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The Tourist: Philip Roth’s Czech KGB File

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Re: The Tourist: Philip Roth’s Czech KGB File

#11

Post by tpm »

saiya-jin wrote: post #9
tpm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> communists got to the power legally by winning the elections, in 1946 in Czech part of Czechoslovakia and in 1948 in Slovakia. This is actually so wrong as to be an outright lie. The 1948 elections took place on May 30, after the Communists took power in the coup of February 25 (this was not the only important event - they took over power gradually before that). The 1948 elections featured only one party. From that…

I will rephrase it since I see what causes a friction - in 1946 Communists won in Czech part of Czechoslovakia, in Slovakia it was Democratic party with over 60% (Demokraticka strana). Still, Slovakia was only 1/3 of whole republic, so communists won the elections overall, especially in Czech border regions with Germany, where arguably a still-unacknowledged atrocity happened after WWII - brutal forced removal of hun…

The finer point is, I think, that they did not get they power legally in the elections, because no such power can be granted in elections. Elections are a way to elect the national assembly which can then create a government, write laws etc.; but things that happened after 1946 and especially after 1948 were not supported by legal power, but by Stalin's terror and totalitarian dictature.

Re: The Tourist: Philip Roth’s Czech KGB File

#12

Post by sn41 »

saiya-jin wrote: post #2

> as a teenager, he watched as the Soviet-backed communist party secured its coup d’état in 1948; Good read describing as things really were, but this part is not fully correct - communists got to the power legally by winning the elections, in 1946 in Czech part of Czechoslovakia and in 1948 in Slovakia. People were naive, uninformed and generally saw soviets mainly as liberators from nazi occupation (which was true)…

Prisoners handling radioactive material without protective material and gear, was also done in the Gulag system - e.g. Butugychag in Magadan, Siberia [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butugychag

Re: The Tourist: Philip Roth’s Czech KGB File

#13

Post by sn41 »

tpm wrote: post #11
saiya-jin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will rephrase it since I see what causes a friction - in 1946 Communists won in Czech part of Czechoslovakia, in Slovakia it was Democratic party with over 60% (Demokraticka strana). Still, Slovakia was only 1/3 of whole republic, so communists won the elections overall, especially in Czech border regions with Germany, where arguably a still-unacknowledged atrocity happened after WWII - brutal forced removal of hun…

The finer point is, I think, that they did not get they power legally in the elections, because no such power can be granted in elections. Elections are a way to elect the national assembly which can then create a government, write laws etc.; but things that happened after 1946 and especially after 1948 were not supported by legal power, but by Stalin's terror and totalitarian dictature.

I think refusal to adopt this methodology to hold on to power, and refusal to toe the line, was what made Stalin so mad with Josef Tito in Yugoslavia. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tito%E2%80%93Stalin_split

Re: The Tourist: Philip Roth’s Czech KGB File

#14

Post by yread »

inglor_cz wrote: post #5
vkou wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IDK if it would have been better or worse. Civil wars tend to leave a very toxic legacy. Had it done so, it's very likely that the USSR would have intervened.

So might the Western powers. That was still the moment when Americans had the only working nuclear weapons on Earth. The width of the possible scenarios is unsettling, one of them may be Prague turning into European Hiroshima.

> So might the Western powers.

That would be unlikely - Czechoslovakia was in Soviet sphere of influence as decided in Yalta and the West was severely outgunned (at least in conventional weapons) by Soviets in Europe.

Re: The Tourist: Philip Roth’s Czech KGB File

#15

Post by vHMtsdf »

throw4738 wrote: post #8
saiya-jin wrote: post #2

> as a teenager, he watched as the Soviet-backed communist party secured its coup d’état in 1948; Good read describing as things really were, but this part is not fully correct - communists got to the power legally by winning the elections, in 1946 in Czech part of Czechoslovakia and in 1948 in Slovakia. People were naive, uninformed and generally saw soviets mainly as liberators from nazi occupation (which was true)…

Jachymov had strategic importance for survival of the Soviet Union. Soviets invested into building mine and provided initial workforce. Jachymov was not some siberian gulag for wood choping. Soviets also paid for uranium. Mine was closed as too expensive. How Czech communist party ran the mine, and what it did to its citizens is something else. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/294280450_Vyvoz_ces...

Regarding uranium extraction in Czechoslovakia, the Soviets later mined uranium in other sites by pumping sulfuric acid into the ground. This has caused a lasting ecological damage which has to be managed to this day.

The acid was meant to dissolve the ore and was then sucked back out. The only issue was that they ended up pumping a more sulfuric acid into the ground than sucking out. This created an underground lake of sulfuric acid in an with other underground water "lakes". This sulfuric lake is threatening to spill into these water sources.

I heard about this from my teachers at the university who were involved in the modelling of the underground spill. Using a limited number of wells, they were supposed to predict how the spill is spreading and what actions to take to stop it.

I found some pictures from the site here: https://zpravy.aktualne.cz/domaci/pitna-voda-tezba-uranu-kys...

Re: The Tourist: Philip Roth’s Czech KGB File

#16

Post by Context_free »

inglor_cz wrote: post #3
saiya-jin wrote: post #2

> as a teenager, he watched as the Soviet-backed communist party secured its coup d’état in 1948; Good read describing as things really were, but this part is not fully correct - communists got to the power legally by winning the elections, in 1946 in Czech part of Czechoslovakia and in 1948 in Slovakia. People were naive, uninformed and generally saw soviets mainly as liberators from nazi occupation (which was true)…

Czechoslovak-born here. This is not completely correct either. Communists won the election in 1946 and formed a coalition government in which they were the strongest force, but not completely dominant. There were other "bourgeoise" ministers. Unfortunately, Communists controlled the ministry of the interior and cleansed the police of "reactionary elements", thus cementing their control over the civilian law enforceme…

[flagged]

Re: The Tourist: Philip Roth’s Czech KGB File

#17

Post by motohagiography »

It's frustrating to hear stories about writers under totalitarianism, not just because of the pervasive state oppression, but because not one of them will prevent it from rising again. Writers like Havel and Solzhenitsyn's work ostensibly contributed to the ending of the European totalitarian system, but only decades after it rose, and after those cultures were destroyed. I worked with people who left or escaped communism, and many had brought the indolent bureaucratic cynicism and shame of the societies broken by communism with them. It takes generations to recover.

The necessary condition for it to prevail is when people (young men in particular) lose their sense of social identity and personal networks so that they are isolated from each other and can't get more than three to five together at once to privately share their experience of the movements infiltrating their communities. It's a playbook.

If only we would treat writers today as the canaries in the coal mine for this same totalitarian force of history, and learn how urgent these lessons from the 20th century truly are.

Re: The Tourist: Philip Roth’s Czech KGB File

#18

Post by sosull »

motohagiography wrote: post #17

It's frustrating to hear stories about writers under totalitarianism, not just because of the pervasive state oppression, but because not one of them will prevent it from rising again. Writers like Havel and Solzhenitsyn's work ostensibly contributed to the ending of the European totalitarian system, but only decades after it rose, and after those cultures were destroyed. I worked with people who left or escaped comm…

This is really insightful. I appreciate you taking the time to write it.

Re: The Tourist: Philip Roth’s Czech KGB File

#19

Post by xkriva11 »

inglor_cz wrote: post #3
saiya-jin wrote: post #2

> as a teenager, he watched as the Soviet-backed communist party secured its coup d’état in 1948; Good read describing as things really were, but this part is not fully correct - communists got to the power legally by winning the elections, in 1946 in Czech part of Czechoslovakia and in 1948 in Slovakia. People were naive, uninformed and generally saw soviets mainly as liberators from nazi occupation (which was true)…

Czechoslovak-born here. This is not completely correct either. Communists won the election in 1946 and formed a coalition government in which they were the strongest force, but not completely dominant. There were other "bourgeoise" ministers. Unfortunately, Communists controlled the ministry of the interior and cleansed the police of "reactionary elements", thus cementing their control over the civilian law enforceme…

There is an important lesson in it. People should be able to vote bastards, but this must always be reversible. If the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were part of the Czechoslovakian constitution at that time, this development would not be legal.

However, at that time, it was not existing and, if it existed, it would be probably quite hard to put it into the legal system because of the fresh edicts against Germans. In the end, the third Czechoslovak Republic failed because of its rooted nature and kind of deserved its fate. You cannot displace 1.2M of people and try to look as a democratic state (no matter how necessary it was).

Re: The Tourist: Philip Roth’s Czech KGB File

#20

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

motohagiography wrote: post #17

It's frustrating to hear stories about writers under totalitarianism, not just because of the pervasive state oppression, but because not one of them will prevent it from rising again. Writers like Havel and Solzhenitsyn's work ostensibly contributed to the ending of the European totalitarian system, but only decades after it rose, and after those cultures were destroyed. I worked with people who left or escaped comm…

Ironically, a lot of artists who made reputations as dissidents chafing against a totalitarian regime, ultimately repudiated those dissident political views or even came to feel nostalgic for the Soviet regime specifically. Solzhenitsyn himself is famous for becoming a reactionary in later life and wanting heavy-headed leadership over his country, only this time it would supposedly be OK because it would be rooted in ancient Christian Russian culture and not the "godless, foreign" regime that was Communism for him.
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