Essay about Vaclav Havel´s Fight Against the Communist Regime

“The Communist threat inside the country has been magnified and exalted far beyond its realities”(273). Accusations have been made, irresponsible citizens are spreading fears. Multiples of suspicions had been made. Innocents are being considered as disloyalty. “Suspicion grows until only the person who loudly proclaims the orthodox view, or who, once having been a Communist, has been converted, is trustworthy” (273). Suspects are those who are unorthodox, who does not followed military policymakers. The fear has driven citizens to the folds of the orthodox. The fear was to be investigated, to lose one’s job, etc. These fears have driven many people to sorrow. These fears have effected younger generations. “This pattern of orthodoxy that is shaping our thinking has dangerous implications” (274). Douglas believes the great danger if we become victims of the orthodox school. They can limit our ability to change or alter. Douglas believes a man’s mind must be free.

     Marx describes the problem in great detail in the first chapter. He feels there is a problem between the bourgeoisie and the proletarians. The bourgeoisie were the oppressed class before the French Revolution and he argues that they are now the oppressors. The proletarians are the new working class, which works in the large factory and industries. He says that through mass industry they have sacrificed everything from the old way of religion, employment, to a man’s self worth and replaced it with monetary value. He is mad that the people of ole that use to be upper class such as skills man, trades people, & shopkeepers, are now slipping into the proletarians or working class. He

In the 20th century totalitarian governments had come to power in Italy, Germany, and the Soviet Union. These governments had forced their political authority and centralized control over all aspects of life (Document 3 and 6). The government had imposed public gatherings to invade people’s lives and indoctrination of totalitarian ideas had influenced youth organizations and literature to help the government gain authority over one’s country (Document 2). One method used by totalitarian dictatorship is having mass rallies and speeches. The totalitarian government that used these method leaders was Benito Mussolini of Italy and Adolf Hitler of Germany.

1984 has come and gone. The cold war is over. The collapse of oppressive totalitarian regimes leads to the conclusion that these governments by their nature generate resistance and are doomed to failure. The fictional world of George Orwell's novel, 1984, is best described as hopeless; a nightmarish dystopia where the omnipresent State enforces perfect conformity among members of a totalitarian Party through indoctrination, propaganda, fear, and ruthless punishment. In the aftermath of the fall of capitalism and nuclear war, the world has been divided among three practically identical totalitarian nation-states. A state of perpetual war and poverty is the rule in Oceania. However, this is merely a backdrop, far from the most terrifying

In George Orwell’s 1984, the strategies used by Oceania’s Political Party to achieve total control over the population are similar to the ones employed by Joseph Stalin during his reign. Indeed, the tactics used by Oceania’s Party truly depicts the brutal totalitarian society of Stalin’s Russia. In making a connection between Stalin’s Russia and Big Brothers’ Oceania, each Political Party implements a psychological and physical manipulation over society by controlling the information and the language with the help of technology.

Power is an eternal desire of all individuals, because of this; speeches that discuss the implications of power endure. Havel implies that the previous regime depersonalised their citizens “Huge, noisy and stinking machine”. The power to depersonalise their citizens was an integral part of the communist regime, this issue has become even more prevalent in today’s society as technology has allowed for the depersonalisation of individuals online. Havel has exposed to future generations that depersonalisation isn’t an issue to be taken lightly; this has led to the appreciation of his speech over

The Soviet Union was none the less held together by "…powerful central institutions, pressure for ideological conformity, and the threat of force." (Baylis & Smith, 2001.) Therefore, these new reforms could not overpower the previous ‘seventy years' of soviet rule.

If these were the discourse narratives, then how did they affect worker roles, and worker positionally in the Soviet landscape discussed in Bol’shevik? If the individual, indeed did have an active part to play, what was that part and how was he supposed to achieve it? Even more importantly, what if the state failed to create the tools necessary to assume that role? This ideological narrative mimics similar threads of discourse discussed previously. It is important to realize the conflicting messages the journal sent to the reader. The resulting analysis finds that the rhetoric reflected a dichotomy of state control and worker agency. While the worker was presented as the one solely able to complete the national narrative, the party created

     The Communist Manifesto was written by two world renowned philosophers, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. This book was produced in an era of great suffering and anguish of all workers in a socially distressed system. In a time when revolutions were spreading through Europe like wildfire, Marx organized his thoughts and views to produce the critical pamphlet “The Communist Manifesto”. Marx’s scrutiny illustrates his belief that unless change is to occur the constant outcome will repeatedly remain uniform. This is a novel that displays the differentiation between the Bourgeois and the Proletariat. Class relationships are defined by an era's means of production. Marx’s

Communist rule was confined to the Soviet Union until the end of World War II.

From Stalin’s Cult of Personality to Khrushchev’s period of De-Stalinization, the nation of the Soviet Union was in endless disarray of what to regard as true in the sense of a socialist direction. The short story, This is Moscow Speaking, written by Yuli Daniel (Nikolai Arzhak) represents the ideology that the citizens of the USSR were constantly living in fear of the alternations of their nation’s political policies. Even more, the novella gives an explanation for the people’s desire to conform to the principles around them.

Love is the foundation and the weakness of a totalitarian regime. For a stable totalitarian society, love between two individuals is eliminated because only a relationship between the person and the party and a love for its leader can exist. The totalitarian society depicted throughout the Orwell’s novel 1984 has created a concept of an Orwellian society. Stalin’s Soviet state can be considered Orwellian because it draws close parallels to the imaginary world of Oceania in 1984. During the twentieth century, Soviet Russia lived under Stalin’s brutal and oppressive governments, which was necessary for Stalin to retain power. In both cases, brutality and oppression led to an absence of relationships and love. This love was directed towards

Legacy: The immediate legacy of the Prague Spring was the “dissident movement”, lead by groups of mostly writers and intellectuals, which focused on overthrowing the government entirely. On January 16th, 1969, a student named Jan Palach set himself on fire in Prague to protest the censorship of free speech (Stoneman). In the weeks following his death, about half a million people lost their jobs and the Communist party purged half a million members while others resigned (BBC). Dissidents blamed the Soviets for his death and they became more motivated to create political change, so they published the “Charter 77 Declaration”, a charter for human rights made in 1977 (Stoneman, BBC). This document called on the government to recognize that there were violations of treaties that had guaranteed certain freedoms, such as religious confession and public expression.

The Czech people could have been discouraged by this, disillusioned by the thought of using peace as a method for throwing off oppression. But they were not. In 1989, another writer, this time a playwright by the name of Vaclav Havel, again led a peaceful revolution. The Velvet Revolution successfully ended Communism in the Czech Republic and led to the democracy the Czech Republic enjoys today. The fighters in this revolution were not armies, but artists.

Imagine an unfair country where you are forced to abide by laws that destroy the ability to have basic freedom. You weren't able to have a say to whether this policy was fair or unfair and if you spoke your mind, you would get prosecuted or executed. This is what it was like in Czechoslovakia from 1948-1989 living in Totalitarian Regime and Communism. But in all of that fearful and unpredictable mess, was Vaclav Havel. In the future, he would become the last president of Czechoslovakia and first president of Czech Republic. He was a major part in the Velvet Revolution, that took down Communism in Czechoslovakia. He proved to many people that though he was placed into a country that destroyed creativity and free speech, he was