Abstract

Mlynar's Nightfrost in Prague is an inside history of the futile struggle of Czechoslovak reform communists against Stalinism. Eastern European “socialist humanism” has been discussed often by such communist intellectuals as Markovic, Stojanovic, Schaff, Kolakowsky, Bahro and Kosik, but Mlynar has the unique perspective of an intellectual who was once in the highest ranks of a communist party. While most Eastern bloc socialist humanists are dissidents outside the state controlled domination system, Mlynar “experienced the Prague Spring inside those structures of power” and "not only saw them from up close and inside, but…also tried to reshape them” (p. 76).

Mlynar joined the Czechoslovak Communist Party (CPC) as a teenager in 1946.