The 'club of politically engaged conformists?' : The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, popular opinion and the crisis of Communism, 1956

Khrushchev’s February 1956 ‘Secret Speech’ at a closed session of the Soviet Union’s 20th Party Congress sent shockwaves throughout communist Eastern Europe that threatened to destabilize the fragile political and ideological legitimacy of the Soviet bloc regimes. In CWIHP Working Paper No. 66, “The ‘Club of Politically Engaged Conformists’? The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Popular Opinion and the Crisis of Communism, 1956,” Kevin McDermott and Vítězslav Sommer argue that 1956 represented a ‘crisis of communism’ of monumental proportions, but although Czechoslovakia remained a haven of political stability compared to neighboring Poland and Hungary, the Communist Party was thrown into disarray and Czech and Slovak citizens responded to the cataclysmic events of 1956 in multifarious ways ranging from outright opposition to the regime to steadfast loyalty.