, a regional meeting of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party in the Moravian city of Olomouc was taking place. About one thousand members of the local party organization gathered during the evening in one of the town's dance halls. The 6th infantry regiment of the Czechoslovak army, consisting solely of former Czechoslovak legionnaires coming back home from Russia, was housed nearby. Here, too, a lively chirp could be heard. Soldiers gathered inside the barracks and vigorously discussed the publicly announced program of the Social Democratic meeting, featuring speeches on the possibilities of socializing big enterprises. 1 After a short and heated discussion, the soldiers decided that the planned party gathering might pose a leftist danger to the new Czechoslovak republic, left the barracks (the guard at the gate did not try to stop them) and stormed the dance hall. Although the meeting was only open to members of the local Social-Democratic organization, roughly 150 legionnaires broke in violently, secured all exits and brutally attacked one of the speakers. According to eyewitnesses, "... he was hit on the head with a glass and stabbed in the back with a knife. Legionnaires were armed with guns and knives and threatened anyone who tried to defend him. Even women, who tried to protect him with their bodies, were beaten. When the legionnaires had satisfied their rage, they tortured him. He fell practically unconscious under the piano ... the legionnaires once again grabbed their victim and kicked him and beat him on the ground. Then they took the tortured man to the barracks where the 6th infantry regiment is housed." 2 The political repercussions of this incident soon started to unfold. A group of leftist deputies publically questioned the Prime Minister about his stance towards the incident, the
Although the impact of Thompson’s work outside the UK has been recognized and pointed to many times, the ways in which Thompsonian categories and concepts, or Marxist thought from the West more broadly, was received in the countries of the former Eastern Bloc remain rather unclear. Although The Making has never been translated into Polish, Czech, or Slovak, the historians of East-Central European countries were not totally cut off from Western scholarship. Major academic institutes and universities throughout the communist bloc maintained basic contacts with colleagues in the West, and Thompson’s work was known among some local social historians. Marxism from the West in general and Thompson’s work in particular posed challenges that had to be dealt with. This paper traces the ways in which historians of Poland and Czechoslovakia responded to these challenges to the official position of Marxist orthodoxy. Taking The Making as an example, it highlights the reception (or lack thereof) of Western influences on local scholarship, and the dynamics of these encounters – whether they were affirmative or critical – in relation to the changing political landscape of East-Central European countries after World War II.
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