Yanlış eylemin peşinde: ?Geç Kapitalizmin Kültürü? nün Çekoslovak Komünizmi'nin çöküşüne olan etkisi

This thesis examines the influence of Western cultural products on the ideological defeat of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia. My argument is that the collapse of the communism in Czechoslovakia cannot be solely explained by the macroeconomic problems nor by the Gorbachev factor. Although structural problems and Gorbachev?s perestroika put Communist party elites into difficult situations, as the successful suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests shows, these factors were not enough to overthrow the party. I believe the main factor for the collapse was the party elites? severe crises of legitimacy, which even paralyzed the security forces from intervening in the massive protests and student occupations. Using the accounts of Fredric Jameson and Slavoj ?i?ek on the new global culture of late capitalism, I argue that the main reason for the legitimacy crises of the ?real communism? was the spread and penetration of the new cultural and ideological predicament, which began to emerge in North America and Western Europe roughly in late 1950s, to the Eastern bloc countries. The thesis thus seeks to challenge the ascribed iron-ness of the curtain by discussing the interaction between the two blocs of the Cold War.