Absurdities

Jaroslav Bálek

Content

1. Student years

2. Military years

3. Working years

4. The post-revolution years

5. Retirement

6. Conclusion

1. Student years

Petra's view of her legs fascinated him, and he felt excited. The skirt was very short and allowed this miracle of nature to stand out fully. He really liked this new fashion. He was in Paris in the spring, but there the skirts were still long, but summer in London was something else, it was a real feast for the eyes. Yes, it was 1968, and this fashion had come from England. He was glad to be young, just over twenty, and that he would certainly see many more legs like these in his life. The girl they belonged to was, like him, a student at the University of Economics. But she had a close friend, so he didn't give himself much of a chance.

Although he was from Prague, he went to the cafeteria for dinner because there was a lot of food, it was quite cheap, and it was a nice environment, with a high concentration of young girls who were mostly in no hurry to go anywhere. However, their attractiveness was somewhat limited by a lack of information. There was no internet at the time, not all households had a television, foreign fashion magazines were not available, and many girls who came from the countryside often looked as if they had just come from feeding the cows. They were not well-groomed or dressed in an interesting way. It usually took several years for them to become a little more civilized. Some managed it in a year, but for others it took until graduation. He recalled a visit to Poland, where he found every woman to be a work of art. Petr said that he would probably not marry a college student, as he found every saleswoman in Prague much more attractive.

He usually sat at the cafeteria table with Štěpán, Miloš, and Fanda.

Štěpán was the son of a lieutenant colonel in the tank unit of the then People's Army, but his real father was a Slovak count who did not marry his mother but from whom he inherited a considerable tendency toward bohemianism, so his military upbringing had no influence on him whatsoever. He was the only one in the Communist Party, which he joined at the age of eighteen. This surprised Petr, who could not understand how someone so young could voluntarily join the Communist Party. Štefan himself did not justify this step in any way. Perhaps his new father, the lieutenant colonel, played a role here, as did his defiance of his biological father, who most likely did not like communists. After all, even Klement Gottwald was said to be the illegitimate son of a landowner, and he then devoted his entire life to fighting against landowners and their liquidation. Similarly, Masaryk, who devoted much of his time to the breakup of Austria-Hungary, may have been the son of Franz Joseph, according to some historical sources. Otherwise, however, Štefan had normal views. For example, he took part in the March student march to the grave of T. G. Masaryk. There were opinions that if there had been a similar march to the grave of Antonín Novotný, the then president, not many people would have gone. But he argued that it all depended on the organization; if it were well organized, there would be enough people. No one believed him, but he was probably right. After all, after 1969, with the onset of normalization, badges with the inscription "Sorry Tony" began to appear on the coats of teenagers, perhaps as a kind of apology and reminder of the relative personal and political freedoms of the time, which would be lost for a long time. With a certain nostalgia, people began to remember the previously unpopular president.

Štěpán once borrowed John Maynard Keynes' book The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, which was highly regarded in certain circles in Czechoslovakia at the time and was, in a way, a rare work. The basis of study was mostly the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and their interpretations. Keynes's book contained a number of interesting and witty ideas that could not be found in the aforementioned classics. Štěpán probably wanted to appear interesting, so he always carried Keynes with him and read a few sentences from it here and there. However, one evening, when he was leaving the pub and wanted to finish his meal at a sausage stand on Wenceslas Square, he forgot it there. He was afraid that they would wrap sausages in this rare book, which did not happen, but the book was never found. Štěpán then had to explain in detail to the library where it had disappeared.

Petr and Štěpán could have had a father in common. At one of the school balls, which took place on Friday, a certain Anička Čertová invited Petr to her dormitory. She said, "I'll be there alone on Sunday afternoon, I don't know what I'll do." It was quite cold at the time and Petr didn't want to go there, there was no shortage of young girls, so he didn't go. Later, he learned from Štěpán that she had also invited him and that she was pregnant and looking for someone to blame. Štěpán didn't go there either. But maybe he didn't do the right thing. Later, he was unable to have children, so this could have been his chance. If only one knew and didn't know what is and what isn't, and what will or won't be.

Miloš was from South Bohemia and worked as an assistant to a professor who was the terror of the school. He kept him quite busy, so he had less time for us. He had a sharp mind and sometimes brilliant thinking, and he was also quite hard-working, so the professor made good use of him. None of us had any idea that one day the assistant professor, who would by then be a full professor, would speak at his funeral. He dated a student from another department who, when beauty was being handed out, was really far away from it; to say that she was quite ugly was entirely accurate. Miloš, on the other hand, was handsome, tall and slim, and girls liked him. Some men find pretty women boring, and the uglier a woman is, the more exciting she is for them.

Fanda was from Moravia, from the Wallachia region. He had previously studied astronomy, but switched to economics and enjoyed it. Miloš, Petr, and Štěpán liked to drink occasionally, so Fanda didn't refuse, but he was relatively ascetic. He was quite rational and followed certain patterns. One of these was that a fifth-year student should find a girlfriend from the first year and marry her. He actually did that. His asceticism set him apart from the others, who had a certain tendency toward hedonism and bohemianism.

Miloš, in particular, sometimes got carried away, and when they were in a pub, he would erase beer stains with an eraser, which the waiter overlooked, but when he erased the headcheese, the waiter noticed and chased him and his friends away. Sometimes at a ball, he would drink from the glasses of dancing couples.

Miloš and Štěpán, along with some girls and other friends, would stop by Petr's place on New Year's Eve. They would go to Lucerna, which was only a short distance from Petr's place, and on the way back, they would stop there to finish their food and drinks. Petr was there with his parents, so they always treated them generously. His friends really enjoyed it and remembered it for many years to come, but some of the girls thought they were overdoing it with the food and drink, so they kept admonishing them.

The 1960s were an interesting period in the world, the so-called "sixties" or "sweet sixties," a period of political and cultural liberalization, which manifested itself in the West, among other things, in a cultural and social revolt by young people disillusioned with their parents' consumerist lifestyle, leading to the building of barricades, the  hippie movement, the sexual revolution, the rise in popularity of drugs among young people, the great development of rock music, and the enormous popularity of the Beatles.

In 1967-1968, political protests and movements involving students and other segments of society took place in a number of countries, but nowhere did they reach the intensity seen in France. In France, however, the causes of the unrest were different than in Czechoslovakia. The economic situation in France deteriorated for the first time since the war, and unemployment rose significantly. Many protests were therefore directed against the conservative society of the time, against the materialism of the previous generation, and against the spread of technocracy. There were numerous smaller Marxist and neo-Marxist movements, such as the Trotskyists, Maoists, and Leninists. Stalin was perceived by certain groups as one of the liberators from fascism, and they defended him even when Stalinism had long since been condemned in Eastern Europe. The most influential intellectuals of the time, such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and others, were also left-wing oriented, and many were members of the Communist Party, professing existentialism and humanism or structuralism. However, students also read various left-wing classics such as Marx and Bakunin.

In Czechoslovakia, only students of economics or other social sciences read Marx as required reading, and a detailed knowledge and analysis of Capital was a prerequisite for passing the political economy exam. Stalin was perceived by the younger generation as more of a criminal, and the ideas of communism were not popular.

From the early 1960s, the young generation in Czechoslovakia took on various degrees of opposition to the existing regime. For example, they would gather every May 1st in the evening at the monument to the poet Karel Hynek Mácha in Petřín Park. In 1963, about 1,500 of them gathered at Petřín.

A significant impetus was the Strahov demonstration by students in November 1967, who had not seen any improvement in the electricity supply to their dormitories and therefore took to the streets with a banner reading "We want light," which the government correctly understood as a desire for freedom, against it, and intervened with unusual harshness. This then led to discussions about the dismissal of Antonín Novotný from his position as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.

The student May Day celebrations also played an important role. In 1968, they carried Brezhnev around with a sign reading "This is your doing," which he allegedly said when asked about his approval of Antonín Novotný's replacement. But it soon became clear that it was not our doing at all.

It was a wonderful time. The second half of the 1960s was the culmination of a positive period under the previous regime. Censorship was abolished, plurality of opinion flourished, people could travel, and there was social security. Many parents often recalled the First Republic as the best time of their lives, and Petr's generation later remembered the 1960s in the same way.

Most of the population was enthusiastic about the then leaders of the Communist Party, who promoted a process of renewal. However, many young people were skeptical about them, as they seemed no different from the old, unpopular apparatchiks, speaking in a terribly boring manner and repeating phrases about socialism and the leading role of the Communist Party. It seemed that it was mainly journalists who made them appear progressive and popular, rather than their attitudes and personalities. Young people were more interested in other schools of thought.

Developments led to the resignation of Antonín Novotný, first from his position as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and then as President of the Republic. A new presidential election was held, in which larger groups of people began to have a say. And that was something new. Previously, such matters were usually decided by the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Now, for example, students came up with their own candidate for president, Čestmír Císař, who had also served as Minister of Education some time ago and seemed relatively progressive. However, Petr and his friends did not share the enthusiasm for this candidate. They did not find him interesting. His opponent, Ludvík Svoboda, seemed to be a better candidate due to his history.

At that time, university rectors were also elected, which had not been the custom before. They used to be appointed from above. Now students were also involved in the elections. Each candidate for rector had their own program, which they sought to convince voters of. It was difficult to win. For example, even the acting first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, elected in August 1968 by the Vysočany Congress, was not elected rector.

A number of interesting people taught at the schools, including those who had been persecuted in the 1950s and spent time in prison, or others who were critical of developments in Czechoslovakia. Attending their lectures was exciting. Students had the opportunity to learn about ideas that were not available elsewhere.

Lectures and seminars were optional at the time, so students had quite a lot of free time. They usually only attended those who gave perfect performances, those who had been persecuted in the past and had become something of a legend, or those who were significantly involved in progressive development.

The end of the 1960s was an interesting period for students. While their parents spent their free time practically only in Czechoslovakia, or perhaps at the seaside in Bulgaria or on a friendship trip to the USSR, students had the opportunity to travel practically anywhere. A number of student organizations focused on travel and connected to foreign organizations were established, so there were really many possibilities. Most people traveled by train, because tickets were very cheap at the time, and a trip to Paris and back cost only a few crowns, and to London only a little more. We had to smuggle some money and take food with us, because it was very expensive for us abroad. We usually took a loaf of bread with us, as the price difference was very significant, and also salami, which was very cheap in our country at the time. People also went abroad for temporary jobs: picking grapes in France, working in the fields in Norway, building collective farms in the USSR, and so on. There were also opportunities to do internships at various companies. Given the political developments in the country, a number of foreign schools and institutions took the initiative to support Czech students.

The Czechoslovak Youth Union, which all young people were required to join, was an important organization, not only because it was a place where ideas, activities, and various events different from the official ones were created, but also because it made it relatively easy to travel abroad, especially to the West. Without it, it was more difficult.

The train journey to the Soviet Union was certainly an interesting experience. Trains were cheap at the time, so people used to travel long distances. Petr traveled practically non-stop, with only a few short breaks, from Prague to Moscow, from Moscow to Leningrad, and from Leningrad to Celinograd in Kazakhstan, which took almost a week. It was a great adventure, requiring several transfers and a series of permits that were not easy to obtain in time. From Prague, he traveled to Čierna nad Tisou, which was the last railway station on our territory, followed by a border crossing to Čop, which was the first station on Soviet territory. In between, there were wire fences, and halfway between the borders, the train stopped, trucks full of soldiers arrived, surrounded the train, and crawled under it to see if anyone was hiding there. It didn't look like we were traveling from one friendly country to another. In Chop, we transferred to a train with wider tracks, and we also had to visit customs and obtain seat reservations, or rather couchettes. This was not easy at all. Two hours before the departure of the Chop-Moscow train, which runs only once a day, it was necessary to obtain couchettes, which had been paid for, but obtaining the Russian papers for them was complicated, which many failed to do and had to wait at the station until the next day. Passengers who had already made this journey were usually warned in advance that it was necessary to act energetically and firmly, which was the only way to get anything done. The station employees worked very slowly and with complete disinterest. The continuous stream of freight trains rolling from us to the USSR on about 10 parallel tracks created a feeling of confinement. Otherwise, the journey to Moscow was pleasant in a sleeper train. Getting from Moscow to Leningrad was also a problem. Tickets could be bought in Czechoslovakia, but a reservation was required, which was only sold in the USSR and only for one day. Reservations were almost always sold out, so we had to wait until the next day.

The train journey from Leningrad to Karaganda was an adventure. It had open compartments for four people, like the smoking compartments we used to have in our country, there was no dining car, and it stopped five times a day for 3-4 minutes. The whole train poured out and quickly ran to the 1-2 stalls and tried to buy as much as possible. Russian salespeople sell very slowly and calmly. There were huge queues for the toilet, which also served as a washroom for shaving, washing hair, and so on. You had to wait in line for more than an hour before you could get in, unless it was at night or at four in the morning.

Buying a ticket from Leningrad to Riga was not that easy. It required a lot of stamps and permits. From the Komsomol leadership to party authorities and so on. It usually took at least two days to get it done.

There were good opportunities to travel to the Soviet republics at that time, which could be done cheaply or even completely free of charge on various friendship trains. Most people did not take advantage of this at the time, which they may have regretted later.

The students, like all the inhabitants, were taken aback by August 1968, when Warsaw Pact troops entered Czechoslovakia.

2. Military years

3. Working years

4. The post-revolution years

5. Retirement

6. Conclusion