A mere seven years after the Velvet Revolution, the former Charter 77 signatory and Czech sociologist Jiřina Šiklová posed reflectively the question “What did we lose after 1989?” (Social Research 63 [Summer 1996]: 531–41). While she offered a litany of answers, ranging from the nostalgic and sentimental to the pragmatic and metaphysical, Šiklová ultimately maintained that “[w]hat we primarily lost is our clear notion of ‘we,’ our self-definition, eschatology, or something that goes beyond us” (p. 534). For Šiklová, the years spent on the margins of Czechoslovak society with her tight network of fellow intellectuals, cultural figures, and friends galvanized a set of relationships that began to crumble in the absence of a common threat. And, while James Krapfl might agree that the friendships, the social bonds, and even the people who constituted the revolutionary movement and its spirit were casualties of the immediate postcommunist era, what was lost was even more important. Indeed, in this book, he argues—perhaps indirectly—that the world appears to have lost important and revolutionary ideas forged in the crucible of a post-totalitarian regime to the ordinary and pragmatic politics of a modern, liberal democratic era.

While this argument is certainly not new (see Jeffrey C. Isaac, “The Meanings of 1989,” Social Research 63 [Summer 1996]: 291–344), the source material used to advance this thesis is new, at least to most of us in the English-speaking world. For Krapfl, while journalists, historians, political scientists, and other academics have focused on questions of the causes and consequences of that revolutionary moment, “we still do not know basic facts about what happened, how the citizens who constituted East European societies behaved, and what motivated their behavior” (p. 7). To correct for this lacuna in our understanding, Krapfl shifts our attention away from the geographical and political centers of power that dominate the narratives from this era to the streets and smaller communities throughout the former Czechoslovakia and the people who occupied them. To construct his narratives, he relies heavily on primary documents, including bulletins, flyers, newspapers, declarations, audio-visual materials, and other media retrieved from more than 40 archives throughout the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The product of his efforts results in perspectives and insights into the revolutionary mind-set of ordinary citizens that, up to this point, have been overlooked, ignored, or avoided. Juxtaposed against the dominant narrative that focuses on the more visible political maneuvers of the revolutionary elite and transitional opportunists, the demise of the revolutionary ideas that, Krapfl argues, emerged spontaneously from the communities participating in the revolutionary moment becomes more tragic. For the student of East European politics, social mobilization, or democratic theory, herein resides the value of Revolution with a Human Face.

While the initial “narrative theory” framework Krapfl draws upon is awkward and not sustained throughout the book, the generic plot schemes that play out sequentially by a predictable cast is a useful heuristic with which to understand how quickly the revolutionary ideas present during this brief window were supplanted with other interests. The romantic revolution characterized by idealism, youthful euphoria, and the promise of sociopolitical rebirth emerged early in the revolutionary period and grew rapidly in popularity, especially among the Czechoslovak youth. The comedic revolution emerged on the heels of the popular revolutionary events and is characterized by the new elites attempting to bring an end to the romantic revolution so as to proceed with the practical task of building a new regime. The tragic interpretation of the revolution emerges in the wake of the euphoric moments and is fueled by the perception that the revolution failed due to flaws within the revolutionary community itself. The faith in democratic compromise and pragmatic solutions gave rise to leaders like Václav Klaus and Vladimír Mečiar who dismantled Czechoslovakia and normalized the new states’ return to Europe. More recently, a satirical version of the revolution—so deeply ironic and cynical that it suggests that nothing really changed at all and that it was simply an exchange of one type of elite ruling class for another—has emerged. Regardless of the veracity or validity of these interpretations, what becomes clear from this analysis is that “even if new ideas did not ‘come out’ of Eastern Europe in 1989, they were there” (p. 110).

Krapfl identifies these “new ideas” via a systematic analysis of a hundred randomly selected demand lists published by ordinary Czechoslovak citizens in November and December 1989. From these he identified nine broad categories of demands that include issues related to political representation, working conditions, symbolic representation, freedom and self-organization, historical dates, fairness, environmental concerns, material well-being, and others (p. 79). Moving beyond the substantive concerns, the author identifies what he thinks are the revolutionary ideals that were birthed, but quickly supplanted, in the revolutionary moment. Specifically, he illustrates in considerable detail the manner in which themes of nonviolence, self-organization, democracy, fairness, humaneness, and socialism were manifest and pervasive in the conversations and actions of Czechs and Slovaks from Plzeň to Košice.

Although Krapfl eschews a focus on the revolutionary and transitional elites in Czechoslovakia in favor of an inductive approach in his analysis of documents produced by ordinary citizens, the revolutionary ideals that he identifies do not differ substantively from those advocated and practiced by “dissident” groups such as Charter 77 in the years preceding 1989. Indeed, many of these revolutionary ideals are present in the earliest of Charter 77 documents and were identified by H. Gordon Skilling eight years before the revolution and more than 30 years before the publication of this book (Charter 77 and Human Rights in Czechoslovakia, 1981). Moreover, many of the individual Charter 77 signatories espoused these values in essays, letters, and other forms prior to the revolutionary moments in 1989. Given the low probability of these values and principles emerging spontaneously in a highly repressed society, the presence of this antecedent is rendered even more important.

Recognizing the fact that these values were being articulated and espoused in Czechoslovakia prior to the revolutionary moment, however, does not diminish the value of Krapfl’s work in identifying the ways in which these values were present in the general population. In fact, the identification of not only the presence but also the pervasiveness of the radically democratic values advocated by Chartists in the 13 years prior to 1989 renders this work that much more valuable. Prior to Krapfl’s work, the idea that Charter 77’s efforts had an impact beyond a closed circle of “dissidents” with access to samizdat networks was merely conjecture; clearly, the values, ideals, and beliefs were transmitted and absorbed more broadly than we had previously known. In light of this, perhaps Šiklová’s “we” should be expanded to include not just her fellow Czechs and Slovaks but the rest of the world as well.