HOW CAN INTELLECTUALS BE SO WRONG?

I have just finished reading one of the great books of the last ten or so years, but it will probably not get a lot of publicity because it deals with the history of Czechoslovakia. However, The Stuggle for the Soul of the Nation. Czech Culture and the Rise of Communism by Bradley F. Abrams should be an epic in contemporary intellectual history, especially East European history. Adams has studied the 1945-1948 era and while his book does not focus on the February 1948 communist takeover of Czechoslovakia, he tries to explain why communism was so popular at this time in Czech history. In a free elections in 1946 the Communist Party received almost 40% of the vote. One could argue that the party might have received a majority of the vote in 1948 if the February crisis had not intervened. In the context of cold war history, many have focused on the imperialistic drive of the Soviet Union--it is hard for many in America to believe any people would see it as an option. With hindsight it is hard to understand why a people would appear to be choosing communism.

With the Czechs it becomes particularly difficult because they become disillusioned with communism, a disillusionment which culminates in the 1968 Prague Spring. When I first went to Czechoslovakia, Czechs tended to ask, in a whisper, how they could have been so stupid as to give this kind of support to communist totalitarianism.

Adams focuses on the Czech intellectuals love affair with communism and socialism in the pre-1948 era. Czechs have a glorious heritage of intellectual development, but except for a few Roman Catholic intellectuals, Czech intellectuals saw communism and socialism as the solution to their problems and the first step in the beginning of a glorious future. What is so amazing is that they could not, or maybe did not want to, see the philosophical, ethical, moral, political, etc. failings of Soviet communism. A groupthink seemed to take over. Again, it is so ironic because it is many of these same intellectuals who were caught up in the 1950's purges and later disillusionment of 1968. Even intellectuals can suffer from peer pressure.