František Janouch, Why the Velvet Revolution was “too velvet”, Radio Praha 03/10/2016
When Czechoslovak dissidents
produced samizdat literature in the late communist period they did so in large
part thanks to the material and financial support of the Charter 77 Foundation.
It was run by František Janouch, a Czech émigré who is still mainly based in
Sweden. In the second half of a two-part interview with the nuclear scientist,
we discussed his relationship with Václav Havel, the Velvet Revolution and the
work of the Charter 77 Foundation today. But first I asked Mr. Janouch, now 85,
how the organisation had managed to get printers and other technical equipment
into communist Czechoslovakia.
“Well, it was quite easy. Because the Czech
government understood that they were very under-developed in computers,
printers and so on – and they allowed this equipment to be sent.
“So I used this. I was trying
to modernise samizdat. Writing with carbon copies for five or 10 people is
nothing.
“But if you have a computer,
if you have a printer, then you can circulate things just on a diskette, or
floppy disc, as it was at that time.
“So I developed the Czech
system with my friends. My son, who was a computer fan, was helping me. Also
there were several people in Germany.
“We sent ready equipment to be
used. But we were also sending TV sets, video equipment, as well as forbidden
movies.
“The movies we had to smuggle,
but everything else when officially through Tuzex [network of luxury shops
taking hard currency/special vouchers]. The government was so eager to get hard
currency that they didn’t stop it.”
Did any of the people involved
in the network of the Charter 77 Foundation here ever get in trouble?
“Some of the people were
arrested. But usually not for a very long time.
“I was wondering and was
sometimes astonished that the Czech authorities allowed all this to be done.
“But I understood that the
government was afraid that if they took action it would stop the whole Tuzex
system. And this was obviously quite essential for the government.”
“When the Charter 77 movement was initiated Vaclav Havel and called each
other and wrote each other quite frequently.”
I understand that your first
encounters with Václav Havel weren’t in person but were by phone or letter. Is
that the case?
“Yes. We knew about each
other. I was asked to have a message for the International PEN Club congress in
Sweden, in Stockholm. I called Havel.
“He knew about me and we knew
each other, but we weren’t friends or anything like that.
“I asked him to say a few
words to the International PEN Club congress and he said, OK, Call me tomorrow.
“I taped his message and
translated it into English and presented it to the International PEN Club
congress, together with Pavel Tigrid, who was there.
“From this telephone
conversation I started to call Václav Havel and we established quite regular
contacts and became, I could say, friends.
“When the Charter 77 movement
was initiated we had regular contact and called each other and wrote each other
quite frequently.
“Perhaps you have seen the
correspondence, which is a large volume, several hundred pages, and was
published in the 1990s.”
You have often said that the
Velvet Revolution was “too velvet” – that the revolutionaries were too easy on
the Communists. Was that because they were too nice, too good as people? Or
were they naïve and didn’t understand how powerful they were?
“I think the Velvet Revolution
was too soft, too velvet, so to speak, against high-ranking people in the
secret police, in the Communist Party, in the government and so on.”
But why do you think it was
that the leaders of the revolution weren’t harder on them?
“I think they didn’t want to
repeat what the Communists were doing to them.
“They wanted to establish a
more just and more humane regime.
“But of course, you can’t make
a revolution, you can’t take power from people who were representing the former
Communist regime, without making some hard steps.”
Obviously when Václav Havel
and the other former dissidents came to power they had no experience,
everything was new, everything was changing very quickly. But generally
speaking how do you think they performed in that situation? How did they do as
leaders, particularly in the early 1990s?
“I think remarkably well, in
fact. There was only this thing that they should have been a little bit harder,
a little bit more strict, to restrict the power or the action possibilities of
the former Communists, former secret policemen and so on.”
Did you consider moving back
here full-time? When the revolution happened it was 15 years after you left, so
not really very long?
“Yes, but I had a position, I
should have a pension somewhere, and so on.
“My kids were already Swedes.
My wife was associate professor at the university.
“It was not clear what would
happen here. And then there was the Foundation, which needed me to run it, and
so on.
“Even after the revolution the
Foundation was doing a lot of important things.
“Just a year after the
revolution I got a small, single room in Prague and I used to come. The
university was rather liberal so I could have a free working schedule
“So I was commuting between
Stockholm and Prague quite often.”
Also it seems that the Charter
77 Foundation was unusually successful in finding a new role in the new era
with the Barriers Account?
“Movies we had to smuggle, but everything else when officially through
Tuzex.”
“Yes. Before the Barriers
Account there was a collection to the Míša Account.
“I had been asked to help finance
operations for two or three Czech kids using the unique Swedish medical
instrument called the Leksell Gamma Knife.
“Then I decided that we could
not ask the Swedish people every month to finance another operation, so I
decided to buy a Leksell Gamma Knife.
“I discussed it with the Czech
minister of health, Bojar, and he was very enthusiastic.
“I didn’t know that it cost
three million dollars, but we successfully collected three million dollars,
mostly in the Czech Republic.
“And it became the successful
Leksell Gamma Knife in the world. In the variety of applications and the number
of operations, it became the absolute number one.”
I know this is a very big
question, but generally how do you view the Czech political scene today, all
these years after the changes?
“This is really a very
difficult question.
“The Czech Republic is
integrated into the Western European political scene. It’s a member of the EU,
NATO and so on. So this I am quite happy about.
“You can’t make a revolution without making some hard steps.”
“I am not happy about many
things in the internal political scene and developments.”
Some people say there is again
a Russian influence in this part of the world that wasn’t here for example 10
years ago. How do you view that development?
“Well, I am worried about the
Russian influence.
“I think Czechoslovakia was
probably among the Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe perhaps the most
strongly connected with Russia.
“Of course these contacts
remain. I don’t like them.
“I think we should have
strictly commercial, political, but not more, relations with Russia.”
