Odpověď Karlu Hrubému
A Reply to Karel Hrubý

Summary/Abstract: The author is responding here to Karel Hrubý’s article ‘Radikální socialismus a jeho návraty’ (Radical Socialism and Its Recurrences) published in the previous issue of Soudobé dějiny, vol. 12, (2005), no. 2, pp. 334-42. That article was a commentary on Kárník’s conceptual study on extreme leftwing and rightwing politics in Czechoslovakia, which was published in the third volume of the series Bolševismus, komunismus a radikální socialismus v Československu (Prague, 2004). First, he describes the fi ve-year grant-funded project on this subject, of which he was the coordinator, and which has been completed and resulted in the publication of fi ve volumes of essays and thirteen grant reports. In the next part of the article, he sums up his arguments from the project on Radical Socialism, which he argues is something fundamentally different from Communism or Bolshevism, though it is often confused with them. Radical Socialism, he maintains, always aims to adjust parliamentary democracy, not destroy it. That was also the case after the Second World War in Czechoslovakia, although in consequence of the external, great-power constellation it was controlled and misused by its rivals. After responding to Hrubý’s particular objections, the author sums up the successes and failures of his project, and expresses the fear that it may not be possible to continue it in a suitable way.

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