Totalitarian or Authoritative Czechoslovakia? A Contribution to the Knowledge about the Nature of the CSR Regime in the Years 1963-1967
Abstract
The presented paper focuses on a historical political analysis of Czechoslovakia in the years 1963-1967. It aims to answer the question whether Czechoslovakia in that period can be considered a totalitarian regime.
This issue is addressed using the perspective of several theories of totalitarianism, both inventory (C. J.
Friedrich, R. Aron) and political philosophical ones (H.
Arendt, R. Preisner).
It understands totalitarianism an an ideal type, which the real regimes can only approach. In this way, an analysis of individual key elements of the studied regime is carried out together with a comparison of its level of proximity to the totalitarian model.
The following conclusions are drawn: 1. The Czechoslovak regime 1963-1967 corresponds to the totalitarian model in the majority of the studied aspects, in both its ambitions (what it wanted, what it professed) and the reality (what it really did, how it worked); 2.
The decreasing intensity of physical terror was not a sign of transformation to an authoritative regime; 3. In the studied period, Czechoslovakia was a regime of a weakened or fading, but still existent totalitarianism.