Poet Turned President: Václav Havel

A few years ago, I visited Prague, the architecturally stunning capital of the Czech Republic. While there, I visited the Museum of Communism, an absolutely amazing museum that details both the horrors and crushing mundaneness of living under a communist system as the people of former Czechoslovakia had for 40 plus years. After the brilliant yet harrowing experience, I went to the gift shop to check out the anti-​communist memorabilia. One of the books on display was a small slim book called The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe written by Vaclav Havel, a figure I had never heard of before, but I assumed he was some form of dissident intellectual during the Communist era. I needed something to read for the plane home, and this book would easily fit in my bag, so I decided to give Vaclav a try.

I slept home on the plane and didn’t read Havel, but I had learned that Vaclav was a dissident intellectual, as I guessed. He was a poet, a playwright, and a writer. What I had not guessed correctly was that he was not some intellectual lay about who just wrote books all day. No, not at all; he became the first-​ever president of the Czech Republic in 1993. From poet to president is an impressive career trajectory, so I decided to give his book a try, and I instantly became an admirer of Havel.

While not an explicit libertarian by any means, Havel was most definitely a lover of freedom. His life and writings are a lesson in the practice of “living in truth,” a term Havel cribbed from Alexander Solynsnehtizin and made the center of his philosophy. Havel’s essay The Power of the Powerless is one of the most insightful diagnoses and critiques of authoritarianism, a word often debated and discussed by those who have little experience of its misery. But Havel did not only accurately label the problem; he had a plan for its remedy. And unlike most high-​minded philosophers, Havel delivered on his promise. In this episode, we are going to talk about how a dissident chain-​smoking intellectual helped lead a revolution against the communist state and won, all without firing a single shot.

Vaclav Havel was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, on October 5th, 1936. Havel was not born into hardships by any means. His father and grandfather were both highly successful entrepreneurs in the construction industry. Havel’s mother was no slouch either. She was the daughter of a diplomat, working as a visual artist and designer. But despite all of this familial success, life was not going to be easy for Havel. In 1948 the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, with the backing of the Soviet Union/​USSR took control of the country, launching their miserable four-​decade-​long rule. Anyone deemed too wealthy or, as the communists say, Bourgeois, was persecuted, and their property was taken by the oh-​so benevolent state. Because of his family’s reputation and status, Havel and his younger brother Ivan were barred from any form of higher education. They were to live like good proletariats working manual labor jobs in factories for the good of society.

Havel finished high school in 1954. Coming from a highly educated and intellectual family, Havel applied to colleges with humanities programs to help develop his budding interest in theatre and film. Under normal circumstances, a student like Havel would be accepted at nearly any college, but in Communist Czechoslovakia, things were different. Havel was not accepted to any colleges because of his family’s class status. Normally if you heard a university rejected someone based on class, you would assume the college was elitist, but in Czechoslovakia, it was the exact opposite. Havel’s family and their original sin of being wealthy rubbed off on Ivan and Havel. Therefore the communist state cut off any opportunities for the children of the formerly prominent to rise again, knowing they would harbor mixed feelings to the regime that stole their parents’ livelihood. With few options, Havel decided to study at the Faculty of Economics of the Czech Technical University in Prague but left after undertaking two years of mandatory military service.

In between the “drudgery and the mindlessness of drills,” Havel began an amateur troupe putting on plays that were meant to elevate the ideological consciousness of fellow conscripts, but in reality contained subtle yet subversive elements, something Havel would put to great effect later in his career as a playwright.

After finishing his military service Havel was certain in his passion for theatre and applied to the Academy of Performing Arts, where he was rejected not based on merit but again due to familial connections and the educational blacklist of the communist state. He was eventually allowed to study but only through correspondence. Havel found work at theatres in Prague, first as a stagehand, then a dramaturg, and later an assistant director.

In 1963, Havel had his first full-​length play entitled Garden Party performed. The play follows the story of Hugo Pludek, an average man from a middle-​class family. Like every parent, Hugo’s family worries for his future. To secure his future, they organize for Hugo to meet Mr.Kalabis, an influential man with many connections. But Mr.Kalabis is busy attending a garden party held by the liquidation office. Refusing to miss this opportunity, Hugo is sent by his parents to mingle at the party as increasingly absurd scenarios unfold. Everyone who works at the liquidation office speaks in a highly ideological kind of manner, but their speech is devoid of any actual content. Hugo notices this and begins to speak just like others through platitudes and cliches. Thanks to his mimicking, Hugo secures a position as head of the newly created Central Inauguration and Liquidation Committee. When Hugo returns home successfully, his parents barely recognize their son. Hugo resembles the average person living in Communist Czechoslovakia who constantly had to conform to an official communist ideology and way of speaking simply to keep their economic livelihood.

Havel’s next play, called The Memorandum, deals with similar themes. The protagonist Gross due to work, has to use a new synthetic language called Ptydepe to help create a more rational and modern world. The language of Ptydepe represents how bureaucratic systems operate using a sort of official language that is blatantly not fit for purpose in any aspect of life but a bureaucracy.

Due to strict censorship, Havel could not directly criticize the communist state, so he had to use indirect methods where the meaning is hidden yet also in broad daylight. Havel’s plays use an absurdist style to highlight the moral bankruptcy of the communist regime, which forces citizens not to innovate and create but to conform over all else. Havel’s characters, faced with the absurdity of the system they live under, constantly rationalize their behavior and moral compromises in an attempt to conform, which inadvertently makes them part of the very system that oppresses. The oppressed become both the oppressor and the oppressed simultaneously.

In 1968, the reformer Alexander Dubček was elected as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Dubček wanted to bring partial decentralization into the economy and loosen restrictions on the media, speech, and travel. These reforms were not well received by the Kremlin, so half a million Soviet troops supplied by the Warsaw Pact occupied Czechoslovakia and put an end to what is now called the Prague Spring. Witnessing these events unfold, Havel no longer felt he could simply critique the system, he now had to oppose its machinations fully.

In the first week of the invasion of Soviet troops, Havel went on air on a radio station urging people to resist against this foreign occupation encouraging people to protest and asking listening westerners to condemn the invasion. After the suppression of the Prague Spring Havel was investigated for sedition and was banned from theatre. Many artists and intellectuals fled the country. The government offered Havel many chances to leave in exile to get rid of the troublemaker, but Havel consciously chose to stay in his home country, even though he could have easily made a living as a playwright abroad where his plays had already been performed in New York. Havel stayed firm, explaining that “The solution of this human situation does not lie in leaving it.”

The quelling of the Prague Spring brought in a period known euphemistically as normalization, an effort to return to the status quo through repression. Havel supported himself with theatre royalties until he took a job at a brewery as an unskilled laborer. During this time, he wrote three plays with the main character Vanek being an insert for Havel. He published his plays and writings in Samizdat form. Samizdat is the Russian word for self-​publishing. Throughout the Socialist Eastern Bloc, there was stringent government control over all aspects of life, especially publishing possibly controversial works. By 1975, Havel began circulating his own samizdat, sharing extracts from banned books, even writing an open letter to Czechoslovak President Husák criticizing the incumbent regime. Havel had become a prominent figure in the dissent movement through his writings and plays, but what launched him to the head of the dissent movement was his involvement in Charter 77.

In Czechoslovakia, like the rest of the Eastern Bloc, nearly every aspect of life was tightly controlled and regulated by an all-​powerful state. Not even music was the exception. In 1976, an alternative psychedelic rock band known as The Plastic People of the Universe was arrested for playing music without a license. To make an example out of the band members, they were put on trial and given lengthy sentences.

Though it sounded jarring and odd to him at first, Havel appreciated the band and that their music was free of any sort of ideological coercion. He wrote that “Here was something serious and genuine, and internally free articulation of an existential experience that everyone who had not become completely obtuse must understand.” Havel helped organize protests in support of the band because he viewed the trial as a precedent that the state could and would incarcerate anyone for individual expression, even if this expression was not political in any way.

In the aftermath of the trial, Czech intellectuals, artists, and writers formed charter 77, an informal civic initiative criticizing the state for failing to respect human rights provisions the state itself had already agreed to, such as the 1960 constitution of Czechoslovakia. The charter, co-​authored by Havel, demanded freedom of expression, religion, privacy, and basic civil rights “whose codification could greatly contribute to the development of a human society.” One of the most amazing things about Charter 77 was that it was a priori open to all people of any political persuasion. Signatories came from the Catholic right all the way to the Trotskyist left. An unheard-​of alliance of socialists, religious leaders, and intellectuals with wildly varying political opinions all came together, signing this document sharing a commitment to the rule of law and civic virtue. In December 1976, signatures were gathered, the charter was then published in January of the new year, thus the name Charter 77.

The government-​run press tore into Charter 77, calling it “an anti-​state, anti-​socialist, and demagogic, abusive piece of writing” written by “traitors and renegades.” Charter 77 was deemed an illegal document was never officially published by any of the state-​run press. Signatories were punished using a wide array of tools available to the all-​powerful state. Many were fired from their jobs or had educational opportunities denied to their children, and some were exiled or lost citizenship. Havel as a co-​author and leading spokesperson, was arrested but served a suspended sentence. After his release, he founded the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Prosecuted.

During this time, Havel wrote his most famous and enduring work, The Power of the Powerless. The original project was for Polish and Czechoslovak authors to come together and write a book on freedom, with Havel’s essay forming the basis of discussion for fellow authors. However, Havel was constantly under pressure from the secret police, who interrogated him on a daily basis. When Havel refused to cave, he was imprisoned. With Havel in prison, his essay was published in samizdat form. Havel dedicated the essay to his philosophical mentor Jan Patočka, a fellow charter 77 founding member who died of a stroke after an 11-​hour interrogation by the secret police.

Under the communist regime in Czechoslovakia, the state was an omnipresent force that used all sorts of political apparatus to make the population as passive as possible. We have already seen some of the state’s means, spying on potential dissidents, firing them from their jobs, denying their children education, and exile. But Havel noticed that something was different from your traditional run-​of-​the-​mill totalitarian state. Totalitarian systems operate by extinguishing all sorts of civil society to create the illusion that the law and public opinion are effectively the same to create a system in which the state has a monopoly of power in nearly every aspect of life. The all-​encompassing nature of the state is in the name totalitarian.

But Havel recognized a new sort of totalitarianism had developed in the Eastern Bloc, especially in Czechoslovakia, where authorities did their utmost to “normalize” society after the Prague Spring. Like the brutal Stalinist regime Havel denotes as “classical” totalitarianism, the Czechsloavkina government uses repression and fear, but now in a decidedly more anonymous, selective, and calculated manner. Though the state has an official narrative that is meant to be enforced by everyone, few, even in the highest positions of power, really believe this narrative. Increasingly the government resembled a pantomime of endless empty rituals to satiate the ego of the state. In the days of Stalin, the regime demanded the life, body, and soul of its citizens to fight for the vision of its leader. But what Havel calls neo-​totalitarianism is more about promoting passivity, fatalism, and cynicism that would make people retreat from political life into individual private concerns.

Though few accept the regime’s narrative, even those embedded within the state, Havel observed that the system “commands an incomparably more precise, logically structured, generally comprehensible and, in essence, extremely flexible ideology that, in its elaborateness and completeness, is almost a secularized religion.” But the consequences of not supporting

Havel explained that people “must live within a lie. They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them to have accepted their life with it and in it. For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system.” This is where the term post-​totalitarianism comes into play. Havel uses the now-​famous example of a shopkeeper who displays a sign with the Communist slogan “Workers of the world, unite!” The signs come with his shipment of goods to sell provided by the state. Regardless of his opinion, the shopkeeper hangs up the sign because of his fear of the state arresting him or ruining his children’s future careers. The sign thus becomes a symbol of his submission and humiliation.

Havel’s example can be applied to people in all sorts of positions, not just shopkeepers. Colossal numbers of people in communist states informed on one another resulting in an environment of rigid ideological conformity to a hollow ideal that not even those in power particularly believe. Havel explains that in a post-​totalitarian system, “not only does the system alienate humanity, but at the same time alienated humanity supports this system as its own involuntary master-​plan, as a degenerate image of its own degeneration, as a record of people’s own failure as individuals.”

The state that people begrudgingly serve is inadvertently supported by their own actions and words, which are manipulated through a complex web of anonymous power wielded by a state without any form of limits. If communism was a crime, then every citizen was now an accessory. But resistance seemed completely futile; Havel wrote that “If there are in essence only two ways to struggle for a free society—that is, through legal means and through (armed or unarmed) revolt—then it should be obvious at once how inappropriate the latter alternative is in the post-​totalitarian system.”

Then what exactly can anyone do against such a long-​lasting, efficient tyranny? Havel’s answer was to live in truth, a phrase he borrowed from the famous Russian Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the author of the Jordan Peterson favorite, the Gulag Archipelago. Havel also took his mentor Jan Patočka’s lesson to heart that individuals always carry responsibility with them no matter what the situation. If the rest of society lies, so be it, but never join their ranks. Havel noticed that the state so harshly punished dissenters because of the threat they posed to the system by pointing out its obvious flaws. Havel explained, “If the pillars of society live in mendacity, then living in truth is a fundamental threat to them. Hence, this crime is punished more severely than any other crime.”

By refusing to submit humiliatingly to the lies of others, a person living in truth in their daily life stands outside of the state-​mandated culture of normal society. Havel explained that those at the top try to control every person, but this is a nigh-​impossible task, always leaving room for those who refuse to conform. Living in truth for Havel was a possibility open to all people. However, that does not mean everyone lives in truth the same way. A person like Havel might write high-​minded plays about the nature of communism, while on the other end of the spectrum, the shopkeeper doesn’t display a sign with a communist slogan. Both are valid ways of living in truth because both examples are of people who refuse to be a part of the system and refuse to be humiliated. No matter who you are r what your circumstance, Havel believed the oppressed always have “within themselves the power to remedy their own powerlessness.” The ideal of freedom can never be extinguished, even in the most despicable regimes. Havel argued that as long as a person refuses to let a system give power over their lives, there is hope for freedom.

After publishing this essay, Havel was imprisoned from 1979 until 1983. While in prison, the playwright Samuel Beckett dedicated his short play catastrophe to Havel. By 1989 Havel was imprisoned again during commemorations for a protester who had died of self-​immolation to protest against the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. A petition was organized to release Havel, who was released on parole. By 1989 something had changed. Before, few would speak out or put their name on a petition for fear of reprisals, but when Havel initiated a petition calling for democracy, he received tens of thousands of signatures compared to the meager initial few hundred of Charter 77. Dissent was finally widespread.

By November 1989, the Berlin wall fell, sending shockwaves through the Eastern Bloc. Huge numbers of people took to the streets. By November 20th number of the protesters had grown from an already whopping 200,000 to half a million people. People jingled their keys in the streets as a sign of new doors opening but also as a jab to the authorities, saying it’s time to pack up and go home. By the 28th, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia pledged to relinquish power and end the one-​party state that had existed for four decades. This surreal event became known as the Velvet Revolution because it was a near bloodless revolution spontaneously enacted by the people.

Havel was launched to the head of the newly founded group Civic Forum and was quickly elected as president in the first free election of his adult life. But this was a position Havel was hesitant to take, explaining that, “I had neither aspired to this position nor strived to attain it. Destiny had indeed played a strange joke on me, as if telling me through all those who persuaded me to accept the office. ‘Since you’re so smart, now it is your chance to show everyone you have ever criticized the right way to do things.” Showing his character, Havel’s first-​ever presidential address was not a triumphant celebration but instead a solemn speech where he urged every citizen to acknowledge they were all “co-​creators” of the totalitarian nightmare they had emerged from.

Upon assuming the presidency, he opposed efforts to strip former communist officials of their civil rights or engage in other punitive actions since, as he famously claimed, all citizens were “co-​creators” of the totalitarian machine. By 1993, Czechoslovakia ceased to exist, becoming the two separate states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. As president Havel was respected greatly for his moral authority, but many of his decisions confused his fellow Czechs. For example, despite all of the hardships experienced, he warned against reprisals for former communist officials. While Czechoslovakia was still in existence, Havel disbanded arms and munitions productions, stating that he did not think it was “ethical to produce arms for world’s armies, guerillas, and gangs.” At times Havel’s moral convictions made him seem aloof to the everyday wants and needs of the newly founded Czech Republic. But keep in mind that the president’s power is mainly symbolic under the Czech constitution, with real power vested in the prime minister. However, Havel did all he could, using his presidential veto power 30 times over his ten-​year career in political office. Havel invoked his veto powers to protect the rule of law and political plurality. Havel also played a significant role in the establishment of a senate, constitutional court, and an ombudsman’s office.

Havel was renowned for his amateurish yet endearing style of politics. He had never held political office but had all of a sudden been hurled into the political scene. In the long halls of Prague Castle, his secretaries used children’s scooters to get around faster. In 1990, Havel invited rockstar Frank Zappa to be the cultural advisor of Prague Castle.

Though at times unpopular at home, Havel rapidly ascended to international prominence, meeting US President George Bush in 1990 and addressing both houses of Congress. But Havel’s personality transcended politics, meeting with religious leaders like the Dalai Lama and Pope John Paul. For his undying commitment to human rights, Havel received numerous awards and accolades, including the Gandhi peace prize, the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, and the US presidential freedom medal.

Havel completed his second term as president in 2003, stepping down from office to return to writing and speaking out for the victims of totalitarianism across the globe. Havel published his experiences as president in his memoirs To the Castle and Back, published in 2007. During the European Union and United States summit in Prague in April 2009, Havel met privately with Barack Obama. Though no longer in politics, Havel stayed busy as part of the Human Rights Foundation’s International Council chair and an advisory member of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. After an eventful, unpredictable life, Havel died on December 18th, 2011. A few hours earlier, Kim Jong-​il, the Supreme Leader of North Korea, died, quite the contrast in obituaries.

Havel’s death was met with tributes from world leaders like Barack Obama and David Cameron, praising his principled and morally focused leadership. Unlike many politicians, Havel put ethics far above the realm of politics, a lesson many world leaders still refuse to learn. It is safe to say there probably won’t be a reluctant yet moral leader like Havel who comes to political prominence so quickly ever again.

Havel once wrote that “When the time is ripe, an unarmed man-​in-​the-​street can disarm an entire division of soldiers.” When I first read this, I thought he was just idealistic, but the evidence is there in the Velvet Revolution, an environment of dissent that might never have come without Havel’s undying criticism of the communist regime that rode roughshod over civil liberties.

It is hard to describe Havel as anything politically because he was seemingly a man above party loyalties. He spoke extensively on the importance of the separation of powers, the universal right to vote, the authority of the rule of law, freedom of expression, and the inviolability of private ownership. But Havel did not praise institutions. He praised people. Havel saw that these institutions protected a sphere for the individual to live in truth, to express themselves, and live authentic lives free from fear of a coercive state.

Being such a towering figure in the history of the Czech Republic, you would expect Prague to be littered with ornate monuments to the deceased Havel. When I returned home to Dublin from the Czech Republic, I visited a place called Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in the middle of the city, where there is a monument to Havel. Not a giant statue of him looking heroic, no special plaques or grand structure. Instead, Havel’s monument is two chairs with a table in between with a tree providing shade for anyone sitting down. It is one of many all over the world. They are called Havel’s places. The two chairs and table represent the willingness of people to come together and discuss their differences. A humble monument to political plurality and free expression, I cannot think of a better way to encapsulate the life and legacy of Vaclav Havel.