From "Reviews of Books," in
The American Historical Review,
Vol. 90, No. 5, (Dec. 1985), 1236
Image follows, with text below that.
The American Historical Review, Vol. 90, No. 5, (Dec. 1985), 1236 From "Reviews of Books," page 1236: CONDOLEEZZA RICE. The Soviet Union and the Czecho- slovak Army, 1948-1983: Uncertain Allegiance. Princeton: Princeton University press. 1984. pp. xiv, 303. $37.50. To write a scholarly study on the relationship of the Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak army without access to relevant Czechoslovak and Soviet docu- ments is difficult. Therefore, much of this book by Condoleezza Rice is based on secondary works. His thesis is that the Soviets directly influence military elites in the satellite countries, in addition to the Soviet Communist party interacting with the domes- tic parties. Rice selects Czechoslovakia as a case study and attempts to show the role of the military as instrument of both national defense and the Soviet- controlled military alliance. Rice's selection of sources raises questions, since he frequently does not sift facts Itom propaganda and valid information front disinformation or mis- inlormation. He passes judgments and expresses opinions without adequate knowledge of facts. It does not add to his credibility when he uses a source written by Josef Hodic; Rice fails to notice that this "former military scientist" (p. 99) was a communist agent who returned to Czechoslovakia several years ago. Rice based his discussion of the "Sejna affair" (pp. III, 11fi, 144) largely on communist propa- ganda sources and did not consult writings and statements by former General Jan Sejna who had access to Warsaw Pact documents and is the highest military officer from the Soviet bloc to defect to the West since World War 11. Rice's generalizations reflect his lack of knowledge about history and the nationality problem in Czech- oslovakia. For example, in 1955 Czechoslovakia was not yet "the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic" (pp. 83, 84). In May 1938 Ludvik Svoboda was serving in the Czech army, not organizing a Czech military unit in Poland. In the fall of' 1939 he was captured by the Soviet invading forces in eastern Poland: he did not "[escape] to the USSR" (p. 43). Rice's discus- sion of the "Czechoslovak Legion" that was "born during the chaotic period preceding the fall of the Russian empire" (pp 44-46) is ridiculous. (It was "born" on September 28, 1914.) He is clearly igno- rant of the history of the military unit as well as of the geography of the area on which it fought. Rice claims that "Czechoslovaks are supposedly passive and consider resistance to invading forces unnecessary and dangerous, preferring instead po- litical solution' (p. 4). First. there are Czechs and Slovaks but no Czechoslovaks. Second, history shows that Czechs resisted the invading Prussians in 1866, that during World War 1 more than one million Czechs and Slovaks fought in the Austro-Hungarian armies, and that several tens of thousands volun- teered for service in the Czechoslovak armies in Russia, France, and Italy. In 1919 Czechs and Slo- vaks fought the invading armies of Bela Kun in Slovakia. In 1939 and 1948, "the Czechoslovak pres- ident, Edvard Benes. ordered his troops to the barracks," writes Rice. "[Alexander] Dubcek and Svoboda were, then just following precedent. Czech- oslovak passivity meant that the decision of 1968 was preordained" (pp. 4-6). Nothing, indeed, is preor- dained in history. Moreover, Benes in 1939 was no longer president but was teaching at the University of Chicago. In comparing Poland in 1981 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, Rice does not mention the obvious: whereas Soviet troops have been garrisoned in Poland since the end of World War II and, therefore, an invasion of Poland was unnecessary, the main objective of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia was to force Dubcek's regime to accept the stationing of Soviet troops in the country. The writing abounds with meaningless phrases, such as is its "last word": "Thirty-five years after its creation, the Czechoslovak People's Army stands suspended between the Czechoslovak nation and the socialist world order" (p. 245). JOSEF KALVODA Saint Joseph College West Hartford, Connecticut
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