Abstract
‘I have always supported working men, often supported socialism, but only rarely Marxism.’1 That is how Masaryk summarised his relationship with Czech socialism in his conversations with Karel Čapek. If one wished to take up the three elements of this formula to measure Masaryk’s influence on Czech socialism, one could say that it was inversely proportionate in the degree to which he kept to it. In other words, he was relatively unimportant for working men, important for socialism as a political movement and vital on an ideological level as a counterweight to Marxism, both in its pre-1918 Austro-Marxist version and in its later Bolshevik version.
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Notes
Karel Čapek, Hovory s T. G. Masarykem (Prague, 1969) p. 93.
František Modráček, Samospráva pràce (Prague, 1918) p. xx.
Cf. F. Modráčk, Republika a socialismus (Prague, 1919).
T. G. Masaryk, Otázka sociální (Prague, 1946) vol. I, p. 576.
K. Dédic, ‘Masaryk a české socialistické hnutí’ in František Drtina (ed.), Masarykův sborník, vol. IV (Prague, 1936) p. 504.
see Alexander Fried, Masaryks erste Tätigkeitsperiode im Wiener Parlament (1891–1894), Diss., University of Vienna, 1954, pp. 25–8 and pp. 199–234.
see Eva Schmidt-Hartmann, Thomas G. Masaryk’s Realism. The Development of a Czech Political Concept, 1892–1914, LSE Diss., 1981, later published (Munich, 1984).
Z. Kárník, Socialisté na rozcestí, Habsburg, Masaryk či Šmeral (Prague, 1968) pp. 16–70.
T. G. Masaryk, Česka otázka, Naše nynějši krise [1895] (Prague, 1948).
On this matter see J. Rupnik, Histoire du Parti communiste tchécoslo-coslovaque (Paris, 1981).
Cf. also Jaroslav Krejčí (ed.), Sozialdemokratie und Systemwandel (Berlin and Bonn, 1978).
Milan Machovec, Petr Pithart, Josef Dubský (eds), T. G. Masaryk a naše současnost (Prague, 1980 (samizdat)).
Jan Galandaner, ‘K 50. výročí smrti T. G. Masaryka’ Rudé právo, 14 Sept. 1987.
See also Václav Čada, ‘T.G.M., legenda a současnost’, Tvorba, 16 Sept. 1987.
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© 1989 School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London
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Rupnik, J. (1989). Masaryk and Czech Socialism. In: Pynsent, R.B. (eds) T. G. Masaryk (1850–1937). Studies in Russia and East Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20366-6_10
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