The paths and wandering of the Slovak left after the Velvet Revolution I.

The question that remains open is, why was the left actually unsuccessful after November '89, when hopes—both politically and ideologically—were more focused on a left-humanist program.

I believe the answer lies in two intersections of this hope. First, in opening the question of the constitutional arrangement. And then in a decisive clash with the Thatcher-Reagan economic doctrine, which at that time had just conquered the world and which we know as neoliberalism. The first, the constitutional intersection, was the result of our own historical movement. The second was a global movement— the first form of globalization as it was happening in the space of pax americana. Yes, it was impossible to avoid domestic or world history.

Historical Prejudices

The period of intense struggle over the constitutional arrangement on one side and the profiling against Mečiar on the other left very little room for discussing social democratic politics. Moreover, three basic historical experiences—and not positive ones—were still alive among the older part of the population. Primarily, it was the Czechoslovakist profile of the interwar social democracy—that discouraged all who felt the need to complete the Slovak emancipation process. In the priesthood and church hierarchy, there persisted a prejudice about the atheistic nature of social democracy. And for those who adopted Bolshevik-revolutionary rhetoric, social democrats were traitors, collaborators with the right. Let us not forget that social democracy, except for one, was present in all governments of the interwar Czechoslovakia.

And finally, there was also a fourth, new prejudice. For all who wanted to be as far from communism, from the former regime, social democracy was still considered leftist. And those more educated or veterans did not forgive it for merging with the communists during the Uprising.

All these perspectives, although they did not form the majority societal opinion, were braking moments. When I became the chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Slovakia (SDSS), an urgent question stood before me: How to overcome this historical burden?

How to get out of it?

I saw two paths: one more difficult, the other offered itself naturally. And both seemed to be in opposition. First, to restore national anchoring and give social democracy a modern national program. And then to create a vision of Slovakia’s European future. This caused enormous tension within the party, which was burdened by the legacy of Czechoslovakism and in which part of the membership considered any national dimension or emancipation effort as a path to the breakup of Czechoslovakia.

I tried to overcome this Dérer legacy by returning to the original roots of social democracy represented by Emanuel Lehocký. A man who brilliantly combined a national (then anti-Magyarization) program with the fight for social and political rights. Simply to show that there is a progressive national tradition that should be cultivated, and that it is not true that only Hlinka’s and Ludák’s parties have a monopoly on the national program. And that Europeanism, not Czechoslovakism, belongs to this modern national program.

But in that period—strictly divided into “citizens and patriots”—the atmosphere in Slovakia was not conducive to a new vision disrupting century-old stereotypes. At that time, it might have seemed like a purely internal problem of the emerging social democratic party. Although, in my opinion, the problem on which—if I may judge— the full success of revitalizing social democracy as a way of thinking, feeling, and acting for at least part of Slovaks depended.

Valtr Komárek’s Solitude

At the same time, as I have already mentioned, there is a struggle—parallel and unequal—over the socio-economic content of the new regime. I already mentioned that shortly after November 1989, a gradualist concept of transforming the planned economy into a market economy prevailed, with a focus on small privatization and de-privatization of large enterprises (transforming them into joint-stock companies owned but not connected to the state budget).

The representative of this concept, Valtr Komárek, entered politics within the Czech social democracy. We knew each other and had a good relationship. In the 1992 elections, he traveled the whole of Slovakia with me as the leader of the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) list. He was a clear confederalist. I persuaded him to speak out for a confederation also on public television (STV). I mention this because he was the first Czech politician to admit the possibility of changing the constitutional arrangement. Petr Pithart only vaguely spoke about the “double house”.

I not only knew Komárek’s economic ideas but also consulted them. I had working relations with NEZES – the Independent Economists of Slovakia, some of whose members were also in SDSS. They had quite a clear idea about economic transformation, although on questions of the state and social system, opinions were less developed and more diverse.

However, Komárek and his gradualists, who, with the support of the Civic Forum and President Václav Havel, shaped the initial months of post-revolutionary economic policy, lost their fight. Václav Klaus and his group prevailed: with a pious sovereignty, they launched universal voucher privatization, liberalization of prices, wages, and currency. President Havel did not even protest; he succumbed immediately and gained international points and fame through moralizing speeches in the parliaments of the powers: the socio-economic reality was distant from him.

At that time, social democracy was weak both in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. And ultimately, it had no opportunity to rely on any alternative vision offered by Western European social democracies. Immediately after the Velvet Revolution, I attended dozens of social democratic conferences, seminars, discussions—invited with increasing generosity, the less help there was. I do not mean financial aid but ideological, programmatic alternatives to shock therapy, the social democratic concept of a new economy. In the social democratic basket, there was nothing offering a fundamental alternative.

Klaus’s Thatcherism as an Anti-Communist Strategy

Those who longed to imitate the West did not see or seek an alternative to Klaus’s neo-liberal therapy. And so they supported it not for its socio-economic content but because they perceived it mythologically as an effective and radical anti-communist strategy. They lacked the courage or knowledge to consider an alternative—both Slovak and Czech politicians, intellectuals, journalists, and scientists. The courage because they were unwilling to face mass criticism from the domestic right. And the knowledge because resignation from seeking an alternative did not open space for socio-economic policy, which had been tested in Northern Europe.

The leadership of the Public Against Violence (VPN) and other political parties, including the “reforming” Democratic Left Party (SDĽ), were unable to uncover behind the slogans of free market, free enterprise, and the efficiency of private ownership, the ideology of neoconservatism and neoliberalism of that era. Nor could they withstand international pressure from the USA, the UK, or the force of the so-called Washington Consensus. After all, in their eyes, that was the West they longed for.

Finally, many strong and traditional social democracies—including the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the British Labour—shifted from social state policies more towards market flexibility. Klaus’s (and in our case, Kučerák’s and Mikloš’s) market radicalism was uncritically accepted by Slovak intellectuals as an effective anti-communist strategy. Quite ironically, at a time when communists no longer held power.

Neoliberalism as a Cure for “Communist Mentality”

This created another myth to justify this strategy: suppressing the persistent “communist mentality” in us. Because we lived in socialism. This myth is alive and well to this day. All negative traits are always the result of unresolved remnants of “communist mentality.” That such a thing does not exist is quite obvious. And the so-called “mental” negatives are the result of certain human traits—common in every society. Traits that are part of the repertoire of human behavior but which the new neoliberal regime has uncontrollably unleashed.

Slovak political and intellectual elites, who dominated the public discourse, neither saw nor were able to decipher the content of this “shock” transformation and see alternatives. Martin M. Šimečka notes in his interviews that “the Slovak intellectual space was for a long time caught in prejudices and contempt towards anyone who dared admit to leftist tendencies.” The weakness of Slovak intellectuals from the “core of VPN” is also reflected in their acceptance of Prague’s concepts: the ideology of private ownership, but also the idea of citizenship used as an ideological tool to dismiss the legitimate emancipation movement of Slovaks as a nation.

Moreover, they uncritically accepted and also created a utopian construct of the West, which then—as now—represented an uncritical, superlative ideal. This clearly shows the difference in authenticity of the 1960s and the imitativism of the 1990s: Slovak and Czech scholars and artists of the 60s sought solutions, forms, expressions, and representations from their own ideas and values. It was precisely this authenticity that was the search for that “third way,” which later right-wing radicals from VPN and the Civic Democratic Union (ODÚ) ridiculed and reduced to a political utopia and an illusion of socialists. And they blindly accepted the artificially constructed ideal of the West, our model, without elementary knowledge of what was really happening in the countries of that space.

Undoubtedly, there was also an alternative, namely social democratic. But it was then marginal, politically weak—so who would join from the main and ruling current to the peripheral, marginalized one? As Alexander Dubček managed to do, whom these very intellectuals were dismissing! And how many others who believed in the values of social democracy.

However, it must be honestly said that even in the broader Central European space, there were no forces that could build on, for example, the so-called golden age of the 1960s. The fall of communism as a regime and the Soviet bloc as a geopolitical entity subsequently created pressure on all leftist forces, including those often in power—such as social democratic parties. A pressure that led them to the concept of the so-called new center: a mix of free-market doctrine and welfare state policy. (Finally, in my opinion, it cannot be claimed that this policy was unsuccessful because it created an interesting combination of a competitive economy and social insurance, but on the other hand, it significantly weakened the workforce on the labor market. But that’s a different debate).

And what about the communists, or rather post-communists? Because those who did not transform into “democratic left” and remained communists lost any significant support in Slovakia—unlike their Czech neighbors. More on that next time.