The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 4/Accomplishments of 1919

by Robert Joseph Kerner

Accomplishments of 1919

“THE UTTERANCES OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE CZECHOSLOVAK REPUBLIC, T. G. MASARYK, FROM THE TIME OF HIS ELECTION TO THE DAYS OF THE JUBILEE” (December, 1918, to December, 1919). Edited by Th. Kratochvíl, Prague, 1920.

 

“A YEAR OF WORK,” Prague, 1919. (Published in Czech by the Press Bureau of the Office of the Premier of the Ministry and Edited by Dr. Rudolf Procházka).

 

Reviewed by ROBERT JOSEPH KERNER
Associate Professor of History, University of Missouri.

 

These two publications reveal the heart and soul of what the leaders of the Czechoslovak nation have done and are aspiring to do in their new state.

President Masaryk’s speeches are guideposts for the future. They are a nation’s catechism in which “the little father” (tatíček) speaks to the common man about whose future actions elsewhere in Europe many statesman are now so seriously concerned.

The “Year of Work” is a report of the Provisional Government’s activity in the first year of the republic’s existence. It is official in character in so far as it was got together from official reports and, in one case, includes a speech by Beneš, Minister of Foreign Affairs, before the National Assembly.

Both publications speak intimately, almost confidentially. They are intended for Czechs and Slovaks, not for foreign consumption. For that reason they are the more important for us. They tell of successes and failures, of an ugly past, of hopes for a brighter future. In all recent political (official or unofficial) literature in Central Europe I know of none which so openly tells the nation what has been attempted against great odds and what are the dangers ahead. Should this beginning be developed into a regular act of the Government each year it would be a signal contribution to the establishment of a new regime in Central Europe.

President Masaryk lays down in his speeches, it appears, two fundamental axioms: that the Czechoslovaks, in order to be a thoroughly new nation for the leadership of the new order in Central Europe, must “de-Austrianize and re-educate themselves,” and that social reform, not social revolution, should be the future programme of the republic, if they do not wish to undo what they have already accomplished.

By “de-Austrianization” President Masaryk means a thoroughly democratized army, a new bureaucracy, free, equal nations living contentedly within the state, and a new moral outlook for a freer, healthier development. The remnants of Old Austria, with its militarism, its decaying bureaucracy, its oppressed nations, and its degenerating effect on the cultural development of individuals, classes, and nations, are to be swept away.

By urging the nation to “re-educate itself” President Masaryk is urging a rebirth in education, in moral outlook, in ordinary, every-day ideals. The re-education is to be in the spirit of American ideals and American achievement. In that respect he wishes his nation “to Americanize itself.” A nation with moral teachers of the eminence of Hus, Komenský (Comenius), and Havlíček will have rich inspiration to draw from in this respect.

In his second message to the National Assembly (October 29, 1919) President Masaryk reviews in particular the demand for the social revolution. He advocates penetrating or thorough-going social reforms. Through his acquaintance with Socialism and Bolshevism he bravely faces the issue. There is no hedging. There must be social reform, but there must be no social revolution. Leninism or Bolshevism is “rather revolutionary anarchism, rather syndicalism than Socialism.”

President Masaryk expounds Bolshevism with especial care to the Czechoslovak laboring classes, because the masses in Slavic speaking countries show more sentiment than reason in that regard. They virtually reject Marxism because it is “German,” and instinctively and, likewise, sentimentally have an unconscious interest in Bolshevism because they feel it is “Slavic.”

Here is a statesman, no longer purely a theoretical social reformer, wrestling with the problem and thinking before his nation. He knows he cannot do all the thinking himself, and so he thinks before his people in order to have them “catch the habit.” He leaves them in no doubt that civilization will mean a grand transformation of the evolution of the ages and that it is a long way off. And, finally, he points out that it is not a Czechoslovak problem alone; it is likewise an international problem. *** The “Year of Work” reviews the first year’s activity of all the Ministries of the Provisional Government, including that of the Ministry Without Portfolio for Slovakia. It will be impossible to explain here in detail the working of each Ministry and to evaluate the information which is given in its report. We must content ourselves with illustrating the character of the valuable material which is included in this publication. For the historian and the publicist the work is of first-rate importance, and it is to be regretted that it has not been translated as a whole into English or French. A small abstract of the same has appeared in English from the pen of Brož.

The report which Beneš, Minister of Foreign Affairs, made before the National Assembly (Septemher 30, 1919) forms a suitable introduction. Here the most capable of the disciples of President Masaryk sketches in broad lines the history of the revolutionary propaganda abroad, the work of the Peace Conference, and the bases of the future foreign policy of Czechoslovakia. He tells of the pledges which the Czechoslovak Peace Conference delegates had given for the protection of national minorities. “I am convinced,” he declares, “that the Czechoslovak Republic will live up to its given word to the full.”

The Ministry of National Defense admits that it began life in Czechoslovakia in 1918 with an army of 10,000 poorly disciplined men, without cannon and adequate ammunition, while thousands of excellent soldiers were kept in Siberia. The Ministry of Justice informs the reader at the outset that “the Czech at the time of the fall of old Austria was “anti-state”, there was a strong tendency in him toward anarchy.” The Ministry of Social Welfare reports that in the summer of 1919 it supported or looked after about 6 per cent. of the total population, including 210,000 war invalids, 380,000 dependents from the war, 174,655 unemployed. This was not a small feeding list for a young republic, and the desire to get down to work was not an overwhelming one, in the populace, here as elsewhere after the war.

The report written for the Ministry Without Portfolio (for Slovakia) by Dr. Ivanka is perhaps most illuminating. Here the beginnings were truly heroic. The report shows that there were only about 500 Slovak “intelligentsia” to fill something like 1,100 official positions, ranging from village natary to Governor of the country. All of which helps in part to explain the ease of the Magyar invasion in the summer of 1919. Meanwhile, the Slovaks as a whole were unable to realize that a new era had come, because so many Magyars of the old regime still clung to their posts and in secret propaganda threatened the return first of the Red, then of the White Magyar Army.

Since these publications have appeared much has happened. The treaties have been accepted, a permanent constitution adopted, a new election, which resulted favorably to the Socialists, held, and further steps taken along the road mapped out by the Sage of Hradčany.

How far President Masaryk will be able to control the advance of social reform in a calm and scientific spirit will depend largely on the schooling, the patience, and the self-sacrifice of all classes of the Czechoslovak nation.—The (N. Y.) Evening Post.