1. The Significance of Intellectuals for Communism (and Post-Communism) 

        In their theory, the communists have assigned a very marginal and degrading role to intellectuals: they were supposed to serve other social strata, making their living by serving to bourgeoisie during capitalism, and to working class during socialism. In reality, it was an irreplaceable "service" of paramount significance for the Communist government, for its theory and practice. Communists were publicly underplaying their role, because they were claiming that they were a movement created and ran exclusively by the proletariat, by the working masses. 

        But it was the intellectual Marx who created the communist ideology; he built the base of the whole communist movement. It was an intellectual, Lenin, who first started practicing this ideology. From the movement he built the organized "vanguard of the working class", party of Bolsheviks as a political power, ruling with an iron fist over the one sixth of the world. This ideology has indoctrinated large masses through intellectuals; they brought it to the streets, to the lounges, and to the universities. Intellectuals added to their movement brilliance, the "guarantee of the quality", wide groups of intelligentsia kept it alive by their everyday work. 

        Without intelligentsia in general, and intellectuals in particular, there would be neither a communist ideology, nor a communist movement. This applies to the whole history of communism until today. The "name" of the French Communist Party gained its sound during its bloom during the World War II through such representatives as the poet Louis Aragon, ideologist Roger Garaudy, actor Jean Marais, and even Jean Paul Sartre, who was flirting with Marxism and communism. Such world famous Marxist theorists as Palmiro Togliati, or Antonio Gramsci created the image of Italian communists.

Communists in Czechoslovakia also had in the period of their rise their "star representation": In Czech Republic there were famous poets such as S.K.

Neuman or Vitezslav Nezval, writers Julius Fucik or Jan Drda, literary critic

Ladislav Stoll, historian and musicologist Zdenek Nejedly and many others; in

Slovakia e.g. the poet Laco Novomesky, sociologist Andrej Siracky, writers 

Ladislav Mnacko, Vlado Minac, and for a certain period, even Dominik 

Tatarka (who deceased as a dissident writer). 

        All of these and many other intellectuals were giving the communist movement in the country the credibility of their names. Their active participation on propagation and presentation was quasi speaking to the nation: When these people are with them, when they are willing to raise their voice for them, it means that it's a just thing. A larger base of communist intelligentsia, whose task was to propagate, spread, and defend the communist ideology, further backed up these and many more intellectuals. It was first of all humanitarian intelligentsia consisting of teachers, university professors and all the academia, journalists and all of the people working in mass-media, artists, actors- even priests won for the regime through Pacem in Terris.

        Let us note the simple and highly efficient logistics of this interconnectedness. There where the communist movement had and while it could have had its intellectual representation, there, where it had and while it could count on its intellectual base, there and during that time could it have the social credit, the mass support.

        Communist parties in France or Italy became meaningless political organizations of those countries, when they were not able to find adequate intellectual substitutes for Garaudy or Gramsci. When intellectuals of this standing were no longer willing to get engaged on behalf of these political parties and "make their good name" anymore, Communist Party in Czechoslovakia ended up with an intellectual zero on its account: instead of important personalities, it was represented by their caricatures in the form of Jakes' "fence-pale" (which is how this last general secretary described his isolation shortly before the Velvet Revolution). 

Intelligentsia as a whole left the Communist Party, stopped supporting it: 

        The Party was left only with paid apparatus to lead the masses of members. And the apparatus wasn't able to manipulate the masses anymore, to create an illusion of belonging to a social elite. After the representatives of this elite disappeared, who will ever remember the last leading activists of the Communist movement in Slovakia before the Revolution? Really, who was it that was ruling us at that time, whom did we fear that much? They were forgotten very quickly: it's only seven years!

        This is a typical example of history repeating itself. Hitler also came to power supported by many intellectual celebrities, including Martin Heidegger. He was leaving from the scene left alone and despised by all German intellectuals.

        This all, of course, speaks not just about the nature of this or that political movement or regime, but also about the controversial character of people labeled as intellectuals. French writer Julien Benda has launched in his time a passionate discussion about the betrayal of intellectuals (La trahison des clercs, 1927); Czech philosopher Jan Patocka created for this purpose the "term spiritual person": "He was distinguishing between an intellectual, who is willing to sacrifice any moral principles in the name of the idea he came up with, and a spiritual person, who does not leave these moral principles… Gandhi was, for example, a spiritual person while Lenin was an intellectual." (Interpretation of Milan Simecka from the recording of "Intellectual and Power" in: Slovenske pohiady, 1992, vol.108. No.7, p.43). 

        But this is another, ethical level of the problem of the attitude of intellectuals towards politics in general and towards communist or post-communist politics in particular.

        It appears to be absurd, that the present situation in post-communist Slovak Republic suggests some analogies with conditions during communism. The current victorious Movement for Democratic Slovakia also experienced an extremely fast rise similarly supported by a part of the Slovak intellectual representation. Vladimir Meciar was followed by a few personalities of the Slovak political scene with resounding names, as, e.g., the original leaders of the civil movement Public Against Violence from the times of the Velvet Revolution in November 1989: popular actor Milan Knazko, or a famous environmentalist Jan Budaj and others. 

        They helped Meciar in establishing a new political subject, guaranteed its rightfulness and purity, and thus created its image through elections. He picked the famous "brave seven" for the pre-election billboards, whose faces were smiling at us from every Slovak road. They were singing the election songs with him, they were promenading in T-shirts with inscriptions "I like Meciar".

        It is characteristic of self-confident leading personalities, that they are trying to attract an intellectual elite to their actions, as they are not afraid of their intelligence quotient, or of the possible competition. On the other side, unsure leaders are trying to suppress the individuality of every other person near them, push them into a subservient position and at the end chase them away, when they are feeling threatened by the authority of the person over the masses. 

        We can still name those "brave seven" today, who were then backing Meciar. But where are they now, who stayed with him till present time? No one! Who substituted for them and who is creating an intellectual elite of the victorious movement? Intellectual personalities were gradually disappearing, either demonstratively or discreetly, and only the famous Jakes's "fence-pale" remained there. Can we to find anyone there, who would reach, or slightly over-reach his standard today? Doesn't it remind you of a communist farewell party?

        At the beginning of its rise, this "victorious movement" had also a strong base in humanities intelligentsia, which propagated it and was spreading its ideology, which was defending it and was arguing for its benefit to persuade the wide electorate. Today the teachers have left, the university academia retreated into intellectual opposition, doctors and medical staff came close to announcing civil disobedience, free media earned the label "anti-Meciarist", most of the actors were protesting against the willpower of the victorious movement. Intellectuals are fighting for saving the culture from the government control and founded a separate civil movement for this purpose.

        There is no socially profiled part of intelligentsia (except for loyal and dependent administrative strata), that would still support the Meciar party today. Just as during the communist times, they were left with civil servants and administration, which are not able to take care of members and electorate efficiently. Without outstanding intellectual personalities, without the nursing care of sympathizing intellectuals this base will become more and more disoriented.

        Yes, this type of a victorious movement stands and falls with the strong personality of its leader. The leader must be loved, singed about, accepted by the party and electorate masses without a sign of doubt, protected by them from any outer or inner enemy. Just as Stalin, Maoze Dong, Kim Ir Sen, or Gottwald for communists. But the personality of the leader, no matter how strong, is not enough for creating this image: that's exactly the role of intellectuals, to create this image in ideology, culture, art. It is the role of rank and file intelligentsia to spread this image, to propagate and strengthen it in the eyes of the masses, to support the enthusiasm for the leader and the belief in him. 

        When there are no politically engaged intellectuals, when they do not want to support a political program by putting their reputation on the line, the big leaders will become lonely, dishonored "knights of a sad figure" a la Husak, the last president of socialist Czechoslovakia, or ridiculously amusing puppets a la Jakes, the last General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party. 

        Really, can anybody in Slovakia imagine, which "brave seven" will appear on the billboards of this victorious movement during the next elections? What kind of intellectual personalities will they be, will they be known to the public, what will be the level of respect and honor they will raise? According to these faces and to this level of respect we will be able to estimate also the chances in the elections. This, of course, appears to be a vicious circle without escape. The only chance probably lies in cutting it and returning to the original starting points of democracy in this country. 

2. Intellectuals in the time of Communism, a change of Communist intellectuals 

        Despite the fact that marxism theory brought the intelligentsia as a social group down to a social group of civil servants, in practical politics the communists of the Soviet Block considered the intelligentsia and especially its elite, the intellectuals, to be of great social importance. The Communists knew very well that words were the weapon of the Intelligentsia. He who can speak convincingly, rules the society. Although it's not enough to possess the monopoly of the media, it's necessary to use them to express something coherent and bright. The intelligentsia wins all the time: instead of former intellectuals will speak different ones, or even the same ones will speak, only differently. (Gyorgy Konrad, Masky sa vracaju, Bratislava 1995,s.102). 

        Among artists, special respect enjoyed the "masters of the word, that is all those who used writen and spoken words, actors and writers. Especially for them were established, and annually celebrated in a pompous way, state awards for "national and honorary artists". Writers (including poets, playwrights and screenplay writers) were heralded as the "conscience of the nation" and "engineers of the human souls". For them, the government established representative "Writers’Houses", and initiated meetings carefully organized directly from the Central Committee of the Communist Party, with the highest ranking party and state authorities in attendance. No wonder Vaclac Havel wrote in that time: "I live in the country where the meetings of writers or their speeches are able to shake the system. Can you imagine something like that in Germany?" (A Word About Words, in Paul Wilson ed.: Open Letters, 1991, NY, Vintage Books, p.379). 

        The second such category included the social scientists - philosophers, historians, sociologists and so on. The social sciences were supposed to form the new structure of the socialist society, to take the lead in molding the "social conscience" of the new socialist man. The importance, attributed to social scientists by the communist power, was stressed by their inclusion into "nomenclature professions". Hence, all decisions pertaining to their employment were taken at the higher party offices up to the Central Committee. In some cases (e.g. specialists in philosophy) membership in the Communist Party became a built-in job requirement. 

        All this was true also for the category of teachers - with the most strict criteria for university professor (the social sciences faculty especially), gradually extended to other colleges (Technology Colleges included) and finally for high schools. Teachers were expected to play a distinctive role in the Marxist indoctrination of the coming generations. Hiring of new teachers, pay raises, inauguration of docents and professors, as well as matters of academic administration, even the possibility to file a proposal for the inauguration - all this was in the hands of particular higher (that means off-campus) party offices. Basically from these three groups of intelligentsia grew the intellectual elite of the communist regimes of the countries of Soviet Block. Nevertheless, the totalitarian communist regimes, mindful of the needs of the centralized power, drew its own conclusions from the social importance, bestowed on them by the regime itself, of these three groups of intelligentsia. The party availed itself not only of the above mentioned employment politics, but also of the power of continually controlling and "guiding" intellectual production. If a word is of such a significant importance in the forming of social conscience, it must be handled and used really carefully. 

        Planning the repertory of every theater for each season was an activity strictly supervised by appointed Party committees. Each irregularity or politically incorrect audience reaction entailed critical political and professional consequences. Party-oriented poetry and prose was preferred; proper topics were in the Stalin era assigned, later at least "advised" to writers. In the area of scientific research in general, mainly in the area of social sciences, there were assigned research priorities and themes, that formed the background of scientific activity. Publishing in the social sciences functioned under Party censorship. 

        Education in schools followed a rigidly reinforced centrally planned structure. . It worked this way not only in primary and high schools, but also in colleges and universities, especially in the departments of social sciences. The teachers were herded regularly into a special system of ideological indoctrination (Year of the Party seminar, Evening University of Marxism-leninism). All university students, of all fields of study, had to take an obligatory basic course of Marxism-leninism (it consisted of the history of workers' movement, scientific communism, dialectic and historic materialism). Failure to pass this course terminated a student’s academic career. 

        It means that for the above mentioned particular groups of intelligentsia the Communist regime created on the one hand good living conditions (although there were more privileged groups, such as company-managers, or, most of all, state and Party bureacrats), but on the other hand, they were kept under a relentless control and they had plenty of obligations towards the regime. Artists and teachers had the obligation to celebrate the regime, to bring up "the socialist person", to teach love for the socialist motherland and for the Communist Party and hate for the domestic enemies and foreign imperialists. Social scientists had to determine, in sophisticated ways, the advantages of socialism, the weak points of capitalism and the necessity of the historical progress towards communism. Philosophers were supposed to prove that Marxism was the science of all sciences and the Marxist philosophy the only scientific philosophy. 

        The key role in fulfilling all these tasks was supposed to be in the hands of the intellectual elite of all the three groups of intelligentsia. The Party and government hierarchy expected the communist intellectuals to act as "spiritus agens" of the whole process, but at the same time they were not allowed to function as real intellectuals, that is, to be independent thinkers, to use their capacity for innovation, to evaluate reality critically, in short to fit the definition of an intellectual. Communists prohibited "critical thinking, the basic activity of every intellectual" (Gy. Konrad, p.204). As the totalitarian characteristics of these regimes strengthened, more and more rebelling, individualistic intellectuals who didn't want to change according to the new situation were marginalized.

        Consequently, the "real" intellectuals dropped out of the communist establishment by themselves. In the beginning, the regimes had plenty of intellectuals on their side (Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Cuba and others), but their total absence foresaw the end of those regimes. The collapsing Soviet Union didn't have anybody like Ilya Ehrenburg or Michail Solochov, the communist Czechoslovakia didn't have anymore any speaker like poet S.K.Neumann, writer like Hecko, or a scientist like academic Heyrovsky, Nobel Price winner. Intellectuals in Cuba deserted Fidel Castro. Independent intellectuals were routinely replaced by regime servants, communist agitators and propagandists. According to Gy. Konrad, "the real artists were prohibited, but pseudointellectuals were raised to high positions" (212). 

        Nevertheless, intellectuals did not dissapear from all these countries, they just lay low, remained silent and the active part of them formed anti-regime dissent movements, concentrated after the break year 1968 in e.g. Polish KOR or Czechoslovak Charter 77. Once their voice was heard and was getting stronger via samizdat or foreign radio broadcasts, the communist representatives recognized dissent as the main threat of their totalitarian regime and fought it as their worst enemy. Dissent was represented by names such as Soljenitzin and Sacharov in the Soviet Union, Adam Michnik and Jacek Kuron in Poland, and Jan Patocka and Vaclav Havel in the Czechoslovakia. 

        The regime representatives tried to silence them, as they were endlessly frightened of the power of their word, as well as the intellectual ability to act like Cassandra: "to listen carefully for the words of the powerful, watch out for them, warn of their danger and present their terrible consequences or evil which they can cause" (Andre Glucksman in the interpretation by Vaclav Havel, 387). 

3. Dilemma of the Responsibility of Intellectuals 

        "The fact, that the Czechoslovak intellectual dissent was forced to take over, after the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the very role it was vehemently refusing within the framework of its existence during communism, appeared as a situational paradox. Only now - after the breakthrough – did the intellectual become the real "conscience of the nation", which used to be its role, honestly envied by Western intellectuals. Only now did they accept responsibility for the future of Czechoslovak society in their hands, even though they were adamantly rejecting the communists’ accusations of aspiring to such a role. It is only now that they became also the only real candidates to grab the power from the hands of the ruling communists."

        "The intellectual dissent of Czechoslovakia remained from start till the end purely intellectual. It didn't turn into a "political opposition", whose priority is to take over the power, it didn't cross the border of critical discourse, of the "dialogue with the power", proclaimed by Charter '77 in their opening statement. Even though the ruling power never accepted this appeal and was trying to push the Charter into the role of illegal (hence, for totalitarian regime constitutionally unacceptable) political opposition, the chartists were stubbornly sticking to the platform of critical discourse, to the intellectual dialogue with the power. Therefore they were themselves very surprised, when they found themselves, against their will, in the role of protagonists in the final conflict with the communist power during the Velvet Revolution in November 1989, and even more in the role of those who had to directly take the power into their own hands."

        "They never prepared for this role during the whole dissident era - at least not the Czechoslovak chartists. On the contrary, in their statements they were demonstratively refusing it, they were rejecting the "accusations" that they wanted to overthrow the "rule of the working class" in order to take over the power. They were referring to these statements, even as, in the name of the victorious "Civic Forum", they were establishing the new government, reconstructing the parliament and arranging the elections of a new president (Vaclav Havel became the president at the end of 1989), they were explaining, slightly embarrassed, to domestic and foreign audiences, that these were just sort of necessary steps "in the state of distress", just a stabilizing temporary arrangement for securing the first free elections in Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1990. After that they were decided to leave all political levels and leave the governing to the new democratic professionals."

        "When we speak about the Czechoslovak intellectual dissent started by Charter '77, which was concentrated within the chartist movement and transformed during the Velvet Revolution 1989 into the Civic Forum, we speak in majority about the Prague issues. In fact it was the Prague intellectual dissent that created the very Charter '77 at the beginning and became a guarantee for changing the totalitarian communist Czechoslovakia into a modern plural democracy"

        "The Slovak civil movement Public Against Violence, which was also created during the Velvet Revolution 1989 parallel to the Czech Civic Forum, didn't have dissident tradition from the times of communist totalitarianism. It was formed by Slovak intellectuals, who got together only during the Velvet Revolution itself. Most of them belonged to the communist establishment until the end, even though they were not prominent. They were for example theater actors (among them some with prestigious awards such as "national artist" and "meritorious artist"), writers, social scientists and university professors. As opposed to their Czech partners they were not, in majority, suppressed intellectuals, chased away by the regime into degrading jobs such as "window cleaners". They didn't experience a chatarsis of intellectual dissent, which unified in an open (though only ideological) confrontation with communist regime."

        "Therefore, the Slovak revolutionary movement Public Against Violence differed strongly from its Czech partner Civic Forum by their origin from the very beginning. These were two different civil movements, established in different conditions and based on unlike traditions, lead by two differently shaped intellectual elites. Both of these movements though were facing the same revolutionary tasks, resulting from taking over the power in both parts of the state.

        The new democratic political personalities could have been of course born only out of these revolutionary movements alone, because there have been only the old communist political professionals from the previous totalitarian regime until then. There was nobody to give the power to: it remained in hands of the representatives of the original intellectual elites of both revolutionary civil movements after the first parliamentary elections in 1990."

        These movements alone were able, and in the end had to transform rapidly into new or renewed political parties and movements, which occupied the political scene before the elections in 1992 and were competing for political power within the framework of democratic politics. Only here the original heterogeneity of the Czechoslovak intellectual elite became significantly apparent, consisting of anti-Communists and ex-communists, believers and atheists, conservatives and liberals. This differentiation took place both on the Czech and the Slovak scenes. The winners of this transformation process were also the new victors of the parliamentary election 1992, considerably and unambiguously different from the Czech and Slovak intellectual elite. They were symbolically represented by personalities who had nothing in common with either intellectualism or with dissent: on the Czech side it was the academic economist Vaclav Klaus, on the Slovak side the business lawyer Vladimir Meciar. These pragmatic new democratic "political professionals" have very quickly and autocratically decided and agreed upon the split of Czechoslovakia into Czech and Slovak Republics after their election victory.

        After the split of the common state the vehement rise of these victos of parliamentary elections began in Slovakia in 1992; Vladimir Meciar began the fight for autocratic rule of the whole country according to the principle "winner takes al". The outcomes of continuous and vigorous strengthening of his power, of freezing the transformation process towards democracy and state of law are known: the Slovak Republic has slipped from the leading group of candidates for membership in NATO and European Union to the end of the list, from the category "free countrie" into the category "partially free countries" (classification by Freedom House, 1997).

        At the same time we can observe a remarkable process of maturing of the Slovak intellectual elite. The dissolution of communism in its latest stage was not yet able to awaken it up from lethargy. It was formed, joined and stood at the front of the Slovak Revolution only after the pressure of "Prague events" on 17th November 1989. It didn't even experience the anti-communist dissent. In this way, Meciar succeeded, for the first time, in unifying this Slovak intellectual elite into intellectual dissent against his political personality against his autocratic, antidemocratic politics of building the new state. 

        I am speaking about the intellectual dissent, because I have in mind that part of the Slovak intellectual elite, who is not an active part of the Slovak political opposition within particular political parties and their coalitions, and therefore does not participate in their struggle for political power. Its politically active component addresses also this new intellectual dissent and tries to bring it directly into the political action. Within the framework of the present political process in Slovakia, where the destiny of Slovak democracy, constitutionalism and the state of law are in question, intellectuals are again faced with the classical dilemma of intellectuals: to be dragged into active politics and therefore leave the position of intellectual with unbiased critical views, or to stay within the intellectual position and leave the politicians (corrupt, amateur, loyal to the party) a free ring for the destruction of existing foundations of democracy and state of law in the country.

        The Velvet Revolution has mercilessly uncovered the weaknesses of intellectuals, who changed seats with the politicians without preparation. Few of them passed this test; the new hybrid type of intellectual politician has not been born out of this, as was expected by many. At most, the intellectual has transformed into a professional politician, as is the case of Vaclav Havel (even his transformation is criticized for partiality and incompleteness).

        The present question Slovak intellectuals contemplate: (and, as it seems, also many colleagues from other post-Communist countries, who also seem worried) is: is the VelvetRevolution experiment repeatable in a more successful version, based on the new knowledge and on conclusions from the recent past? 

4. Slovak intellectuals and leadership. 

        In the media, discussion on leadership and representation of Slovak democratic opposition against the government of Vladimir Meciar consists in a wrongly formulated question: "Who should be the leader? What personality should be the representative of the Slovak Democratic Coalition, able to bind together the majority of the opposition political parties in the country?" A search for the top leader in the given context actually means a search for the personalized counterpart of Vladimir Meciar, a man who would be able to compete with him in the politic ring: a boxer of the same weight category. The rules of a match in this political ring were formulated by Vladimir Meciar, so the only concern now is to find an Anti-Meciar, who will defeat Meciar on his own terms.

        The terms are known: nasty self-praising demagogy, show off in the way of the former king of a ring, Muhammad Ali: "I am the best!" It reminds one of the savior complex of the former master of Czechoslovak normalization, Gustav Husak: "I will save this nation even if everybody should spit in my face!" It is a populism of big-mouthed, unfulfilled promises in the way of the former mystificator, Nikita Khrustchev: "I will lead you to paradise!"

        But caution! Muhammad Ali was not defeated by a bigger demagogue, who could shout louder and beat himself harder in the chest: he was defeated by a better boxer. Husak was not defeated by a better savior of the nation: he failed together with his savior syndrome. Khrustchev’s mystifications about communist paradise within an arm-length were not beaten by bigger mystifications, they were covered by dust in the dump of history.

        In other words, the point today is not to find a bigger, better and more charismatic leader then Vladimir Meciar, the point is to get rid of Meciar and meciarism, that is together with his leadership principles, which have no place in a democratic context, but strive in predemocratic and antidemocratic societies. Those of the first type are, e.g., primitive societies of herd or tribe type. The herd leader is the biggest, the strongest or the most athletic male, who gets to his position through survival of the fittest. In a tribe society usually one of the members becomes a leader according to certain rules that, at the same time, make him a high natural authority in the society. We had leaders of this tribe type until recently in the Romany ,"vajda", before these tribe societies disintegrated.

        The latter type are totalitarian societies that try to reduce citizens to lifeless means of the will of the official representation. To achieve this, they become dictatorships and, sooner or later, they are led by "great" leaders, dictators: evil demonic beings like Hitler or Stalin, charismatic popular "darlings" like Fidel Castro or Alexander Dubcek, or finally tragic-comic figures like Muammar Khaddafi or the last Czechoslovak general secretary of the ruling Communist Party, Milos Jakes. Vladimir Meciar is a bit of each kind: he is the "big male" leading the herd -that's how our popular singer Raz reflects him - and the ,,vajda" of predemocratic tribe society of the Slovak (or their Indian tribe leader to whom the tribe members dutifully give proofs of respect), the demonic dictator, a popular "darling", all in one. He can perform all kinds of leadership abilities, as well as present the parody of the accidental leader. This topic was long time ago very accurately commented by Karl Popper in his classical schoolbook of democracy: Open Society And Its Enemies: "It is obvious that once the question ‘Who should rule?’ is formulated, it is very hard to avoid an answer such as ‘the best', ‘the most clever', ‘the born ruler’.... But this kind of answer, no matter how convincing it sounds - because who would side with a government led by ‘the worst’, ‘the stupidest person’, ‘the born slave’? - is of no use at all. It is not easy to have a government who relies absolutely on kindness and goodness. If we allow this to happen, then we have to ask, if the political thinking should not consider the possibility of a bad government, if we should not be prepared for the worst leaders but hope for the best ones. That leads to a new approach to politics, because it forces us to replace the question ‘Who should rule?’ with the question ‘How should we arrange the political institutions so the bad and incompetent rulers will not be able to cause too much harm?"

        The issue of political leadership cannot be mistaken for the issue of political personalities, including the intellectuals in politics. These are contradictory categories. Where the cult of strong leader flourishes, there is an unkind environment for outstanding political personalities. These are a natural threat for despotic leaders. All the political personalities from Meciar’s entourage vanished, or were removed, because the leader wished to stand several feet above everybody. He cannot stand to have equal partners, because then he would not be a leader anymore, if his critics are on equal footing with him.

        On the contrary, the more space is given to political personalities, to their independent individualized speeches and attitudes, the worse the environment becomes for the development of a strong single leader: the democratic competitive environment controls, limits and sobers the opportunities of his creation. It is good, if the leader of a democratic party or government is a strong political personality, but it is even better, if other strong political personalities, the politically thinking intellectuals who influence the political opinion, stop him from becoming the only authoritative leader in the particular society.

        From its core, totalitarianism breeds good conditions for the existence of autocratic leaders, while democracy favors a wider and diverse range of political personalities, including the politically involved intellectuals. SDC has such personalities and it is not a sign of weakness if no member can become its leader, the only big leader. On the contrary, it is a sign that there is still a democratic, competitive environment in the area of political leadership. The coalition supporting the totalitarian form of state is connected by the authoritarian single leader, while the democratic coalition is connected by common principles of constitutionalism and the state of law. Autocratic leaders have no place here.