K 231

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K 231 (also K-231, rare club 231 ), with full name K 231 - Sdružení bývalých politických vězňů (K 231 - former union political prisoners) belongs, along with the club KAN of the most important organizations from the time of the Prague Spring of 1968 in Czechoslovakia , which emerged outside the sphere of influence of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia . Although they only existed for a short time (K 231 only existed 159 days), they played an essential role both in the democratization process of 1968 and in the later rationale of the Soviet leadership for the Warsaw Pact troops' invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

The name K 231 is derived from Law 231/1948 Sb. ("Law for the Protection of the People's Democratic Republic"), which was used for convictions for political reasons.

Background of the creation

In the politically relaxed atmosphere at the beginning of 1968, former political prisoners set up a preparatory committee for their own organization on March 27, 1968. Karel Nigrín was elected chairman. As was customary, the committee informed the Communist Party Central Committee and the Interior Ministry of its intentions . On March 31, the K 231 was founded during an event in Prague with almost 2500 participants, local branches should follow. In the press release, the club expressly committed itself to the ongoing democratization process and named regaining confidence among the approximately 70,000 former political prisoners still alive as an important task. The following people were elected to the Presidium: Karel Nigrín , Jaroslav Brodský , Václav Paleček , Jan Šmíd , Emil Vidra and Josef Kovařovic .

In April - as usual - the statutes for the approval procedure were handed over to the Ministry of the Interior and at the same time an application was made for approval as an association - until then, however, the law had only made activities provisional and restricted to preparatory steps. The Interior Ministry reported that nothing stood in the way of a positive decision. A regional structure soon formed. Within two months, more than 80 local organizations of the club were created, in which a good 30,000 members have registered; Although on April 7, 1968 in Bratislava around 600 participants at an event founded their own Slovak organization, the K 231 has already become an important component of public life.

goals and tasks

Membership in K 231 presupposed that the citizen was convicted for political reasons after the communist takeover of power in 1948, according to one of the following laws:

  • Law 50/1923 - "Law for the Protection of the Republic"
  • Law 231/1948 - "Law for the Protection of the People's Democratic Republic"
  • Law 86/1950 - Criminal Code, new version

After 1948, a total of around 130,000 people were sentenced under these laws for political reasons (that is, around 1 percent of the total population of the country), including between 227 and 262 people to death. When K 231 was founded in 1968, there were roughly 70,000 to 80,000 survivors.

The K 231 club, which explicitly saw itself as a non-political group, was supposed to look after the interests of the former political prisoners with the aim of fully rehabilitating them. For this purpose, in particular, testimonies should be collected, which document the political persecution in post-war Czechoslovakia and, above all, should prosecute the violations of the legal order. Rehabilitation was at the forefront of the activities of K 231, in every respect: legal, political, civil, regarding the confiscated property as well as morally.

The education about the political processes and the rehabilitation of the victims was also part of the new policy of the Communist Party, which - as in previous years - was approached only hesitantly. Since 1953, i.e. at the time of the political trials, amnesties have been issued for various reasons: 1953 (15,379 released prisoners, including 4,035 prisoners from the uranium mines in Jáchymov ), 1955 (7,227 people), 1960 (5,319 people), 1962 (2,520 people) People) and 1965 (170 people); the amnesties, however, were released on parole. In addition, the communist party has also set up commissions to review the political processes, for example the so-called Barák Commission in 1955 (named after the Central Committee member and Interior Minister Rudolf Barák ), and in 1962 the Kolder Commission (named after the Central Committee member Drahomír Kolder ) and in 1963 the so-called Barnabite Commission . However, all these attempts have more or less confirmed the judgments or - like the amnesties - failed to address the causes. The perpetrators were not held responsible.

The so-called Piller Commission set up in 1968 first showed very critical interim results and seemed to take account of the need to catch up. In April 1968 the Oldřich Černík government announced that rehabilitation would take place. In the following years a law was prepared and finally passed as Law 82/1968 on rehabilitation on August 1st, 1968. After the intervention of August 21, 1968, the work of the Piller Commission was redesigned, the original final report was rejected, and the Rehabilitation Act was defused in several steps.

Conflict with the CP and end

From around April 1968 it became apparent that the Communist Party saw structures in the K 231 as well as in the KAN club and in the newly forming social democracy that could theoretically develop into an opposition party. The party's monopoly of power was not an option in the reform projects. In early summer, the party determined that anti-socialist elements were becoming increasingly active in K 231, although the club had lost its right to exist with the deliberations on the rehabilitation law. At the same time, the June meeting of the Central Committee decided to launch a media campaign with the aim of discrediting the K 231, in which institutions of the State Security Service StB also took part; this was in part due to pressure from the Soviet leadership.

This development also influenced the approval process for the club statutes. Negotiations with the party and with ministries, which took place in June and July, did not bring any significant relief, although K 231 responded to some demands and even curtailed its activities. At the meeting of the member states of the Warsaw Pact on 14./15. July 1968 in Warsaw, the K 231 was moored by name as part of the counter-revolution in Czechoslovakia. At the meeting of the Czechoslovak and Soviet party leaders on July 29, 1968 in Čierna nad Tisou , the ban on K 231 was promised. Officially, this happened on September 5, 1968, when the Ministry of the Interior officially refused to approve the statutes of K 231 (and also KAN) on the grounds that the passage of the Rehabilitation Act would make Club K 231 superfluous.

In the following period of so-called normalization , clubs 231 and KAN were very often referred to as counter-revolutionary elements and served to legitimize the invasion of the Warsaw Pact. Many leading members chose to emigrate abroad; those who stayed were observed by the state security until the 1980s.

Successor organizations after 1989

After the social changes of 1989, the successor organization Konfederace politických vězňů Československa (Confederation of Political Prisoners of Czechoslovakia) was founded in February 1990 , which from 1993 was called Konfederace politických vězňů České republiky (Confederation of Political Prisoners of the Czech Republic). In Slovakia, the Konfederácia politických väzňov Slovenska (Confederation of Political Prisoners of Slovakia) was established after 1990 .

New rehabilitation laws were also passed and many political prisoners were subsequently rehabilitated, including restitution. From the perspective of the former political prisoners, however, the perpetrators who were responsible for the political processes of the Stalinist era were not or only insufficiently held accountable.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 231/1948 Sb., Online at: www.totalita.cz (PDF; 130 kB), Czech, www.upn.gov.sk (PDF; 186 kB), Slovak, accessed on February 6, 2013
  2. ↑ a b Daily newspaper Práce from April 1, 1968, report on the founding event of K 231 from March 31, 1968, online at: www.68.usd.cas.cz / ... (PDF; 101 kB), in Czech, accessed on September 27, 2010
  3. ↑ Petr Blažek et al: Aby se to už neopakovalo. Catalog k výstavě o dějinách sdružení bývalých politických vězňů. Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů , o. O., 2008, p. 34
  4. ↑ Petr Blažek et al: Aby se to už neopakovalo. Catalog k výstavě o dějinách sdružení bývalých politických vězňů. Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů, o. O., 2008, p. 30
  5. ↑ Petr Blažek et al: Aby se to už neopakovalo. Catalog k výstavě o dějinách sdružení bývalých politických vězňů. Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů, o. O., 2008, p. 29
  6. ↑ Documentace popravených z politických důvodů 1948–1989, published by the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes ÚSTR, online at: www.ustrcr.cz / ... ( Memento of the original from January 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ustrcr.cz
  7. ↑ A list from the totalita.cz portal , online at www.totalita.cz/seznamy/popravy
  8. ↑ Vladimir V. Kusin, A Note on K 231, in: Soviet Studies Vol. 24, No. 1, Jul. 1972, online at: www.jstor.org / ...
  9. ↑ Petr Blažek et al: Aby se to už neopakovalo. Catalog k výstavě o dějinách sdružení bývalých politických vězňů. Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů, o. O., 2008, p. 18f.
  10. ↑ Rehabilitace a "rehabilitace" v době komunistického režimu, online at: www.totalita.cz / ...
  11. ↑ Petr Blažek et al: Aby se to už neopakovalo. Catalog k výstavě o dějinách sdružení bývalých politických vězňů. Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů, o. O., 2008, p. 77

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