Micgiel, John

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BOOK REVIEWS 109 ting, are meas])red by adherence to the cardinal points of Masaryk's Realism. For those Slovenes who are the authors principals-Dragotin Loncar, Anton Dermota, Ivan Zmavc, and Gregor Zerjav, among others-Clerical and Liberal politics had long ceased to work for the nation. They were attracted to Masaryk because Realism meant action, particularly as it addressed national issues. For him the national question was a social one requiring major efforts in furthering cultural awareness, education, and spiritual renewal among all Slovenes. It necessitated working with the people and politicizing the social issues which characterized their plight. Once those issues were resolved, the national question would take care of itself. Masaryk also favored a larger all-Slav effort in this direction. The Slovene Masarykites were far from successful. They were few in number, and in an age of growing popular involvement in politics (the Vienna Reichsrat in 1907 was elected on the basis of universal suffrage) they were poor campaigners. Going to the people was a dismal failure. Their message of spiritual regeneration was too cerebral for the Slovene peasant. Godina demonstrates this well as she traces their political activities and philosophical meanderings over the years. Some Masarykites joined the JSDS, which was essentially a Slovene party with a designation intended to attract other South Slavs. But at least it was not orthodox Marxist and materialist, a position categorically abhorred by the Czech philosophy professor. The JSDS was revisionist, meaning it believed in evolu-tion toward socialism and allowed room for spiritual interpretations of historical develop-ment. Other Slovenes who had studied in Prague, especially from the NRD, ended by joining the Slovene liberal political camp, thereby ignoring Loncar's warning that liberal-ism was dead. Some even began to lean toward clerical politics on the ground that Catholicism defined the spiritual character of Slovenes. Finally, various individuals within these groups abandoned Masaryk's affinity for an all-Slav movement, and chose Yugoslavism instead. This, an expanded version of Godina's Master's work under Janko Pleterski, is a very good book on a subject which has been little explored. Its strength is in its documentation of the intense debates among Slovene intellectuals which resulted in ever-changing philo-sophical and political positions when addressing the issues of their time. Godina begins with an extensive bibliographical essay. For her own study she uses, primarily, journals, newspaper and occasionally correspondence. Also, the book is blessed with footnotes, so often lacking in publications from Slovenia, and it has photographs of some of the author's heroes. Finally, this book has some puzzling features. The conclusion is followed by biographical features of some Masarykites; yet some important figures are not included, v while Ivan Zmavc, who lived exclusively in Prague and was hardly known in Slovene lands, is given the most thorough treatment. The book concludes with a twenty-five page debate between Masaryk and Janez Evangelist Krek, the popular cleric from the Slovene People's Party, on the freedoms oflearning and conscience at universities; this seems out of place given that the book's focus is Slovene Masarykites. Carole Rogel, The Ohio State University. Karel Kaplan, The Short March: The Communist Takeover in Czechoslovakia, 1945-1948. New York: St. Martin's, 1987. xiv + 207 pp., maps, tables. $29.95, cloth. In February 1948 the Czechoslovak Communist Party provoked a governmental crisis 110 BOOK REVIEWS which endeq , with their complete seizure of power and the link-up of Communist Czechoslovakia with the Soviet bloc. Karel Kaplan argues that the Communists triumphed relatively easily and with the consent and strong support of a large part of the population. He concludes that there were basically two reasons for this. The Communists were able to control and paralyze the opposition through the National Front, an organization "which weakened public and independent control of power, suppressed the authority of Parliament and of political and social organizations, bound them to obedience ... , constricted the flow of information to the public about important domestic and international political questions and discussions, and limited the creation of state policy to the leading circles of the political parties. The non-Communist parties, linked by coalition discipline, could only make negligible use of their share in the National Front's monopoly to defend democracy." Once the National Front had been rendered inconsequential, the Communists organized massive demonstrations through the ancillary organizations of the Front, created and controlled by them. While condemning the activities of these organizations, the opposition had no corresponding counterforce to them, or to the Communists' supremacy in the various security forces. They were, Kaplan contends, unable to compete in the quest for power because they "restricted themselves to the means of rivalry which are conventional in parliamentary democracies." Needless to say, as in the other East Central European countries in the postwar period, the contest was decided by other means outside the democratic-paliamentary sphere. Kaplan's analysis is essentially deterministic, positing that the struggle for power was uneven and that the non-Communists were doomed from the very start. He is not alone in this appraisal , for other western specialists have argued along the same lines. Neverthe-less, it should be pointed out that during the first two years of independence, notwithstand-ing Communist predominance in important areas, there was still much room to maneuver, at least until mid-1947. It was then that the first sign of change occurred , when the Czech government, prodded by Stalin, refused participation in the Marshall Plan. With a wors-ening international political situation, the domestic political scene soon deteriorated. Kaplan's account (Chapter XII) of the organization of the Communist-controlled security and intelligence services and their activities in the latter half of 1947, their penetration by Soviet agents, and their subsequent role in the timing of the Commuist takeover is particularly fascinating. Originally published in German in 1981 (as Der kurze Marsch. Kommunistische Mach-tubernahme (MunichlVienna: R. Oldenbourg, 1981», this study is smoothly translated. The author, while consulting the memoirs and studies of various non-Communist opposi-tion leaders and journalists, based himself mainly on works published in Czechoslovakia. The strength of the book lies however in Kaplan's use of archival material, gathered while he was a Central Committee official in charge of "historical questions," and subsequently smuggled out of Czechoslovakia. He cites documents extensively from the restricted archives of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party , the Government Presidium, and the National Assembly. The author provides the reader with a useful listing of ministers in Czechoslovakia's governments during the three years following liberation, as well as a register of officials and their functions. While he does not ignore the political personalities of the time, he concentrates on and very broadly examines the broader socio-political processes that eventually led to the Communist monopoly of power. While the specialist might desire more information concerning, for instance , the abuses engaged in by the security services, or perhaps a chapter comparing the Czechoslovak case BOOK REVIEWS I I I with Communist takeovers in neighboring countries, there is no doubt that Karel Kaplan has produced an original, highly competent, and interesting contribution to the political history of postwar Eastern Europe. John Micgiel, Columbia University. Fred Bahovec, Ljubljancan na Aljaski. Spomini in lovske zgodbe. Sitka - Ljubljana: Knjiznica Glasnika Slovenskega etnoloskega drustva 16. 1987. 120 pp. This small volume centers on the autobiographical experiences of one Fred Bahovec. At first glance the reader may suppose that Bahovec was an ordinary human but, having read his memoirs, one sees that he was indeed quite extraordinary. In fact the story of his life takes on almost epic proportions: Born in Ljubljana in 1889, he early developed a desire to experience new places, especially those in the as yet untamed and uncivilized parts of this world. The first section of this booklet is his highly moving biography; the second contains narratives of his hunting and fishing experiences in the northern wilderness. Bahovec' father emigrated to the United States in 1896; his son, young Miroslav , whose name was difficult for his Chicago schoolmates, soon came to be called Fred. Eager to see the world, Fred joined the navy at seventeen and spent some time in San Francisco , Honolulu, Guam and Luzon. Upon his return he bought a farm in Michigan; but a potato-bug infestation destroyed the harvest , the cows became ill, and the horses died. Having heard stories of life in the far Northwest, Fred worked in Chicago to earn the money for a journey to Alaska. He and his friend Franc Zafran (Safran) , a schoolmate from Ljubljana, took the train to Seattle, and then sailed north to Wrangell. There they met three other Slavs-two from Ukraine and one from Russia-and they all went off into the wilderness to build a log cabin and hunt for deer, bear, and even seals, with the aim of making money by selling the pelts in town. They trapped mink, marten and otter, as well as other less exotic animals such as squirrels and weasels. As there were almost no women there except Indians and prostitutes, in 1915 Fred married a seventeen-year-old Indian princess named Edna. Wanting to show her the world, he took her to Chicago, and then back to Seattle. In 1922 Fred bought a small fishing boat, and sent his wife and (by now) three children to Wrangell by ship. He then sailed on his • own to meet them in Wrangell, where he began fishing for salmon. His next move was to Baranof, a settlement in Warm Springs Bay; there , he built a house and started a mink farm. After his wife died, he married a black woman named Grace, from Montana. She took care of Fred's children and they remained married for thirty years. In 1959 Fred retired , moved to Sitka, and in 1961 met his third wife , a black named Clothilde. He had sometime previously learned to make jewelry from semi-precious stones, and now he added that to his outdoor occupations of hunting , trapping and fi shing. Today, two Alaskan mountains are named after him and his life-long friend: Peak Bahovec , and Mount Safran. Bahovec-if still alive today-is at 101 years a truly remarkable man: a survivor, a skilled hunter, trapper, sailor and fisherman. Three times married, father of several children, he is an optimist who believes in "positive thinking," a man who , after many setbacks, simply started over each time and built a new life. Hi s tales of the hunt and of the catch are filled with the vitality of a true story-teller; told in the third person (he refers to the main character as "Mirko" ), they are brief, one to two page narratives; but they capture the thrill, and sometimes the fear, of each particular experience. , 

Karel Kaplan. The Short March: the Communist Takeover in Czechoslovakia, 1945-1948. New York: St. Martin's, 1987.

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