„Ľudácke tiene“ v Komunistickej strane Slovenska (a nad ňou) po roku 1948
The “Shadows of Hlinka´s Party” inside and outside the Communist Party of Slovakia after 1948

Author(s): Jan Pešek
Subject(s): Political history, Recent History (1900 till today), WW II and following years (1940 - 1949), Post-War period (1950 - 1989), History of Communism
Published by: Historický ústav SAV
Keywords: Slovak People´s Party; Communist Party of Slovakia;
Summary/Abstract: Two “shadows of Hlinka´s Slovak People´s Party” seem to have harassed the Communist Party of Slovakia (CPS) after the turnover in February 1948, when it became the governing party. They both emerged from the country´s recent history – the period of the Slovak Republic in 1939-1945 and, to a certain extent, the course of events in 1945-1948. The first “shadow” standing over the Party was the so-called “Bourgeois Nationalism”. Its manifestations began to be compared to the “spirit of Hlinka´s Party“ (“spirit of Ľudáctvo”) to such an extent that these two were taken for identical phenomena. The second shadow gathered directly inside the CPS from those members who had behind them the “past” as members of Hlinka´s Slovak People´s Party, the Hlinka Guard, the Hlinka Youth or the Hlinka Guard Emergency Units. Whilst the first “shadow” was only devised to be purposefully implanted from outside into the then political situation, the second one was borne directly inside the Party ranks, and so objectively existent. Being deformed under the pressure of the permanent campaign against the “Bourgeois Nationalism and the spirit of „Ľudáctvo”, it took on a dangerous shape. Both of the “shadows” retreated only at the beginning of the 1960s (more precisely at the end of 1963) when the leaders of the regime were compelled to re-evaluate the accusations, seemingly unshakeable up to that time, and rehabilitate the so-called Slovak Bourgeois Nationalists.

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