Champion of democracy

pp. 19-37

in: Harald G. Skilling, T. G. Masaryk, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1994

Abstract

During more than three decades prior to 1914, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk was a tireless defender of democracy within the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. His views on democracy can only be understood in the context of his attitudes towards politics in general, both in theory and practice. For Masaryk, politics was an integral part of philosophy and closely related to morality and religion, as well as to science. In fact it was both a science and an art. For him democracy developed as the antithesis of aristocracy, or as he termed it, theocracy. In contrast to the latter, democracy embodied rule by the people, self-government at all levels, and respect for the individual. In a comparative analysis of contemporary political systems Masaryk manifested his profound respect for the constitutional systems of Great Britain and America and his deep hostility to the absolute monarchies of Germany, Russia and his own Austria-Hungary. The state and politics, in his view, had to have a national content, reflecting the Czech struggle for state rights and independence, but should also reflect a humanist approach to the world and to life. Masaryk was a keen student of the social question and urged that all politics, both the state and parties, be given social content, or 'socialized". He put his faith in democracy, progressive populism and moderate socialism and was critical of liberalism, Marxist and clerical socialism, communism and anarchism, as well as conservatism, whether in feudal or clerical form. He was a decided opponent of violent revolution and a warm advocate of small-scale work, and of gradual reform. He also believed in the importance of what he called "non-political politics", i.e. work in the cultural, social and economic fields, as well as in personal relations.