Mgr. Jan Kalvoda

“While in Britain, Borin did what he could. He maintained contact with the other governments in exile, notably with the Poles. As the bad relationships between Czechoslovakia and Poland were a well known fact, and it was one of the crucial strategic problems of Beneš's policy and the Czechoslovak policy in general. The other thing I was surprised by was Borin's, and not only his, conception of Central European states as the Central European federation. That's something one couldn't appraise without a certain amount of knowledge of the facts and also the political theories of the time. But today, as I would look back, without any qualification on my side, I would say that in case this policy would have prevailed, which wasn't possible, of course, the history of the world and Europe would be quite different. As it wasn't such an ordinary idea, so Borin had been trying to succeed in politics, he had been trying to publish several magazines. And again, he had to face interventions by President Beneš, who had convinced the British authorities to cut his supply of printing paper. So it's an interesting account of the political agenda in London during the war – as in 1945, Borin knew that he couldn't return to Czechoslovakia. In 1946, he wrote this document, an official document by the Czechoslovak National Council in London, in fact, in which he offers strong criticism of Czechoslovak policies after 1945. In his account of the parliamentary elections of 1946, he had refused to consider it a fair and free election in accord with the norms of the Western societies. He wrote of a president who had sold to the Russian totalitarians. It was quite a devastating proclamation, which he had addressed to the British Foreign Office. In any case, he knew already that there was no possibility of him coming back. Just to mention one person from his group as a memento: František Schwarz, a left-wing deputy, returned to Prague after April 1945, and he had died in just a few months, being imprisoned in Pankrác prison for unclear reasons (i.e. in 1947). So it seemed that president Beneš did not forget his enemies.”

“As he considered Beneš being one of the architects of the Munich catastrophe. And there's more, I was quite surprised by this analysis of his, being a lawyer, as in one of his letters to the Home Office in the United Kingdom, Borin produced this analysis regarding the constitutional law, arguing why Beneš wasn't a legitimate president of Czechoslovakia. After studying the constitution of 1920, he elaborates on how Beneš left the office strictly according to the law. And he states that there's no possibility of him being reinstated to the office. By doing this, in fact, Borin attacked Beneš 'position as the one who had united Czechoslovak politicians in exile. As he preferred other people – officials who were given greater legitimacy by the then constitution. Legitimacy of the office. Like the prime minister or the ambassador Štefan Osuský... As those were the people who, according to Borin, had greater legal authority to act as representatives of Czechoslovakia than president Beneš who had left the office. So they got into quite a quarrel and the truth was that Beneš prevailed. So the actions and arguments of his unsuccessful opponents were in fact forgotten. History is written by the victors, as the old saying goes. But works of Borin keep reminding us of this fact, and as I had said: I am impressed not only by the vivid pace and style of old or at least aging Vladimír Borin, as he looks back at his life, but also those exact and accurate reflections on law or logic, which hadn't been conceived ex-post, but are based on documents from 1940s. That's quite surprising, I would say.”

“In the beginning the Czech constitution had been prepared by the Federal Assembly. And it was being discussed as a federal constitution. But the Members of Parliament couldn't agree on basic criteria. It was a futile job, everyone knew that we wouldn't get anywhere. As a result, the constitution was being prepared by the National Council since 1992, before the election, or more precisely, we would ask ourselves: 'What kind of state should it be? If it would be a parliamentary system, it wouldn't be a presidential system, or a chancellor system. It would be a parliamentary republic. Would it be a two-chamber legislature?' Those were the basic questions we were asking, before the elections came. And there were elections in Slovakia as well, and it was obvious that Slovakia would be an independent country, one was or another. Immediately, this government committee for the creation of the constitution was established, headed, or at least nominally, by the prime minister Václav Klaus. I was the vice-chairman of the commission, so I actually did the job, and then there was this other deputy who claimed that he was in charge, but I wouldn't like to compete with him for that, I just wanted to say that I was the vice-chairman of that commission. And we started acting quite fast, we hired constitutional scholars who were at least to some degree comfortable with the ideas of the rule of law and democracy. In other words, we didn't invite those who, in their professional life, behaved like the Stalinist constitutional lawyers. That gave rise to this so-called maladjusted professor syndrome, as those were the people criticizing the constitution, who would be doing it still, if they would be still alive. And it's just not true that the constitution had been just this makeshift thing prepared in a hurry. No, the constitution had been prepared continuously, and at one moment, of course, the experts had to ask the others: 'Are we creating a constitution of an independent state? Or just a federal constitution?'”

“Well, maybe you would need some distance or detachment of a historian while looking back at those things. As it wasn't my case, of course, as I took part in all those things that were happening. The question was, whether the split of Czechoslovakia could be avoided. I don't know. All I knew was that people in power, like Václav Havel, the Civic Forum and the federal government, underestimated this question, in fact they would ignore it. As even these quite enlightened people considered this Slovak separatism as just some immature regress into a nineteenth century style romantic nationalism. So they would have their fun for a while and then everything would go back to normal. They underestimated them on both the symbolic and the political level, so the case would get its own momentum, which would be quite breathtaking.”

“I got fully involved in what was happening, in fact, I would close down my own office, so to say. And I would spend my time between Prague and Rokycany. I couldn't remember all the things I got involved into, the only thing I knew was that the revolution had come. And it had ended, at least for me, on February 6, 1990, as I was co-opted to the Czech National Council as a representative of the Civic Forum. And shortly after that I was elected the chairman of the Constitutional Law Committee, quite an important committee, and that was just another experience I would have trouble explaining today. There were many people I didn't know, people of all sorts. Most of them were engaged politically, they were the National Front members. And again – there was some distance, but after a while they would calm down. There was no possibility of mutiny by the communists in the National Council, in case of proposals being made by the Civic Forum, for example, that was just impossible. So at that time, there was no conflict in the assembly... But how should I put it? The people who were now in power were still learning how to use it, or just getting used to having power. So there was no time for reflection or evaluation. As just just had to go with the flow. And that's why I don't remember much from that time.”

“Then the year was 1989 and there was this 'Just a Few Words' Manifesto. The people I was talking about, from all those groups and circles, provided me with this document which I signed, and later I discovered that some of my colleagues from Pilsen, lawyers and notaries, but there were no judges, as far as I knew, that they also signed this petition, so I started sharing information with them, that there were institutions, notary offices to be precise, that started treating its employees in quite a rough manner. For example, there was this notary, she had been fired, if I am not mistaken, because she had signed the 'Just a Few Words'. As I thought that in our field the conditions had been more liberal. However, one day I got this letter from my superiors, stating that I was supposed to present myself to discuss this grave issue of a personal matter regarding the cessations of my membership in – I can't recall it word by word now. I just got his letter. So on that given date, I presented myself to my superiors, I knocked on the door, entered and my superior said: 'Oh, what are you doing here? Do you have a hearing in Pilsen or something?' And I said: 'No, I came because of this summons. And my superior said: 'Let me see, that's nonsense, don't think about it.' As it had happened in late November. So it all went like this, in a Czech way, I would say, like in books by Škvorecký, as on November 17, something had happened, so on November 26, this summons was no longer a summons, and I wasn't supposed to think about it.”

“On November 17, I was in Pilsen, and I heard what had happened while listening to the Voice of America. I left for Prague and spent a few days there. When I came back to Rokycany, I found out that those few brave men founded the local branch of the Civic Forum. I had been thinking whether I should tell their names, but why I shouldn't do that, they wouldn't mind, in my opinion, neither back then nor today. There was Jiří Šnajdr, Karel Fleischmann and František Hlad, who was a member of the Club of Commited Non-Party Members, or at least he claimed he was. I was delighted to join them, yet they were the ones who started the whole thing. And if I forgot someone, it was just because I didn't notice. But these men I remember. And at that time, and that's why I am not such an important witness, as I don't remember much; as the days just went by, there were many events; and I have to say that both those gentlemen had quite different personalities. But they were quite resolute, quite systematic in a way. We were all quite naive. Once again, the revolution resembled scenes from books by Škvorecký, at least in the country, because in the country, it didn't seem yet that we had won, that everything had been decided already.``

“In 1982, I met, in one of my lives... as the first one took place in Rokycany and the second one in Prague, where I would come back often, almost every evening. In one of those worlds I met historian Karel Bartošek, who had already spent some time in prison in the 1970s, and who was among people targeted in the Operation Asanace (Clearance), as we would learn later, back then, I didn't know the name, and that's what had happened to him: he had been employed at a company doing drilling at the Berounka river, and once a week, he came to Prague for a holiday. And he would usually end up in the U Kocoura/Cat's Inn in Malá Strana part of Prague, where he would enjoy himself in a group of other respectable gentlemen, Mr. Pecka, for example – the well-known, prominent prisoner of the Stalinist regime. And it all had happened on this Thursday, when after a few beers he had been going from Malostranské Square to Smíchov, where we both had been living at that time. At that moment, two young people got in the car, they were sitting in the back, and the driver went straight down the Nadražní street towards the house where Bartošek had been living, yet he stopped in front of a police station, where they had been expecting him already. They arrested Bartošek, and then they would put him into custody. And he had been accused of this offence, they claimed that he had damaged a member state of the global socialist community, by speaking with those young people who were sitting in the back, who were acting as lovers, yet both the boy and the girl had the rank of warrant officer, so he had this subversive conversation with them regarding the martial law in Poland, that had been declared at that time. Bartošek had been released the next day, but I might be wrong on that. His family had contacted me and I would meet him. And as he had been charged with this crime, I started acting as his defence lawyer. And that had been an interesting case indeed. As it seemed that the State Security didn't know me. But Bartošek, he was this prominent dissident, his wife was French. And he had connections both with this community of French historians and the Communist party of France. And it seemed more like they were pretending that there was a court case. As the delays had been so long, nothing had been happening for such a long time. Today, we could see what this Operation Asanace was, why would they harass him like this, and why they were in no hurry. Meanwhile, there were events which had been described in detail; for example, at Smíchov, they had been living on a fourth floor. So after he had been released, while he was at work with his drilling crew, someone would ring on the door and his family had to face this group of undertakers with a coffin, stating: 'Where's the body? They told us there was this Bartošek...' Those were the means they utilised during the Operation Asanace. He was maybe one of the two or three people they tried to scare this way. The other one was Jan Urban. And of course, they would pressure Bartošek quite hard, his daughter, if I am not mistaken, had been charged with parasitism, as she hadn't been admitted to a secondary school and had been doing a language course. So they gave him this special treatment I would say, according to the logic of that time. And I had this friend who had been serving as a public prosecutor, he was a Party member, and I asked him to look into this funeral parlour thing which had been arranged before this accident. And he tried to investigate the case in all honesty, but he found out that it had been ordered by entities related to the Ministry of the Interior, and then he told me he had to stop doing that. As he had some explaining to do. I am telling you this because this communist public prosecutor had been quite outraged by what was happening, and he indeed wanted to investigate the case. I told him to let it be, in his own interest, but the thing is there were people like this. And this prosecution ended after Karel Bartošek decided he would leave the country, and they were quite excited about that. And before he had left, there was this party at his flat in Smíchov, I was there, and I had to pass this line of State Security cameras, but the party was just alright – not the right thing to say – as we all gathered on the occasion of Karel Bartošek leaving the country for good. And after a few weeks, when he had already left with his family, I had been summoned to trial as his defence lawyer, where Karel Bartošek was supposed to be sentenced. So I went there, the public prosecutor was also there, and the Chairman of the Court said: 'Where's your client, Mr. Counsel?' And I said, quite surprised: 'Maybe Mr. Prosecutor could know something about that, right?' - 'What do you mean?' And I said: 'Well, as far as I know, my client left the country legally. And I am surprised that Mr. Prosecutor...' Well, it was quite uncomfortable in the end, as they would make a complaint about my conduct, but that wasn't important. The conclusion, that's important. The trial hadn't been concluded, it went on like my client was a fugitive, and he had been given a suspended sentence. A suspended sentence, Bartošek had been sentenced, so there was just this single point to this whole show, to sentence Bartošek, in case he would like to come back someday or something like that. But they had to try him as a fugitive. But there wasn't any ground for that, as a fugitive is an individual whose whereabouts are unknown, not an individual who was given a passport by the state so he could leave the country. But things like this had happened, so I would say that it should be recorded.”

“There was this moment I remembered, I was in my second year I guess. And the subject was the History of the state and law in socialist countries. The course was given by one of the victors of the normalisation purges. Back then, he was a senior lecturer, and even today, at his remarkable age, he would lecture at the Faculty of Law from time to time. And the course took place in the largest lecture room at the Faculty of Law, Collegium Maximum, that's how they called it, and he spoke about the birth of socialist law, and as an example, he used two decrees issued by Lenin's government in 1918. The Decree on Peace and the Decree on Land. The Decree on Land wasn't complex. The Decree on Land, according to him, was a device utilised by the Bolshevik revolution to build its, sorry for the terms I would cite, its social-democratic base, or in other words, the means by which the Bolshevik revolution wanted to attract peasants from the undeveloped, rural Russia, where farming had been based on obschina (a commune), almost like thousands years ago in other parts of the world. So the Decree on Land was something, which decided that the land which belonged to landlords and the church would be nationalised and given to the peasants. And it was presented as this very clever way to attract and pacify, to assure the sympathy of the working class for the Bolshevik revolution, and later, of course, they did nationalise the land, but there wasn't a single peasant who would get just an inch of it. So that was what he had been telling us, and after that, this otherwise quite sympathetic and quick senior lecturer gave us those little papers and said: 'Now send me your questions.' And I felt like I was in Oxford, as he was really interacting with us. So I wrote this question, I went like: 'Could be sad than, that the Bolshevik revolution had deceived the workers by promising them land, which it never gave them?' And after he got to my question, he would read it, then he look back and said: 'Close the door.' And he started to investigate, who wrote this question. I didn't confess to it. However, that was my first lesson, so I could find out the the academic freedom wasn't so absolute, like I had imagined at the beginning of the lecture.”