Opozice v exilové sociální demokracii Nad knihou Radomíra Luži
Democratic Party in Exile: Concerning a Book by Radomir Luza

Summary/Abstract: Together with emigre friends who had left Czechoslovakia after the Communist takeover in February 1948, Radomir Luza founded an opposition 'reform group' within the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party in exile. The group reproached the old Social Democratic leadership with having made concessions to the Communists after the war and with being unable to part with the political conception of the National Front. The author of the present review article, who took over the leadership of the Social Democratic Party in exile in the 1980s, reproaches Luza with having painted an idealized self-portrait in his book at the expense of a credible account of the history of the Social Democratic Party in exile and thus with having inadmissibly conflated the role of eye-witness with that of historian. He also gives a critical account of Luza's activity in intelligence gathering and diplomacy in the 1960s and late 1980s, which aimed to achieve an 'historic compromise' with the Communists and renew the 1945 status quo in Czechoslovakia.

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