The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - ELTE BTK Történelem Szakos Portál

party itself but for the whole Slovakian national consciousness. If the Slovakian
national movement is for example compared with the German or the Bohemian
one, an obvious difference appears. In Germany or in Bohemia the bourgeoisie
mediated and emphasized the national idea. The Slovakian national movement
was carried by the catholic church. The nexus between the catholic church and
the national movement, the mixing between a religious founding and national
ratio created the possibility to isolate the understanding of a Slovakian identity
from the national movement of the Czechs. The HSPP bundled this
understanding within the frame of a political party.
Founded in 1905, named after its first leader the priest Andrej Hlinka, it
already embodied the Slovak national movement under the tight conditions of
Magyarization within the translaithanian part of the Habsburg empire.
In 1935 30% of the Slovakians voted in the general elections for the
movement in Czechoslovakia. The party came into power, when the
independence of the Slovak Republic was proclaimed. Intentions and principles
could turn into real politics.
Defining attributes of the HSPP’s ideology
Anit-Bolschevism built a defining part of the HSPP’s ideological
conception. Anti-Bolschevism in this case meant neither particularly the
rejection of the Russian Revolution`s outcome and consequences nor the
rejection of the bloody reality in Stalin’s empire. It meant a massive reluctance
against the democratic philosophy, a disaffirmation of democracy itself.
Democracy, as the political system of the modern age with the capacity of
general emancipation, equal rights and liberty, was flatly rejected, as the
modern age with all its social, economic and cultural implications was damned.
The modern age was seen as a threat to an everlasting order willed by God.
In this sense Josef Tiso and his followers conceived themselves as
protectors and concluded – according to Josef Tiso`s wording: „The party is the
nation, and the nation is the party. The nation speaks through the party, and
the party thinks for the nation. What is of harm to the nation, is forbidden by
the party [...] The party cannot go wrong, if it always acts in the best interest of
the nation.” 1
According to this credo all other parties had to be forbidden, because they
would only undermine the nation’s wellbeing, and split the Slovak people,
which was thought of as a tide and indivisible unity, into fractions. As
exceptions only two other parties were allowed to participate in the political
system. Each party would represent a national minority: The Hungarian party
1 TÖNSMEYER, Tatjana: Kollaboration als handlungsleitendes Motiv? Die Slowakisch
Elite und das NS-Regime. In: Dieckmann, Christoph (Editor) et al.; Kooperation und
Verbrechen. Formen der „Kollaboration” im östlichen Europa 1939-1945. Wallstein,
Göttingen, 2003. 31.
62