Exploring the “federalization debate” that occurred in the context of the Prague Spring, this article highlights the diversity of opinions among political elites in Slovakia regarding the federalization and democratization discussions in 1968. The language Slovaks used to call for federalization reveals how they conceive of democracy and democratization, and it shows the variety of meanings Slovaks ascribed to federalization and to the popular slogan, “First federalization, then democratization.” Federalization and democratization were mutually dependent in the minds of many Slovaks. The author argues that Slovak political and cultural figures writing in the late 1960s saw federalization as a necessary precondition for democracy; they regarded the nation as one of the basic units of democracy, which led them to champion institutional safeguards for Slovak national rights as a prerequisite for successful democratization.
A. J. Liehm to Drahoslav Machalo, 4 March 1997, in Jana Holková, ed., Kultúrny život a slovenská jar 60. rokov (Bratislava: Národné literárne centrum, 1998), 36.
2.
Alexander Dubček, Hope Dies Last: The Autobiography of Alexander Dubček, ed. and trans. Jiri Hochman ( New York: Kodansha International, 1993 ), 121-22.
3.
János Kádár's report to the HSWP Politburo of a telephone conversation with Leonid Brezhnev, 13 December 1967, in Jaromír Navrátil, et al., eds., The Prague Spring 1968: A National Security Archive Documents Reader, trans. Mark Kramer, Joy Moss, and Ruth Tosek (Budapest: Central European University Press, 1998), 21.
4.
János Kádár's report to the HSWP Politburo on his meetings with Alexander Dubček, 20 January 1968, in The Prague Spring1968, 38.
5.
Miroslav Kusý, "Slovenský fenomén," in Rudolf Chmel , ed., Slovenská otázka v 20. storočí ( Bratislava: Kalligram, 1997), 473.
6.
One such example is Galia Golan, Reform Rule in Czechoslovakia: The Dubček Era, 1968-1969 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 186-99.
7.
Vladimir V. Kusin, Political Grouping in the Czechoslovak Reform Movement ( New York: Columbia University Press, 1972), 143-45, 148-49.
8.
H. Gordon Skilling, Czechoslovakia's Interrupted Revolution (Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1976 ).
9.
See Robert W. Dean, Nationalism and Political Change in Eastern Europe: The Slovak Question and the Czechoslovak Reform Movement (Denver: University of Denver, 1973), 1-37; Carol Skalnik Leff, National Conflict in Czechoslovakia: The Making and Remaking of a State, 1918-1987 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 98-120, 220-40; Eugen Steiner, The Slovak Dilemma ( Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 112-96.
10.
See Skilling, Czechoslovakia's Interrupted Revolution, 451-89, 858-77.
11.
As of January 1968, approximately 1.6 million of Czechoslovakia's roughly 14 million citizens were members of the Communist Party. Grzegorz Ekiert, The State against Society: Political Crises and Their Aftermath in East Central Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 180-81.
12.
In an opinion poll conducted 20-21 April 1968, 79% of respondents in Slovakia (as opposed to 52% in the Czech Lands) said they fully agreed with the KSČ Action Program's proposal to "put in order" the relationship between Czechs and Slovaks through federalization, while another 15% of Slovak respondents (and 31% of Czechs) agreed at least partially with the proposal. Jaroslaw A. Piekalkiewicz, Public Opinion Polling in Czechoslovakia, 1968-1969: Results and Analysis of Surveys Conducted during the Dubcek Era (New York, Washington and London: Praeger , 1972), 111.
13.
Leff, National Conflict in Czechoslovakia, 96-97.
14.
"Za demokraciu, ale socialistickú," Predvoj , 8 February 1968.
15.
Leff, National Conflict in Czechoslovakia, 168.
16.
Stanley Riveles , "Slovakia: Catalyst of Crisis," Problems of Communism17 (May-June 1968): 3; Milan Churaň, ed., Kdo byl kdo v našich dějinách ve 20. století (Prague: Libri, 1994), 58-59.
17.
"Boli sme jeden národ a zasa budeme!" Stanislav Sikora, "Politický vývoj na Slovensku v rokoch 1960-1967," In Miroslav Londák, Stanislav Sikora, and Elena Londáková, Predjarie: politický, ekonomický a kultúrny vývoj na Slovensku v rokoch 1960-1967 (Bratislava: Veda, 2002 ), 81.
Pavol Števček, "Fenomén Kultúrneho života v moderných slovenských dejinách ," in Kultúrny život a slovenská jar, 52-53.
21.
Milan Šimečka, The Restoration of Order: The Normalization of Czechoslovakia, 1969-1976 (London: Verso, 1984), 59-60.
22.
Steiner, The Slovak Dilemma, 121.
23.
Michal Chudík , "Tvorivo mysliet', iniciatívne pracovat',"Pravda, 31 January 1967; idem, " Tvorivo mysliet', iniciatívne pracovat' (II),"Pravda, 1 February 1967.
24.
Speeches by Alexander Dubček and Antonín Novotný at the KSČ Central Committee Plenum, 30-31 October 1967, in The Prague Spring1968, 13.
25.
Sikora, "Politický vývoj na Slovensku," 90.
26.
Speeches by Alexander Dubček and Antonín Novotný at the KSČ Central Committee Plenum, 30-31 October 1967, in The Prague Spring1968, 13-15.
27.
Jan Šindelka , "K některým českým postojům ke slovenské otázce," Rudé právo, 16 March 1968.
28.
Ibid.
29.
Skilling, Czechoslovakia's Interrupted Revolution, 51-52 n. 20.
30.
Miloš Gosiorovský, "K niektorým otázkam vzt'ahu Čechov a Slovákov v politike Komunistickej strany Československa" Historický časopis16 (1968 ): 395. Emphasis in original.
31.
Gosiorovský's invocation of the Soviet form of federation reflected the need to flatter Moscow and the habit of mechanically following the Soviet example. Yet the Soviet Union appears an odd choice model correcting asymmetry, since the Soviet federation was also asymmetrical in that the Russian Federation lacked a Communist Party and national organs of its own (though the other fourteen republics possessed these institutions), forcing the Soviet party and statewide bodies to carry out these functions for Russia.
32.
Minutes from a conference on federalization in Smolenice, 6-8 March 1968, in Jozef Žatkuliak , ed., Federalizácia československého štátu, 1968-1970: vznik česko-slovenskej federácie roku 1968 ( Brno: Doplněk, 1996), 29-31.
33.
Ibid., 31-32.
34.
Ibid., 32-33.
35.
Sikora, "Politický vývoj na Slovensku," 58.
36.
Minutes from a conference on federalization in Smolenice, 6-8 March 1968, in Federalizácia československého štátu , 31.
37.
Zdeněk Jičinský became a member of this committee in May 1968. Skilling, Czechoslovakia's Interrupted Revolution, 459; Kdo byl kdo, 230.
38.
Antonín J. Liehm , The Politics of Culture, trans. Peter Kussi (New York: Grove Press, 1972), 351.
39.
Ferdinand Beer, "Základy jednotného státu," Rudé právo, 5 September 1964.
40.
"K štátoprávnemu usporiadaniu pomeru Čechov a Slovákov," Pravda, 10 March 1968.
41.
Július Krajčí , "Magna charta republiky," Pravda , 5 April 1967; Leff, National Conflict in Czechoslovakia , 154 n. 8.
42.
"K štátoprávnemu usporiadaniu pomeru Čechov a Slovákov," Pravda, 10 March 1968.
43.
František Barbírek, "Štátoprávne vzt'ahy oboch našich národov na princípe úplnej rovnoprávnosti," Pravda, 16 March 1968.
44.
Slovak National Council statement on "The Rising Trend of Progressive Development of Czechoslovak Society," in Federalizácia československého štátu , 35-36.
45.
"Vedci o federácii," Pravda, 19 March 1968.
46.
"Bojovat o důvěru lidí," Rudé právo , 21 March 1968.
47.
Gustáv Husák's speech to the KSS regional conference, 21 April 1968, in Robin Alison Remington , ed., Winter in Prague: Documents on Czechoslovak Communism in Crisis (Cambridge, Mass., and London: M.I.T. Press, 1969), 146.
48.
Petr Pithart, "Towards a Shared Freedom, 1968-89," In Jiří Musil, ed., The End of Czechoslovakia (Budapest: Central European University Press , 1995), 208.
49.
"Slovenská otázka-otázkou českou," Pravda , 12 March 1968.
50.
Pithart, "Towards a Shared Freedom," 204.
51.
"Bouřlivé sněmování slovenských spisovatelů," Rudé právo, 1 May 1968. A leading figure in the Slovak literary world and "regime intellectual," Mináč was both a committed Communist and an ardent Slovak nationalist, who served as chairman of the Matica Slovenská from 1974 to 1990. In 1968 he described the First Republic as "almost genocide for Slovaks," an incendiary remark that inflamed passions among both Czechs and Slovaks. Czechoslovakia's Interrupted Revolution, 247; Kdo byl kdo, 361.
52.
Ladislav Novomeský , "Smysl federalizace: Vyšší stupeň syntézy, ne separatistická izolace," Rudé právo, 19 April 1968, in Federalizácia československého štátu , 41.
53.
Liehm, The Politics of Culture, 256, 267, 275.
54.
Milan Hübl , "Společenství Čechů a Slováků ," Práce, 28 January 1968, in Jiří Hoppe, ed., Pražské jaro v médiích: vyběr z dobové publicistiky (Brno: Doplněk , 2004), 31; Skilling, Czechoslovakia's Interrupted Revolution , 452.
55.
Josef Smrkovský , "Jak nyní dál: nad závěry lednového pléna ÚV KSČ," Rudé právo, 9 February 1968 , in The Prague Spring1968, 45-46.
56.
Jan Škaloud , "Hlas za federáciu," Pravda , 26 March 1968.
57.
Jiří Grospič and Zdeněk Jičinský, " História hovorí za federáciu o vývine česko-slovenských vzt'ahov a ich riešeniach po roku 1945, ako aj o ich prestavách na usporiadanie štátu ," Pravda, 19 April 1968, in Federalizácia československého štátu, 45, 48-49.
58.
Anonymous letter to Vojtech Hatala and Karol Rebro, Federalizácia československého štátu , 217.
59.
"Slovensko, federácia, obrodný proces," Pravda , 9 April 1968.
60.
Michal Chorváth , "Medzi Čechmi a Slovákmi," Predvoj, 11 April 1968; idem, "O národné povedomie, nie o nacionalizmus nám ide," Predvoj, 2 May 1968; Ol'ga Slušná, ed., Kto je kto na Slovensku, 1969 (Bratislava: Slovakopress, 1969), 177.
61.
Ironically, the post-invasion KSČ Central Committee ridded itself of Chudík on 31 August 1968, because he had been removed from the KSS Central Committee during the Prague Spring. "Poslanci SNR o státoprávním uspořádání Slovenska," Rudé právo , 15 March 1968; Kdo byl kdo, 208.
62.
"Predstavy ako d'alej," Pravda, 7 August 1968.
63.
"Dôsledná rovnoprávnost," Pravda, 2 April 1968; Július Strinka, "Federalizácia a demokratizácia ," Kultúrny život, 5 April 1968.
64.
Vincent Šabík , "Provincializmus náš každodenný ," Kultúrny život, 5 April 1968.
65.
Golan, Reform Rule in Czechoslovakia, 196; Skilling, Czechoslovakia's Interrupted Revolution , 248; Steiner, The Slovak Dilemma, 175.
66.
Pavol Števček , "Podmienky a pripomienky," Kultúrny život, 29 March 1968.
67.
"Čím Začat' demokratizáciu?"Pravda, 6 March 1968.
68.
Rašla was active in the Slovak National Uprising and wrote extensively on it. After the war, he was the prosecutor in the trial of Jozef Tiso, head of the wartime Slovak fascist state. "Federácia nie je diskusia ," Kultúrny život, 12 April 1968. For Rašla's meditations on the Uprising, see Anton Rašla, Civilista v armáde: spomienky na roky 1938-1945 (Bratislava: Vydavatel'stvo politickej literatúry, 1967).
69.
"K štátoprávnemu usporiadaniu pomeru Čechov a Slovákov," Pravda, 10 March 1968; "Veríme v schopnost' l'udu vybudovat' socialistickú spoločnost' zodpovedajúcu našim podmienkam a tradíciám,"Pravda , 25 April 1968.
70.
"Plná práva Čechům a Slovákům," Rudé právo, 8 April 1968.
71.
Vojtech Hatala , "Spor o obsah federácie," Nové slovo, 11 July 1968, in Federalizácia československého štátu , 214, 216.
72.
Vojtech Hatala and Karol Rebro, "Ide o obsah československej federácie ," Pravda, 13 July 1968.
73.
"Predstavy ako d'alej," Pravda, 7 August 1968.
74.
Zora Jesenská, "Práva občana," Kultúrny život, 5 April 1968.
75.
Miloš Červený, "Dvojdílná federace a zvláštnosti politickosprávního členění," Rudé právo, 23 July 1968.
76.
"Hlasy z Moravy pro trojdílnou federaci," Rudé právo, 7 July 1968.
77.
"Reálne obrysy federácie," Pravda, 7 June 1968.
78.
Daniel Rapant, "Logika dejín," In Slovenská otázka v 20. storočí419-20.
79.
Edo Friš , "K problému čechoslovakizmu a l'udáctva ," Kultúrny život, 4 November 1966 .
80.
"Vedecká diskusia a národnostnej otázke," Pravda , 12 June 1968.
81.
Milan Stano, Pravda, 9 August 1968.
82.
Milan Rúfus , "Útrapy z národa," Kultúrny život , 22 March 1968.
