Mlynarj, Zdenek

Born in the family of an officer. At the age of 16 he joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia . He studied in the Soviet Union , graduated from the law faculty of Moscow State University . In his student years he met with Mikhail Gorbachev , was his hostel neighbor.

I had a friend Zdenek Mlynarzh. We were friends for the rest of his life.
Mikhail Gorbachev ^[1] .

He worked at the Institute of State and Law of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences . From an early youth he adhered to the ideas of democratic socialism .

Since the mid-1960s, limited liberalization began in the public life of Czechoslovakia . Zdenek Mlynarz, as a researcher, was included in the group of referents for the party leadership. In 1964 - 1968 he led the legal commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China ^[2] . He advocated the expansion of freedom of speech, assembly and discussion, the democratization of electoral legislation (the nomination of several candidates and alternative elections), the development of civic initiatives and self-government principles. He proposed removing from the constitution the provision on the HRC as "an instrument of the dictatorship of the proletariat."

These ideas were set forth in Mlynarz’s article, “Towards a Democratic Political Organization of Society,” in which he spoke out for a pluralistic system and carefully dissociated himself from the Soviet political system (citing the Maoist People’s Republic of China as a negative example). At the same time, Mlynarge distanced himself from the demand of a multi-party system, which meant the loss of power of the CPC.

If the situation of people in the political system does not change, the state of affairs will not change. An effective and dynamic socialist economy is impossible without changes in economic relations. This thesis is based on the concept of socialism as a social system that preserves the features of the activity of European capitalist development. This contradicts other concepts of socialism, which are based on the historical conditions of development of other civilizations, for example, the East, as we see it in the Chinese concept.
A political system that is based on this principle is called pluralistic. It would be fair to say that an experiment is being carried out in Czechoslovakia to create a pluralistic society, which at present has no analogy among socialist states. A pluralistic political system is often identified with the existence of a large number of political parties. But I do not think this is right, in any case, for a socialist society.
Zdenek Mlynarz ^[3]

In 1968, Mlynář became one of the closest associates of the new Secretary General of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Alexander Dubcek, and was the main ideologist of the Prague Spring.

Czechoslovak reforms were forcibly suppressed by the intervention of the Warsaw Pact . Soon after, Mlynarzh was removed from the Central Committee, and in 1970 he was expelled from the CPC. He worked as a research fellow at the Entomological Museum.

In January 1977, Zdenek Mlynarz signed the dissident program appeal of Charter 77 . Along with Jan Patochka , Vaclav Havel , Jiri Hayek and Pavel Kohout, he was one of the first to join this movement for the observance of human rights. Many members of the Charter 77 played an important political role in the democratic transformation at the turn of the 1980-1990s.

In June 1977, under the pressure of party organs and state security, Zzenek Mlynarz was forced to emigrate to Austria . Socialist Chancellor Bruno Kreisky granted him a position at the Austrian Institute for International Politics ^[4] . Mlynarge gained international authority as a political scientist specializing in analyzing the development of communist regimes. The book Mráz přichází z Kremlu - “Frost struck from the Kremlin” about the events of 1968 caused especially great resonance.

He taught political science at the University of Innsbruck .

After the Velvet Revolution, Zdenek Mlynář returned to Czechoslovakia. He enjoyed great authority among the left forces, was the honorary chairman of Levý blok - the “Left Bloc” - a coalition of communists with socialists (Party of Democratic Left, “Left Alternative”, etc.) of the first half of the 1990s. However, he did not accept the results of the Czechoslovak reforms: the Czech Communist Party actually refused to reform, and right-liberal moods prevailed in society. The ideas of democratic socialism were not in demand. In addition, Mlynarz was outraged by politicians who succeeded in Czechoslovakia and took radical anti-socialist positions in the new Czech Republic (the most striking example is the organizer of Czech liberal reforms, Vaclav Klaus ).

Zdenek Mlynarg returned to Innsbruck and began researching the development of Central and Eastern Europe. Until his death, he also worked at the Laxenburg International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis .

Mikhail Gorbachev has repeatedly called Zdenek Mlynarz his friend and like-minded person. The ideas expressed in the article “Towards a Democratic Political Organization of Society” largely laid the foundation for the concept of political reform in the USSR, formulated at the January plenum of the CPSU Central Committee in 1987 and at the 19th CPSU Conference of 1988.

Zdenek Mlynarzh was twice married. His first wife, an economist Rita Budinova , was a spokesperson for the Civil Forum in 1989, and a Czechoslovak ambassador to the United States in 1990-1991. There is an assumption that it was she who authored the term Sametová revoluce - “Velvet Revolution” ^[5] . The second wife, Irena Dubska, is a philosopher and sociologist, a member of the dissident movement, who signed Charter 77 with her husband and followed him into exile.

The son of Zdeněk Mlynář - Vladimir Mlynář - member of the board of directors of the investment company PPF , in 2002 - 2005 was the Czech Minister of Information. Daughter - Milena Bartlova - historian of Czech medieval art.

• Ota Chic
• Peter Ul
• Frantisek Kriegel

• Night Frost in Prague. The End of Humane Socialism , 1981
  • Zdenek Mlynarzh Cold blows from the Kremlin . - New York: Problems of Eastern Europe, 1988. - 310 p.
  • Zdenek Mlynarzh Frost struck from the Kremlin. - M .: Republic, 1992.
• “Reformers are not happy” (dialogue with Mikhail Gorbachev, in Czech, 1995)
• Krize v sovětských systémech od Stalina ke Gorbačovovi , 1991
• Socialistou na volné noze , 1992

• Zdeněk Mlynář. Proti srsti