12, sv. 10, a.j. 104 (Reactions to Stalin's death), 1. 2; AMV, f. 310-114-16. These views appeared in “libellous” leaflets and posters discovered in Nove Mesto, Trencin, Presov (all in Slovakia) and Pribram (central Bohemia).

97. AMV, f. 310-114-6. The capitalization replicates the original. The obscure word 'JOINTU” in the original denotes the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which was condemned in the indictment on the opening day of the trial. See Ministry of Justice, Proces s vedenim, 36. The committee was later denounced in Pravda at the time of the Doctors’ Plot. See Dmitrii Shepilov, The Kremlin's Scholar: A Memoir of Soviet Politics under Stalin and Khrushchev, ed. Stephen V Bittner (New Haven, 2007), 236, 427-28.

98. AMV, f. 310-114-6.

99. See AMV, f. 310-111-3,1. 19; f. 310-114-6; f. 310-114-9; f. 310-114-12; f. 310-114- 13; f. 310-114-16; NA, f. 05/1, sv. 416, a.j. 2460,1. 1; NA, f. 014/12, sv. 8, a.j. 56,1. 7; NA, f. 014/2, sv. 9, a.j. 71,1. 2; NA, f. 19/13, a.j. 149 (Information bulletin, no. 9, Ostrava region, 21 November 1952), 1.31.

100. AMV, f. 310-114-6.

101. NA, f. 014/12, sv. 8, a.j. 61,1. 24; AMV, f. 310-114-6; NA, f. 19/13, a.j. 122 (2), 1. 116. I have not been able to establish whether those who held such views were in any way persecuted.

102. AMV, f. 310-114-16.

103. AMV, f. 310-114-6.

104. NA, f. 014/12, sv. 8, a.j. 61, 11. 8, 19; NA, f. 014/12, sv. 8, a.j. 64, 11. 3, 6; NA, f. 014/2, sv. 9, a.j. 71,11. 4, 12-13; AMV, f. 310-114-6.

105. AMV, f. 310-114-6. The daughter of a prominent interwar noncommunist politician asserted that, if such a trial had occurred in the First Republic, the entire government would have had to resign.

106. NA, f. 19/13, a.j. 122 (2), 11. 116,127.

107. NA, f. 014/12, sv. 8, a.j. 61,11. 15,18. See also NA, f. 05/1, sv. 359, a.j. 2176,1. 26.

108. AMV, f. 310-114-6.

109. NA, f. 014/2, sv. 9, a.j. 71, 1. 4. On the KSC's policies of egalitarianism and social levelling, see Peter Heumos, “State Socialism, Egalitarianism, Collectivism: On the Social Context of Socialist Work Movements in Czechoslovak Industrial and Mining Enterprises, 1945-1965,” International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 68 (2005): 47-74.

110. NA, f. 19, a.j. 3999,1.14.

111. NA, f. 018, sv. 9, a.j. 76 (Meeting of chairs and secretaries of KSC Regional Committees, 16 January 1952), 11. 1-6, 23-31.

112. NA, f. 018, sv. 9, a.j. 77 (Meeting of chairs and secretaries of KSC Regional Committees, 7 February 1952), 1. 2.

113. NA, f. 12, jedn. 59,11. 54-57.

114. I have taken this term from Lewis Siegelbaum and Andrei Sokolov, Stalinism as a Way of Life: A Narrative in Documents (New Haven, 2000), 6. For a similar interpretation, see Heumos, “State Socialism,” 47. It is striking that the same conclusions have been reached about popular opinion in late Stalinist Russia. One expert has argued that among Soviet war veterans there was “a whole universe of ideas in circulation, ranging from total support to total opposition, with various shades of gray in between.” See Mark Edele, “More Than Just Stalinists: The Political Sentiments of Victors, 1945-1953,” in Furst, ed., Late Stalinist Russia, 167.

115. This conclusion is broadly in line with recent treatments of the evolution of the KSC in the period 1945-53. See, for instance, John Connelly, Captive University: The Sovietization of East German, Czech, and Polish Higher Education, 1945-1956 (Chapel Hill, 2000); and Heumos, “State Socialism,” 54.

116. According to Ministry of Interior figures, approximately 2,800 workers participated in the strikes and demonstrations in the Plzeii region, of whom 110 were taken into police custody. See AMV, f. 310-72-30 (Survey of strikes in 1953), 11. 13-14. The same file shows that several thousand industrial workers struck and rioted in many parts of Bohemia, including Prague, in early June 1953 to protest the currency reforms. The tables do not indicate whether communist workers were involved in these disturbances, but it is quite likely. For a brief summary of the Plzen events, see Otto Ulc, “Pilsen: The Unknown Revolt,” Problems of Communism 14, no. 3 (1965): 46-49. For the situation in the 1960s, see Jaroslav Cuhra, “In the Shadow of Liberalization: Repressions in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s,” Cahiers du Monde russe 47', nos. 1-2 (2006): 409-26.