Lubomír Mlčoch

* 1944

Video Player is loading.
Current Time 0:00
/
Duration 0:00
Loaded: 0%
Progress: 0%
Stream Type LIVE
Remaining Time -0:00
 
1x
  • "That was only at the very end, I was allowed from May 1988... Václav Klaus simply invited me to the Institute of Economics, so I was already in the Academy of Sciences. And in January 1989, when there were these student protests that were suppressed by the National Security Corps, there was a petition against that. Someone in the Institute of Economics gave it to me to sign, and I not only signed it, but I also had others sign it. Livia Klausová, who worked there, also signed it. So when it had been going on for a few days, the signing, I got a call from the deputy director saying that there were comrades from Security Service and that they would like to talk to me. So that was the only case, but it was on the premises of the Institute of Economics. I didn't have to go anywhere in Bartholomějská Street, people used to go there with horror. In fact, by the time it was going on, it was basically obvious to them that they had to write something down with me. They started off with a sort of mild threat that they knew I was there for a short time, so they certainly appreciated that I could and so on. I was just arguing that the essence of this petition is that these things should be dealt with politically and not by force - that is, not against students, on the street."

  • "The way it went - in the fifth year I met our year leader on the stairs in the corridor and she told me that there was a department meeting, and there it was already known that I was still studying the other field and that the department was interested in me. But right on those stairs she said it was conditioned by being a member of the party. And I, before I could answer somehow, our year organization, those classmates who were already in the party, they invited me to a meeting. So actually the department asked for my membership in the party, and so it took a course that just fitted the spirit of that time already, of that 1967. One of the classmates, Franta Bukovský, said to me: 'So we were talking before you came here, that if it weren't for the department, you probably wouldn't have joined the party.´ I confirmed this assumption, they sent me to the corridor and five minutes later they invited me back and said: 'We accept you into the party. We don't want to stand in the way of your professional career.' So that's how they accepted me into the party. So that's how it went. After the war, I went back there, to that department, and the background checks were starting, so there was a question asked if I was willing to defend the Party's policy for them, and I said I wasn't, and I would like to move to the less exposed department. I was told by the person who was in charge that it probably wouldn't work, that he would be happy to be wrong, but that it probably wouldn't work. So he wasn't wrong. So I was still able to be there for a year in the other department, and then my contract was not renewed. So that's what my membership in the party looked like."

  • "And then I applied to university and I was brought up to be ambitious, let's say, so I wanted to go to Prague. Someone advised me that you could also study languages at the department of foreign trade at the University of Economics, so I applied there. And there it turned out, I was actually told, in a disingenuous way, that there are other things that are evaluated. So I wasn't admitted there, and those who didn't get into the foreign course, at that time, those who were interested were transferred to the finance course, which was then a totally unattractive field of work in the district branch of the bank - bank clerks. So I studied there for two years, and then there was this paradox that during that study I was introduced to political economy, it was Marxist of course, there was no other. But nevertheless, I was interested in the theory, and so I ended up switching to political economy from the third year onwards, which was remarkable because the department was a communist party department and I hadn´t been actually allowed to go into foreign trade, and strangely enough I was accepted there. It was 1964."

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Praha, 10.02.2025

    (audio)
    duration: 01:24:37
    media recorded in project Stories of the 20th Century TV
  • 2

    Praha, 20.02.2025

    (audio)
    duration: 01:22:52
    media recorded in project Stories of the 20th Century TV
Full recordings are available only for logged users.

I fought against the regime with my work

As Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University in 1997-2003
As Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University in 1997-2003
photo: Witness´s archive

Lubomír Mlčoch was born on 13 May 1944 in Troubky in Haná region. He was baptized and attended religious classes, although his family did not practice the faith. In 1958-1962 he studied at the secondary general education school in Přerov. From 1962 he studied finance at the University of Economics (VŠE) in Prague. In 1964, he added a major in political economy. During his studies he joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) in order to do academic work. After successfully completing his university studies in 1967, as a graduate soldier he began a year of military service in the Karlín barracks, where he experienced the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops in August 1968. He was expelled from the party during the checking process and later could no longer engage in academic activities. He worked as an economist at Tesla in Holešovice. In the 1970s he found his way back to Catholicism. In the 1980s he attended Václav Klaus’ banking lectures. In 1988 he joined the Prognostic Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. In the 1990s he participated in the renewal of the Catholic Church. From 1997-2003 he served two terms as Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University. In 2001, Pope John Paul II awarded him the Knight’s Cross of the Pontifical Order of St. Gregory the Great. In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. In 2025 he was living in Prague.