In this lecture, based on the book project we are currently writing (under contract with Oxford University Press), we explore why ordinary people inform on others in repressive times. We will also inquire how, after those times end, law should speak of, to, and about collaborators and informers.
We unwind the place of collaborators, informants, colluders, and connivers within Communist Czechoslovakia (1948-1989), and discuss how and why subsequent transitional justice measures fell short in dealing with many of collaborative acts and the harms these acts inflicted. We construe many acts of informing to police within Communist Czechoslovakia through the lens of emotions which motivated informers to come forward: such as devotion to ideology, desire to get things or get ahead, resentment to get even, or fear.
During the Communist rule (1948-1989) hundreds of individuals were executed for political reasons; more than 4.000 political prisoners died in prisons, as a consequence of torture and maltreatment; about 262.500 individuals were found guilty of political offences, and a large part incarcerated; and about 20.000 people were placed in forced labour camps. Over 60.000 individuals were listed as collaborators of the State Secret Police (StB). The communist ideology based on strength in unity , collectivity, and paradoxes of utopia, modernization and feudalism was accompanied by systematic repression, whose leitmotiv was to generate impasse, fear, distrust, fragmentation and competition among individuals.
Following the 1989 Velvet Revolution , Czechoslovakia underwent a relatively peaceful transition from communism to liberal democracy and market economy. Officially implemented lustration laws purged informers from official functions, assuming their purely ideological motivations to collaborate. The (alleged) StB agents were also exposed to popular justice and public shaming. While many secret agent files were destroyed in the early 1990’s, the unofficial lists of names of alleged collaborators (so called Cibulka’s lists ) were published in the Rudé krávo newspaper. In 2002 the clarity laws opened the whole remaining StB archives, including files of informers, for everyone to see. All in all, dealing with the past arguably missed the point and re-generated fear, mistrust, jealousy and fragmentation.
This lecture thus unwinds the place of collaborators, informants, colluders, and connivers in Communist Czechoslovakia, in particular, in terms of their interactions with the state security forces. Additionally, it discusses how and why transitional justice measures in the post-communist Czech Republic fall (or fell) short in dealing with these collaborative acts and the harms they occasioned. What should transitional justice look like for collaborative acts that trigger great harm to others but are motivated not by ideology but rather by pettiness, convenience, opportunism, material acquisition, jealousy, and selfishness? Is opportunism during ‘unjust circumstances’ a dynamically different force than opportunism during ‘just circumstances’? How do opportunists interface with transitional justice? Do they do so (once again) opportunistically? Collaboration may be more continuous than discontinuous: acts of problematic collaborative support of authoritarian regimes may hinge upon similar techniques of social navigation (including by the very same individuals) as do subsequent acts of salutary collaborative support of transitional justice frameworks paradoxically within often destructive and punitive neo-liberal market regimes.
The lecture will be followed by a discussion with the participants. The authors invite the audience to share their thoughts and questions: After presenting the Czechoslovak case study we will be interested to hear from participants not only their reflections on our case study but also on how collaboration with authorities and informing revolves in the other contexts.
To attend, please register by following the link.