Yaroslav Shimov. Intellectual on the throne

Intellectual on the throne
Yaroslav Shimov

Publication date: April 18, 2000

Vaclav Havel: a failed experiment in the Platonic spirit

During her time, Plato, sitting in the shade of Hellenic olive groves and reflecting on the imperfections of human nature, came to the conclusion that the best way of government is one in which power belongs to people like Plato himself - philosophers capable of thinking sublimely, renouncing from vanity and completely devote himself to the good of the people.

It took a long time to wait for the embodiment of Plato’s ideal in practice, almost two and a half thousand years. And so it happened: in the modest Czech Republic (then Czechoslovakia), in the wake of the “Velvet Revolution” of 1989, the highest government post was entrusted to the playwright, philosopher, dissident Vaclav Havel . Ten years have passed, and although the third term of Pan Havel (in 1989-93 he was the president of the Czechoslovak Federation, from 1993 - the Czech Republic) is far from over, it is already possible to draw preliminary results: the experiment in the Platonic spirit was not very successful. The lessons of this experiment, in my opinion, should be learned not only by the Czechs.

Havel is the last of the Mohicans, the only (except for Pope John Paul II) representative of the “mighty handful” of anti-communist leaders of the late 80s and early 90s remaining in power. Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl, Lech Walesa, Zhelyu Zhelev, and more recently Boris Yeltsin - “where are you now, who is kissing your fingers?”, as Vertinsky once sang. It should be noted that in terms of loyalty to his once and for all chosen principles, Vaclav Havel can give odds to almost all of the listed politicians. As in the days of the Velvet Revolution, today the Czech president still hates communism, has tender feelings for the West, dislikes Russians and considers liberal democracy a system that sooner or later the whole world will happily accept.

to such views However, life itself pushed Havel from childhood. Coming from one of the richest families of the first (“bourgeois”) Czechoslovak Republic, he could not have warm feelings for the system that robbed him: the communists, who came to power in 1948, confiscated the Havel property, and Vaclav’s uncle, suspected of collaborating with by the Nazis, and had to emigrate altogether.

The further life path of the future president is known and described many times: in the early 60s, he began to work in the theater environment, wrote several good plays, performed in the samizdat press, and after 1968 he became one of the leaders of the dissident movement in Czechoslovakia. He was arrested several times and spent several years in prison. Unlike Alexander Dubcek and other leaders of the “Prague Spring,” he never had any illusions about the socialist system and was a consistent anti-communist. Thanks to this, in December 1989 he triumphantly entered the presidential residence - Prague Castle. By the way, Havel can be included in the Guinness Book of Records as a person who managed to be the head of three states: socialist Czechoslovakia (he, ironically, took his first presidential oath on the constitution of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, which had not yet been abolished), federal Czechoslovakia, which existed for only three year, and the current Czech Republic.

The Czech Republic is a parliamentary republic, the president is elected by deputies, and he does not have any significant power. But he can be a political arbiter, a moral guide, a symbol of the state, the father of the nation - in a word, something that pragmatists sometimes laugh at, but without which it is difficult for normal people to feel like the People. This is what Czech society hoped for in the early 90s. Did not work out. political involvement Vaclav Havel's never allowed him to become the president of all Czechs.

And if at first this was not so noticeable, then in the last 5-6 years, when the transition to life “like in the West” turned out to be not as quick and painless for most Czechs as it seemed in 1989, the excessive integrity of the inhabitant of the Grad began to irritate many . For example, Havel never invites communist leaders to his regular meetings with representatives of other leading parties. Does not love. You can understand. But considering that the rating of the Communist Party in recent years has remained stable at the level of 15-20%, and the parliament is full of communist deputies who participate in the development of the most important laws, the demonstrative boycott of the left by the head of state does not look like a political position, but a manifestation of vindictiveness.

But Marx would be with them, with the communists. A much more important feature of Czech policy under Havel was the formation of a system, the essence of which is best expressed by the saying “hand washes hand.” Two years ago, when liberal reformers led by Vaclav Klaus were defeated in the elections, and their main rivals, the Social Democrats, also did not gain a majority sufficient to form a government, the leading parties entered into a so-called “opposition pact.” Power was simply divided: Klaus's Civil Democratic Party received all the key posts in parliament, giving the Social Democrats the opportunity to "steer" for this. They still rule - without much success: 15 percent unemployment, a slow but sure decline in the value of the crown and constant complaints from the European Union about the Czech Republic - they say that they are poorly prepared to join the pan-European monastery.

The president, who loves to promote the triumph of morality in politics, did not have a violent reaction to the rather cynical inter-party deal. Havel began to move only when the main parties, whose maneuvers were touchingly reminiscent of the recent fraternization of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation with Unity in the Russian State Duma, set out to change the constitution, further reducing presidential powers. In particular, there was a desire to take away the right of pardon from the head of state, which Havel clearly abused by granting freedom to several people convicted of criminal offenses. As it turned out, some of those pardoned were closely associated with the president's personal friends. Well, how can you not please your loved one...

The Czech establishment is not happy with many of the president’s foreign policy actions. So, Havel made a lot of noise by officially apologizing - however, not on behalf of the Czech Republic, but on his own behalf - to the Sudeten Germans, who were evicted from Czechoslovakia in 1946 by order of the then (non-communist, by the way) President Benes. Now this has come back to haunt Prague: the famous leader of the Austrian far-right, Jörg Haider, is demanding compensation from the Czech Republic for those expelled, a significant part of whom at one time settled in Austria. Another act of Havel - a meeting with the Tibetan leader Dalai Lama XIV - angered Beijing and significantly complicated Czech-Chinese relations.

However, Havel the politician’s main business was last year’s entry of the Czech Republic into NATO. When signing the relevant documents, the Czech President and US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, with whom Havel has friendly relations, did not hide their tears of happiness. The Czech press - with a generally favorable attitude towards what happened - did not hide its bewilderment at the fact that the most important state decision was made without holding a referendum. Czech politicians “forgot” to ask voters’ opinions regarding the country’s joining the powerful bloc. And they did the right thing - otherwise they might have been embarrassed: public opinion polls have consistently shown that the most popular among Czechs remains the Swedish-Finnish option for rapprochement with the West - membership in the EU, but not NATO.

A month after the Czech Republic became a NATO power, the operation in Kosovo began, and again the people let their president down: a minority of Czechs expressed approval of NATO’s actions, while the majority (albeit not very significant) for some reason sympathized with the Yugoslavs. But Havel tried his best to explain to his compatriots that the bombing of Serbia was “the first war since 1945 that is being waged in the name of moral principles, against violence and genocide.” Several months passed - and the President of the Czech Republic again turned into a pacifist, condemning the war in Chechnya with the same fervor.

And the point here is not a double standard, which Moscow constantly accuses the West of. I don't know about most Western leaders, but Havel clearly believes what he says. There is an undeniable logic in his reasoning, based on the fact that the Western world shows humanity the only true path of development, and therefore everything that is good for the West is good for everyone else. The strengthening of Russia is bad for the West - because Russia, according to Havel , is a “Eurasian power”, almost China, only closer, and therefore even more dangerous. This means that Russia needs to be condemned and shown in its place - which is what the President of the Czech Republic did in a recent interview with the weekly Respect. I quote from a translation published by Nezavisimaya Gazeta: “...Russia is a very important component of the future world order, but it must somehow decide, ... must know where it begins and where it ends, and it seems to me that it ends on the border with Belarus." The playwright's thinking: each character has his own role, and if someone has forgotten the text, I will remind him.

But with the drama “The Great Humanist in Politics,” in which the Czech president clearly sees himself as the main character, something doesn’t work out. Moreover, precisely in terms of humanism, which - in its highest manifestations - has always stood above politics. In the sense that Mahatma Gandhi or Mother Teresa would hardly have looked for differences between Russian and Chechen, Serbian and Albanian blood: for them, the shedding of any blood was an unforgivable, flagrant sin. For Havel , there seems to be a difference. As, indeed, for any politician. But the catch is precisely that the President of the Czech Republic does not want to be a participant in the notorious Realpolitik with its inevitable cynicism and dirt, because in this case the aura of a humanist and fighter for human rights fades. This contradiction is probably the true drama of Vaclav Havel . The drama of an “intellectual on the throne” who sincerely but unsuccessfully tries to refute the immutable political law derived by Machiavelli: thrones are intended for a completely different breed of people.