The Party of Moderate Progress Within the Bounds of the Law (PMPWBL, ) was a satirical political party in
Cisleithania (
Austro-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
), founded by
Jaroslav Hašek
Jaroslav Hašek (; 1883–1923) was a Czech writer, humorist, satirist, journalist, bohemian and anarchist. He is best known for his novel '' The Fate of the Good Soldier Švejk during the World War'', an unfinished collection of farcical inc ...
in 1911. The party campaigned satirically for election to the
Imperial Council (Austria)
The Imperial Council (german: Reichsrat; cs, Říšská rada, links=yes; pl, Rada Państwa, links=yes; it, Consiglio Imperiale, links=yes; sl, Državni zbor, links=yes; uk, Райхсрат, Державна рада, links=yes; bs, Carevins ...
.
Due to their dual nature as both a political "party" and a political-artistic "action group", it is often extremely difficult to differentiate the reality from the fiction of the SMPVMZ.
History
Founding
According to the statements of the party leader Hašek, the party was founded in 1904 in the restaurant 'The Golden Liter' (Czech: ''Zlatý litr'') in
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
's
Vinohrady
Královské Vinohrady (in English literally "Royal Vineyards" german: Königliche Weinberge) is a cadastral district in Prague. It is so named because the area was once covered in vineyards dating from the 14th century. Vinohrady lies in the muni ...
quarter.
Other participants were the writer
František Langer
František Langer (3 March 1888 – 2 August 1965) was a Czech-Jewish playwright, screenwriter, essayist, literary critic, publicist and military physician.
Life
Langer was born and in Prague, Austria-Hungary in a Czech speaking Jewish fam ...
and the Prague Technikum official Eduard Drobílek, who came up with the idea and served as treasurer. The party name referred to the controversial
Imperial Rescript
In legal terminology, a rescript is a document that is issued not on the initiative of the author, but in response (it literally means 'written back') to a specific demand made by its addressee. It does not apply to more general legislation.
Over ...
dated September 12, 1871, in which the
Bohemian Landtag, as the representative organ of Czech political power, was asked to contribute to "the contemporary constitutional order, in the spirit of moderation and reconciliation." The party was most likely founded as a direct response to the overly accommodating behavior of the
Czech Social Democratic Party
The Czech Social Democratic Party ( cs, Česká strana sociálně demokratická, ČSSD, ) is a social-democratic political party in the Czech Republic. Sitting on the centre-left of the political spectrum and holding pro-European views, it is a ...
("Evolution, not Revolution"), whose Prague representatives held events in Zlatý litr.
The party slogan abbreviation was "SRK", which officially stood for "Solidarity, Rights and Comradeship" () but in practice meant
Slivovitz
Slivovitz is a fruit spirit (or fruit brandy) made from damson plums, often referred to as plum spirit (or plum brandy). If anyone else has a dictionary of some Slavic language that translates your word for slivovitz as "plum brandy", please a ...
,
Rum
Rum is a liquor made by fermenting and then distilling sugarcane molasses or sugarcane juice. The distillate, a clear liquid, is usually aged in oak barrels. Rum is produced in nearly every sugar-producing region of the world, such as the Ph ...
and
Kontusovka.
The party grew slowly. By its own account, there were only eight members as of December 14, 1904.
As time went on the membership grew to include a few lawyers and doctors, as well as numerous figures from Prague's cultural scene: the
anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
journalist and publisher
Antonín Bouček; satirist, painter, and anarchist
František Gellner
František Gellner (19 June 1881 – disappeared September 1914) was a Czech poet, short story writer, artist and anarchist.
Biography
František Gellner was born to a poor Jewish family in Mladá Boleslav (''Jungbunzlau''), Bohemia. His father ...
, who served two stints as party secretary; writers and satirists including
Karel Toman
Karel Toman (born as ''Antonín Bernášek'') (1877–1946) was a Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine ...
,
Josef Mach
Josef Mach (25 February 1909, in Prostějov – 7 July 1987, in Prague) was a Czech actor, screenwriter and film director.
Josef Mach worked as a journalist and stage performer at the beginning of his career, then in 1938 was appointed assistant d ...
,
Gustav Roger Opočenský
Gustav, Gustaf or Gustave may refer to:
*Gustav (name), a male given name of Old Swedish origin
Art, entertainment, and media
* ''Primeval'' (film), a 2007 American horror film
* ''Gustav'' (film series), a Hungarian series of animated short cart ...
,
Louis Křikava Louis may refer to:
* Louis (coin)
* Louis (given name), origin and several individuals with this name
* Louis (surname)
* Louis (singer), Serbian singer
* HMS ''Louis'', two ships of the Royal Navy
See also
Derived or associated terms
* Lewis ( ...
, and
Josef Skružný
Josef Skružný (15 March 1871 in Prague – 12 May 1948) was a Czech writer and journalist. As well as writing under his own name, he used various pseudonyms, including Venouš Dolejš (alternatively Venoušek Dolejš), Matouš Česnek, and Venou ...
; the anarchist poet
Josef Rosenzweig-Moir Josef may refer to
*Josef (given name)
*Josef (surname) Josef is the surname of the following people:
* Jens Josef (born 1967), German composer of classical music, a flutist and academic teacher
* Michelle Josef (born 1954), Canadian musician and tr ...
; the journalists
Karel Pelant
Karel may refer to:
People
* Karel (given name)
* Karel (surname)
* Charles Karel Bouley, talk radio personality known on air as Karel
* Christiaan Karel Appel, Dutch painter
Business
* Karel Electronics, a Turkish electronics manufacturer
* Gr ...
and
Karel V. Rypáček; the illustrator
Josef Lada
Josef Lada (born 17 December 1887 in Hrusice, Bohemia – 14 December 1957 in Prague, buried at Olšany Cemetery) was a Czech painter, illustrator and writer. He is best known as the illustrator of Jaroslav Hašek's World War I novel ''The Go ...
; the ballet dancer Franz Wagner; "Hero of the
Macedonian Uprising" and self-proclaimed
Voivode
Voivode (, also spelled ''voievod'', ''voevod'', ''voivoda'', ''vojvoda'' or ''wojewoda'') is a title denoting a military leader or warlord in Central, Southeastern and Eastern Europe since the Early Middle Ages. It primarily referred to the me ...
Jan Klimeš, as well as the police commissioner Slabý, who served as "Enforcers" at party meetings. There is no evidence the party engaged in any public activities until 1911. The only record is a political pamphlet by Hašeks from 1904 referred to as "I am a member of a secondment from the country"
that is possibly a description of the earliest form of the party's work. However, numerous researchers place the founding of the party with the activities of the 1911 elections. In contrast, numerous texts describe pre-1911 propaganda expeditions by party members to different regions of the
K.u.K-
Monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which a person, the monarch, is head of state for life or until abdication. The political legitimacy and authority of the monarch may vary from restricted and largely symbolic (constitutional monarchy) ...
. The journeys were described by the party leader as figurative "
apostolic
Apostolic may refer to:
The Apostles
An Apostle meaning one sent on a mission:
*The Twelve Apostles of Jesus, or something related to them, such as the Church of the Holy Apostles
*Apostolic succession, the doctrine connecting the Christian Churc ...
missions" through
Moravia
Moravia ( , also , ; cs, Morava ; german: link=yes, Mähren ; pl, Morawy ; szl, Morawa; la, Moravia) is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia.
The me ...
,
Lower Austria
Lower Austria (german: Niederösterreich; Austro-Bavarian: ''Niedaöstareich'', ''Niedaestareich'') is one of the nine states of Austria, located in the northeastern corner of the country. Since 1986, the capital of Lower Austria has been Sankt P ...
,
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
,
Croatia
, image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg
, image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg
, anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capit ...
, the
Carniola,
Styria
Styria (german: Steiermark ; Serbo-Croatian and sl, ; hu, Stájerország) is a state (''Bundesland'') in the southeast of Austria. With an area of , Styria is the second largest state of Austria, after Lower Austria. Styria is bordered to ...
,
Upper Austria
Upper Austria (german: Oberösterreich ; bar, Obaöstareich) is one of the nine states or of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, a ...
,
Bohemia
Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...
and
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
.
Since these trips have a strong resemblance to the "Vagabond Wanderinsg" () Hašek regularly undertook starting in 1900, perhaps the party history is a case of an after-the-fact blurring and
mystification on the part of the author, as evidence shows Hašek active as a journalist for an anarchist newspaper and an
anarcho-syndicalist
Anarcho-syndicalism is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that views revolutionary industrial unionism or syndicalism as a method for workers in capitalist society to gain control of an economy and thus control influence i ...
organizer during this time. For example, in 1907 he disturbed an electoral event of the
Clerical Party as an
agent provocateur
An agent provocateur () is a person who commits, or who acts to entice another person to commit, an illegal or rash act or falsely implicate them in partaking in an illegal act, so as to ruin the reputation of, or entice legal action against, th ...
, and in the same year was sentenced to a month in prison on charges of "assassination" and "incitement to assault".
Therefore, some researchers consider the PMPWBL an "anarchist
front-group".
1911 election
On April 8, 1911, after the dissolution of the old imperial council, the Austrian Interior Minister set a
general election
A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...
date of June 13, 1911, for the election of deputies to the 21st session of the
Austrian House of Deputies that was to begin in mid-July. A few days later at the new party headquarters, the Cow Stall () in the
Vinohrady
Královské Vinohrady (in English literally "Royal Vineyards" german: Königliche Weinberge) is a cadastral district in Prague. It is so named because the area was once covered in vineyards dating from the 14th century. Vinohrady lies in the muni ...
quarter, an executive committee of the reorganized "Party for Moderate Progress Within the Bounds of the Law" announced they would participate in the election with their own candidate. At the same time, they published a manifesto to the Czech people, in which they introduced to party ideology of "Moderate Progress":
:"The
Svatopluk Čech Bridge was not built overnight. First
Svatopluk Čech had to be born, become a famous poet, die, then there had to be an urban renewal, and only then was the Svatopluk Čech Bridge built."
The manifesto was even signed by leading Czech social democrats Emanuel Škatula und
Bohumír Šmeral
Bohumír Šmeral (25 October 1880 in Třebíč, Margraviate of Moravia – 8 May 1941 in Moscow) was a Czech politician, leader of the Czech Social Democratic Party, and one of the founders of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.
Early life
...
, later co-founders of the
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (Czech and Slovak: ''Komunistická strana Československa'', KSČ) was a communist and Marxist–Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992. It was a member of the Cominte ...
. However the two politicians stood in the election as candidates, and it is highly doubtful they were aware of their signatures in advance.
The platform of the candidate for the Vinorhady election district, Jaroslav Hašek, consisted of seven points:
# The reintroduction of
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
.
# The nationalization of janitors.("similar to how it is in Russia
.. where every janitor is simultaneously a police informer").
# The rehabilitation of animals.
# The institutionalization of feeble-minded MPs.
# The reintroduction of the
Inquisition
The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...
.
# Judicial immunity for priests and the Church ("In cases where a schoolgirl is deflowered by a priest").
# The mandatory introduction of alcoholism.
The party hosted numerous speaker evenings, which included
Max Brod
Max Brod ( he, מקס ברוד; 27 May 1884 – 20 December 1968) was a German-speaking Bohemian, later Israeli, author, composer, and journalist.
Although he was a prolific writer in his own right, he is best remembered as the friend and biog ...
and
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ...
among the spectators. Hašek gave multi-hour campaign speeches "with a great deal of promises and reforms,
esmeared the other parties, denounced his opponents, everything that befits a decent candidate to such an honorable
osition, according to attendee František Langer. The songwriter Josef Mach wrote a party hymn especially for the campaign:
: "Milión kandidátů vstalo, / by oklamán byl bodrý lid,
: by voličstvo jim hlasy dalo / prý ochotně je chtějí vzít.
: Ať prudký pokrok chtějí jiní, / násilím zvracet světa řád,
: my pokrok mírný chceme nyní, / pan Hašek je náš kandidát!"
English Translation (from German):
: "A million candidates marching on,/giving false council to clueless people.
: They want to get your votes,/every voter will be accepted.
: They want thunderous advances,/to violently change the way the world is run,
: But we stand up for reasonable progress/with the candidate Mr. Hašek!"
Moreover, they campaigned for their candidate with pamphlets and placards: "Voters - what you hope to get from Vienna, you'll also get from me!" "Voters, use your ballot to protest against the earthquake in Mexico!" and "Each of our voters will receive a small pocket aquarium".
[''Der Tag der Wahlen.'' In: Jaroslav Hašek: ''Die Partei des maßvollen Fortschritts in den Grenzen der Gesetze.'' Frankfurt a. M. 1971, Anhang, S. 141–143.][ Radko Pytlík: ''Jaroslav Hašek in Briefen, Bildern und Erinnerungen.'' Berlin (Ost)/Weimar 1983, S. 215.] Even on the day of the election, the leadership of the party tried to expand the size of the campaign team by hanging a notice: "Wanted: a respectable man to defame opposing candidates". All of this was in vain: after the around 3,000 votes cast in the
Vinohrady
Královské Vinohrady (in English literally "Royal Vineyards" german: Königliche Weinberge) is a cadastral district in Prague. It is so named because the area was once covered in vineyards dating from the 14th century. Vinohrady lies in the muni ...
district were totaled, only 38 were cast for the PMPWBL,
or according to a contemporary periodical publication, as few as 16 votes.
[Radko Pytlik: ''Jaroslav Hašek in Briefen, Bildern und Erinnerungen.'' Berlin (Ost)/Weimar 1983, S. 213f.] The newspaper ''Čas'' reported in its "Daily Chronicle", on July 15, 1911, "Nothing is known about the fate of this candidacy, and the Imperial press office has not made any official statement regarding it. The candidate intends to protest." The silence of the Imperial election commission was not unexpected, as the party had apparently not even officially registered its candidacy.
As a result, the votes for Hašek were considered invalid.
Later, on July 17, 1911, PMPWBL-member František Gellner wrote a positive review of the campaign in the magazine ''Karikatury'':
:"Assuming that the enthusiastic agitation by the supporters of the Party for Moderate Progress within the Bounds of the Law increases their vote tally in the next election by a factor of ten, and the Austrian Parliament is dissolved a few more times in the foreseeable future, then in a few years the candidate for the Party for Moderate Progress within the Bounds of the Law will be seated in parliament."
Further developments
The first
party congress
The terms party conference (UK English), political convention ( US and Canadian English), and party congress usually refer to a general meeting of a political party. The conference is attended by certain delegates who represent the party membe ...
was held in 1913, in the restaurant Na Smetance in the Prague district of Žižkov, but was only attended by a few party members. When the party leader inadvertently sat down on the service cap of the supervising police commissioner, the event was dissolved. Hašek reports on a subsequent "long-term persecution of the party",
[Jaroslav Hašek: ''Minutes of the II.''] a subsequent dramatic exaggeration.
After the outbreak of the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
Hašek was called up in February 1915 as a soldier, and was captured by Russians in September 1915. In 1916 he joined the
Czechoslovak Legion
The Czechoslovak Legion (Czech language, Czech: ''Československé legie''; Slovak language, Slovak: ''Československé légie'') were volunteer armed forces composed predominantly of Czechs and Slovaks fighting on the side of the Allies of World ...
, but deserted to the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
in 1918, where he held various functions, mainly serving as
political commissar in the Political Department of the 5th Siberian Army. In December 1920 Hašek returned to Prague under false papers.
During the year 1921 the second PMPWBL congress took place in Prague-Žižkov, in a large hall in the restaurant Yugoslavia'','' and was attended by about 300 people. The highlight of the congress was the unanimous adoption of a foreign policy resolution calling for the demolition of the globe due to the hopeless world situation.
Although it had been declared that a third, secret party congress would be announced by newspaper advertisements in the section "Where to Today?," the activities of the PMPWBL ended in 1921. This was due to poor health of the party founder and chairman Jaroslav Hašek, who retired to
Lipnice nad Sázavou in August 1921, where he worked until his death in January 1923 on his novel ''
The Good Soldier Švejk
''The Good Soldier Švejk'' () is an unfinished satirical dark comedy novel by Czech writer Jaroslav Hašek, published in 1921–1923, about a good-humored, simple-minded, middle-aged man who pretends to be enthusiastic to serve Austria-Hungar ...
''.
Reality and literary treatment
The actual existence of the Party of Moderate Progress Within the Bounds of the Law is beyond dispute. Apart from the literary treatment by Jaroslav Hašek, there are numerous contemporary newspaper and magazine articles describing the activity of the party. Furthermore, it comes up repeatedly in the memoirs of participants and contemporary witnesses as well as in scientific works.
According to
Kindler's Neuem Literaturlexikon, Hašek's published speeches appear to have actually been delivered "in the same or similar form". On the other hand, there is no realistic basis for the allegation that Hašek attended over 1,000 election campaign events during the campaign.
In 1911-12, Jaroslav Hašek wrote almost 30 texts about the PMPWBL and its members. These are partly literary accounts, partly fictitious
satire
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...
. The manuscript was bought in 1912 by the Prague publisher Karel Ločák, but not published because he feared problems due to the
personality rights of the described persons. The next owner of the manuscript, Alois Hatina, only published ten of the texts in the magazine ''"Směr"'' after Hašek's death in 1924/25.
Nevertheless, the party was remembered. In 1928, when the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia wanted to distract from its failures with intensified populist propaganda campaigns, the Social Democratic newspaper ''Právo Lidu asked'' ironically: "Are the Communists the Party of Moderate Progress Within the Bounds of the Law?"
In 1937, the newspaper
Rudé právo published 23 of Hašek's works. They appeared in their entirety in book form for the first time in 1963 in Czech, and in 1971 in German translation.
In the appendix to this edition ''("Quellen und Materialien")'' there are two further texts obviously written by Hašek for the election campaign of 1911, as well as one of Hašek's election speeches as recorded by František Langer and Josef Mach.
Separately, in the early 1920s Hašek also wrote ''Minutes of the Second Party Convention'', first published in German in 1957''.''
Legal status of the party
From today's perspective, the freedom Hašek and his colleagues exercised for their party activities seems amazing, given the
Habsburg Monarchy's contempt for the party system and the monarchy's lack of a constitutional role for political parties. In legal practice at the time, the concept of "party" was used either in the sense of a political "club", an "association" or in the sense of "electoral list" as outlined in contemporaneous electoral regulations.
A party law was not issued in Austria until 1975. Prior to this date, a party could be founded either by a simple statement of the participants (see. the later foundations of the
ÖVP
The Austrian People's Party (german: Österreichische Volkspartei , ÖVP ) is a Christian-democratic and liberal-conservative political party in Austria.
Since December 2021, the party has been led provisionally by Karl Nehammer. It is currentl ...
,
SPÖ
The Social Democratic Party of Austria (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs , SPÖ), founded and known as the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria (german: link=no, Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei Österreichs, SDAPÖ) unti ...
and
KPÖ, known as "Declarations of Independence"),
or by a "founding agreement" according to the rules of the Association Act.
Starting in 1867,
founding legally recognized associations with no longer required approval of the supervisory authority, and they were instead only subject to a four-week "prohibition period" (§ 6), which the PMPWBL effortlessly survived due to its "pro-state" demeanor. However, due to the presumed danger of parties in the Association Act, association activities were regulated in great detail. These regulations included the obligation to report all association activities to the government, and the right of the government to send officers to supervise the association. The election events of the PMPWBL were also subject to police supervision. While the supervising officer was allowed to dissolve meetings, he was explicitly forbidden to interfere in the debate or talk to anyone other than the club chairman,
which severely curtailed his practical threat to PMPWBL public gatherings:
: "Below an impromptu podium, the founders of this party, the Central Committee, sat at a long table with weighty faces. On the podium, at a small table with even more serious faces, the young chairman and a police commissioner were enthroned. Beside him stood Hašek, delivering his 'election speech.
..The hall roared with laughter. And the police commissioner, who had absolutely no idea what was going on here, looked around lost and did not know whether he should intervene here."
Scholarly assessment
There is wide academic agreement on the motivation for the founding of the PMPWBL. The author and publisher Günther Jarosch argues social critique and ridiculing the contemporary opportunist party system through "hyper-loyalty" were the driving force behind the founding of the PMPWBL. These forces were also the basis for the Prague Czech cultural elite's acceptance of the party's provocative activities, which can only understood in the context of the decades-long smoldering problem of nationalities in Bohemia.
The political scientist Ekkehart Krippendorff emphasizes that in a "mixture of jests, and ultimate seriousness
..the confusion and the morally pretentious rhetoric of party politics of the time was pointedly" brought into sharp relief.
[Ekkehart Krippendorff: ''The fatal comedy of the logic of state order: Jaroslav Hašek.''] Only the Hašek researcher Gustav Janouch considers the party a kind of drunken joke, which was only supposed to increase the beverage turnover in the Kravín inn. This is contradicted by Jaroslav Hašek son Richard,
"My father took his candidacy in the elections of 1911 very seriously and was operated from the assumption that he would get the number of necessary votes. After the election defeat, he was very disappointed and depressed."
According to Slavist Gisela Riff, the actions of Hašek and his party comrades reveal a merciless play on the "concepts" and "values" of political life.
The philologist
Walter Schamschula describes Hašek's goal as disillusioning spectators by breaking bourgeois taboos - not only in relation to Austro-Hungarian parliamentarism and its leading figures, but also in relation to individuals themselves. Therefore Hašek did not limit himself to criticism of himself and his party,
but also anecdotally described accounts of their own willingness to lie deceive and deny their own political beliefs for personal gain.
Gisela Riff also emphasizes the "impeccable" character of Hašek's performances.
Hašek's main means of doing so was freely improvised speech, where he used long chains of association to combine the important with the trivial, fact with fiction.
Hašek said in a campaign speech:
: "Regulatory laws and security officials keep watch over us, and not so much as a single hair falls from our heads without their supervision. That's progress. If we look elsewhere, to China, for instance, where the security organs cut off people's heads, then must ourselves admit that here there is progress."
As events went on, however, the lines of argument would become more and more absurd:
: "Friends, we are at a point where we did not want to be. Like the man who wanted to
Budweis and got on a train in the opposite direction. He was caught by the conductor in second class, although he only had a third-class ticket and was thrown off the train in
Bakov. And as one of the pioneers of our party, Mr
Galileo Galilei
Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He was ...
, once said, 'And yet it moves,' I say now: Move, Miss Bożenka, and please bring a new round: three more beers for me, an allasch for Opočenský, a quarter of white wine for Langer, a beer and a Magador for Diviš and a mineral water for Gottwald. This is proof of Galileo's words, 'And yet it moves' and clear evidence that the ''Party for Moderate Progress Within the Bounds of the Law,'' knows how to assert itself and care about what its constituents want."
Riff and her pupil the linguist and translator Jana Halamíčková drew parallels to artistic forms and mediums such as happenings,
Dada
Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...
events, audience participation, and the play ''
Offending the Audience''.
Thus, the PMPWBL is one of the precursors of forms of political action that, since the
1968 movement and the formation of a new
alternative
Alternative or alternate may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media
* Alternative (''Kamen Rider''), a character in the Japanese TV series ''Kamen Rider Ryuki''
* ''The Alternative'' (film), a 1978 Australian television film
* ''The Alternative ...
culture, have questioned the established political institutions, forces and media. This type of political practice led to new practices of political expression emanating from average citizens. For example, see
Sponti The Spontis or ''Sponti movement'' was left-wing movement in West Germany in 1970s-1980s. the name is an abbreviation for the word "spontaneous", in reference to their preference of "revolutionary spontaneity of the masses" over theoretically- and p ...
groups,
revolutionary spontaneity
Revolutionary spontaneity, also known as spontaneism, is a revolutionary socialist tendency that believes the social revolution can and should occur spontaneously from below by the working class itself, without the aid or guidance of a vanguar ...
or
guerrilla communication
Guerrilla communication and communication guerrilla refer to an attempt to provoke subversive effects through interventions in the process of communication.
It can be distinguished from other classes of political action because it is not based on ...
strategies.
Consequences
After the collapse of communism in November 1989, the party, which according to self-mystification continued to exist illegally since 1921, returned to the public under the leadership of the cartoonists Josef Kobra Kučera and Vít Hrabánek and hosted the long-ago announced third Party Congress. Furthermore, from 1990 to 1992 the party published ''Skrt'', a satirical magazine with an official circulation of 300,000.
In the following years, the party faced contemporary political problems: In 2000, it called for "moderate
globalization
Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...
within the bounds of the law" and suggested sending as many of its own children abroad as possible - and to have them demonstrate against globalization there. In January 2006, Richard Hašek, grandson of Jaroslav Hašeks and a leading member of the party, concluded a "non-aggression pact" for the upcoming parliamentary elections with
KDU-ČSL
KDU-ČSL (In Czech, the initials of the Christian and Democratic Union – Czechoslovak People's Party; cs, Křesťanská a demokratická unie – Československá strana lidová), often shortened to ('the populars') is a Christian-democrati ...
, the
Christian Democratic Party of the Czech Republic. The contract, in which reciprocal attacks with beer and slivovitz continued to be expressly allowed, was signed by the then chairman of the KDU-ČSL
Miroslav Kalousek
Miroslav Kalousek (born 17 December 1960) is a Czech politician, former leader of KDU-ČSL and TOP 09, and has been a member of the Chamber of Deputies (MP) since 1998. He served twice as Finance Minister in the cabinets of Mirek Topolánek and th ...
in the presence of his deputy Jan Kasal, vice-president of the
Czech House of Representatives.
In 2003 a sister party was founded in
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
under the name of the ''Party of Reasonable Progress Within Moderate Limits.''
[s.] Since no activities of this party are detectable, it is assumed to be a mystification.
See also
*
Rhinoceros Party
The Rhinoceros Party (sometimes referred to in English as the Second Rhinoceros Party), officially the Parti Rhinocéros Party, is a Canadian federal-level political party. It was known as neorhino.ca until 2010, when the party changed its na ...
, a humorous and satirical party in Canada
*
Official Monster Raving Loony Party
The Official Monster Raving Loony Party (OMRLP) is a political party established in the United Kingdom in 1982 by the musician David Sutch, also known as "Screaming Lord Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow", or simply "Lord Sutch". It is notable for its ...
, a similar party in the UK
*
Party for Labour, Rule of Law, Animal Protection, Promotion of Elites and Grassroots Democratic Initiative (German: ''Die Partei für Arbeit, Rechtsstaat, Tierschutz, Elitenförderung und basisdemokratische Initiative'' (Die PARTEI)
* the
Two-tailed Dog Party in Hungary
Books
* Jan Berwid-Buquoy: ''Die Abenteuer des gar nicht so braven Humoristen Jaroslav Hašek.'' ''Legenden und Wirklichkeit.'' Berlin: Bi-Hi Verlag 1989,
/https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/3924933022 * Jaroslav Hašek: ''Die Partei des maßvollen Fortschritts in den Grenzen der Gesetze.'' Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp 1971 (2. Aufl. 1990); Neuübersetzung als ''Geschichte der Partei des gemäßigten Fortschritts im Rahmen der Gesetze.'' Berlin: Parthas Verlag 2005,
/https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/3866013108 * Jaroslav Hašek: ''Protokoll des II.'' ''Parteitages der Partei für gemäßigten Fortschritt in den Schranken des Gesetzes.'' In: Ders.: ''Schule des Humors.'' Frankfurt a. M.: Büchergilde Gutenberg 1957, S. 231–237.
* Radko Pytlik: ''Jaroslav Hašek in Briefen, Bildern und Erinnerungen.'' Berlin (Ost)/Weimar: Aufbau-Verlag 1983.
References
External links
*
Walter Klier
Walter may refer to:
People
* Walter (name), both a surname and a given name
* Little Walter, American blues harmonica player Marion Walter Jacobs (1930–1968)
* Gunther (wrestler), Austrian professional wrestler and trainer Walter Hahn (born 19 ...
: ''Zwangseinführung des Alkoholismus.'' In:
Wiener Zeitung
''Wiener Zeitung'' is an Austrian newspaper. It is one of the oldest, still published newspapers in the world. It is the official publication used by the Government of the Republic of Austria for legally-required announcements, such as company r ...
v. 9. Dezember 2006 '
Nachdruck.''
*
ttp://skolska28.cz/images/events/2011/111117150527.jpg Foto des Parteivorstands der PFGFIDSDG(Hašek 2. v. re)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Party of Moderate Progress Within the Bounds of the Law
Political parties in Czechoslovakia
Joke political parties in the Czech Republic
Political parties established in 1911
Anarchist political parties