Chic, Ota

The father is Jewish , the mother is Czech . He studied at the German school ^[1] . In 1933 he entered the Prague Academy of Arts , but could not finish it. From the age of 17 he earned his living, at the same time he continued painting.

In 1939 , after the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, he joined the Resistance . Since 1940 a member of the Communist Party . The following year, the Gestapo was arrested and sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp . He served his sentence together with the future head of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and Czechoslovakia Antonin Novotny and the father of the future leader of the Prague Spring, Stefan Dubcek ^[2] . In 1945, freed by American troops.

Preparing Reforms

Ota Shik was a prominent economist of the communist direction. In 1961 he was appointed director of the Institute of Economics of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences . Since 1962 - a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. He opposed the dogmatic copying of the Soviet economic model , was in the commission for the preparation of economic reforms (plans of this kind were prepared long before the Prague Spring, during the reign of Novotny).

Schick began to actively punch the idea of ​​radical economic transformation, paying no attention to any obstacles. Probably from that moment on, it was he who could be considered the leader of Czechoslovak reforms, despite even his relatively low position in the state hierarchy. In 1966, at the next congress of the CHR, Shik, during his speech, went beyond the framework of economic reforms proper and made a proposal on the need for political democratization of society. Brezhnev , who was sitting on the presidium of the congress, was frankly shocked by the applause caused by the performance of a little-known Czech scientist.

Dmitry Travin ^[1]

In April 1968, the new general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Alexander Dubchek, appointed Shik as vice-premier and coordinator of economic reforms. The theoretical substantiation of the developed economic model was published in 1964 by Shik's book, “On the Problem of Socialist Commodity Relations” (“On the problematice socialistick? Ch zboznich vztahu”) ^[3] .

Self-government humanism

Ota Shik characterized his economic concept as “the third way (alternative to capitalism and Soviet- type socialism ) of economic democracy”. The doctrine was based on the following basic principles:

• maximum development of industrial self-government in industry
• consideration of market factors in pricing
• empowerment of enterprises at the disposal of profit
• indicative nature of central macroeconomic planning
• active antitrust policy

Under such a general economic environment, Schick considered the secondary issue of the formal affiliation of an enterprise. The beneficiaries of production in its concept are employees of enterprises and society as a whole, combining the positive features of a socialist and capitalist economy while eliminating negative ones. At the same time, the importance of the human factor, the humanistic nature of the concept was emphasized.

A striking step by Schick was the publication of previously hidden statistics, indicating a strong lag in living standards in Czechoslovakia from neighboring Austria ^[4] (during the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Czech Republic was a more developed area). This justified the need for the proposed reforms. The task was to catch up with Austria ^[5] on the main indicators for four years.

Theory outside practice

For his time, the reform proposals of Shik looked bold and far-reaching. Of all the representatives of the Dubcekov leadership, it was Ota Shik who was subsequently subjected to the toughest criticism in the Soviet propaganda - as the “ right revisionist ” and the “restorer of capitalism”. However, later the economic ideology of the Prague Spring began to be considered “naive”. Some of her theses were tested in the USSR during the Gorbachev Perestroika period and gave an effect that was largely the opposite of what was expected ^[6] . Attempts to combine planned beginnings with market ones on the basis of self-government with the dominance of state property are usually viewed as unproductive ^[7] .

The program of the main economic ideologue of spring Otu Shik, branded as an extremely revisionist, did not go beyond the development of the principles of workers' self-government, decentralization and the introduction of progressive cost accounting models ... The nature of ownership was not raised at all ... Perhaps the party and economic nomenclature of Czechoslovakia was somewhat more polished than their Soviet counterparts (although this impression does not arise from reading the memoirs), because in 1988 in the USSR, part of the nomenclature followed the path of reforms, partly - the way the brakes The ennies, part of them waited and hesitated along with the party line, but no one else seriously stole - and who could imagine what remarkable talents in this area the non-observable (or even progressive) seemingly nomenclatures would see themselves after only two or three years.
Maxim Sokolov ^[8]

At the same time, the proposals of Ota Shik were practically not implemented. Economic reform in Czechoslovakia in 1968 did not advance further lively discussions on this topic. The reason was not only the lack of time, but also serious resistance from a significant part of the party apparatus, who did not want to concede any authority in the field of economic management ^[9] . The only concrete result of the new economic policy was the appearance of private taxis in Prague ^[10] .

At the time of the Warsaw Pact intervention, Ota Shik was on vacation in Belgrade . Under the threat of arrest, he did not return to Czechoslovakia. He emigrated to Switzerland , taught economics in Basel , Manchester , St. Gallen . He wrote a number of books on the economics of democratic socialism.

After the Velvet Revolution of 1989, Ota Shik was invited to Prague and was appointed Economic Advisor to President Vaclav Havel . However, he failed to have any serious impact on economic policy. Reforms were carried out according to the model of Václav Klaus , based on economic liberalism , monetarism and the priority of private investors, rather than labor collectives ^[11] .

Ota Shik returned to Switzerland, where he remained until the end of his life. He was a professor of economics at the University of St. Gallen .

Otya Shik's passion was painting; he held several exhibitions of his works in Prague and Zurich .

One of his sons, theater director and artist Jiri Polak , lives in Berlin . Another is architect Miroslav Schick , a professor at the Swiss Higher Technical School of Zurich .

• Economy. Interests. Politics. - M .: Progress , 1964. - 508 p.
• To problematice socialistických zboznich vztahu. - Praha, 1964.
• “The Third Way: Marxist-Leninist Theory and Modern Industrial Society” (1972)
• “Towards a Humane Economic Democracy” (1979)
• "The Communist system of power" (1981)
• "Economic Systems" (1989)
• Spring revival - illusions and reality. - M .: Progress, 1991. - 392 p.

• Zdenek Mlynarzh