Czechoslovak Social Democracy Between Revolution and Evolution

This article deals with the historical crossroads of the social-democratic movement. Despite the choice of the environment of interwar Czechoslovakia, the article's conclusion is intended to provide a new conceptualisation of the topic of socialism when the author uses a specific Central European case. Using discursive analysis, the article follows the revolutionary discourse, represented by articles in the official daily newspaper of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Labour Party – Právo lidu. The discursive strategies emerging from the articles in the newspaper Právo lidu correspond to a revolutionary-socialist discourse that stretches from early Marx to the present. Some aspects of revolutionary thinking change, but the fundamental pillars remain the same. The reduction of social problems to a class scheme, the division between us and them, the division between exploiters and exploited. All this is set in a linear scheme that ends in redemption in the form of an egalitarian society.  Based on the observed discourse and a reflection on the literature, the article concludes by offering starting points for an analysis of the position of social democracy at the ideological crossroads.