Obvinění Ladislava Novomeského z tzv. slovenského buržoazního nacionalismu a jeho sebekritika na jaře 1950

This study looks at the circumstances of the origin of the campaign against so-called Slovak bourgeois nationalism in spring 1950. It primarily focuses on poet and Communist Party of Slovakia figure, Ladislav Novomeský, who became one of its victims. Ideas of the existence of so-called bourgeois nationalism in Slovakia were an entirely deliberate construction with no basis in reality serving only to justify the Communist Party's immediaet needs for power. The study analyses from many perspectives the (ir)relevant arguments made in the allegations against Novomeský. It also looks in detail at how the poet's self-criticism, repeated a number of times, gradually deepened. Escalating attacks and repeated calls for party discipline forced Novomeský to resign from the use of rational arguments and instead mechanically confess to his guilt. His willingness to concede was helped significantly by the fact that so-called Slovak bourgeois nationalism was criticised in spring 1950 merely as an ideological deviation, and not as a criminal act.