Zápasy slepého muže - Život a doba komunisty Klementa Lukeše – Kosatík Pavel (2023)

Czech history of the 20th century would not be complete without the story of Klement Lukeš (1926–2000). After 1945, he became enthusiastic about the politics of the Communist Party, which unexpectedly offered a chance to a person with a serious health disability (he was blind): it entrusted him with training party cadres. As a mentor to Antonín Novotný, Lubomír Štrougal, Miloš Jakeš, and others, Lukeš was one of the first to learn about the serious mental limitations of the then rulers. From the mid-1950s, he was among the leading revisionists, seeking an alternative to Stalinism, inspired by the Yugoslav system of workers' self-management. In 1961, he was labeled the head of a pro-Yugoslav conspiracy; a new trial with Slánský and others did not take place simply because the Soviet Union was no longer interested. However, Lukeš continued as an opposition figure, in 1968, with Charter 77, during the organization of samizdat in the 1980s, etc. The regime at that time had few opponents as capable as this man, who resisted the fate of living in an unequal position.