Condition of Semantical Truth in Post-Totalitarian Regimes

Haluk Ball

Boazii University

Vclav Havel penned his Power of the Powerless in October 1978 to talk about how
dissidents emerge in post-totalitarian1 countries. In the essay, he explores the communist
regime of Czechoslovakia, which was a satellite state of Soviet Union at the time, in terms of
the peculiarities of Soviet dictatorship compared to classical dictatorships in silencing and
oppressing people. In this essay, I will discuss how semantical truth is destructed in post-
totalitarian regimes over Havels explanation of the way a slogan is used as an instrument of
regime propaganda in communist Czechoslovakia. In this discussion, I will use Roland
Barthes theory of mythology to analyze how the meaning gets lost and gradually semantical
truth fades away.

I would like to start by clarifying the concept of semantical truth mentioned in this essay. By
semantical truth, I do not mean an essentialist, dualistic understanding of truth vs lie where
people are confined into either-ors. On the contrary, the semantical truth is of a fluid
formation; it obtains its historicity slowly via meaning being processed into a concept. The
concept may very well transform from the primordial meaning to contemporary meanings.
However, there is a loud and clear distinction between the evolution of a concept and
deformation of it. While conceptual evolution takes place for the sake of the concept itself, its
manipulation serves the manipulators. Through evolution, semantical truth of a concept
changes; through manipulation, it is distorted. And post-totalitarian regimes manipulate
semantical truth in order to create a discourse that will justify their rule while at the same
time passivizing people.

This said, the state of semantical semantical truth in post-totalitarian regimes is a

matter of not so much controversy. This is because the maintenance of semantical truth, and
its potential to evolve, rests upon peoples capacity to engage with it freely: if people have
faith in the components of a concept, they will already defend it as best they can. If not, there
will emerge an inherent necessity to change the halting components and arrive in the re-
idealized version. In either case, the main objective will be preserving or appropriately
developing the concept itself. For people to be able to approach a concept in either of these
1 By the term post-totalitarian, Havel does not mean the aftermath but the present state of the
totalitarian state.

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two ways, they need to have the luxury of expressing their discontent or satisfaction. And this
is where the semantical truth becomes bound to manipulation under post-totalitarian regimes
as all expressions of nonconformity are eradicated in such regimes (Havel 36). To
exemplify how people are made to conform to the ideals of the post-totalitarian regime by
means of ideological oppression, Havel proposes the following scenario:

The manager of a fruit-and-vegetable shop places in his window, among the

onions and carrots, the slogan: "Workers of the world, unite!" Why does he do it?
What is he trying to communicate to the world? Is he genuinely enthusiastic
about the idea of unity among the workers of the world? Is his enthusiasm so
great that he feels an irrepressible impulse to acquaint the public with his ideals?
Has he really given more than a moment's thought to how such a unification
might occur and what it would mean? (41)

It is evident, just as Havel himself points out in his article, that the manager, who represents
the working class in this case, does not genuinely mean what is in the slogan. He does put it
on his window simply because he is obliged to do so and it has been done that way for
years (41). Acting in any other way would denote nonconformity to the regime, and under
no circumstances would the authority allow this since it would pose a threat to its totality. As
for the meaning conveyed by the manager through the slogan; it is merely a signification of
conformity that declares the managers loyalty to the regime. He is indifferent to the
semantic content of the slogan on exhibit; he does not put the slogan in his window from any
personal desire to acquaint the public with the ideal it expresses (41). The greengrocers
loyalty embedded in the slogan is transcribed by Havel in the following way:

I, the Greengrocer XY, live here and I know what I must do. I behave in the
manner expected of me. I can be depended upon and am beyond reproach. I am
obedient and therefore I have the right to be left in peace (42).

Havel rightfully describes the slogan as a sign since it is composed of a signifier, (the
sentence Workers of the world, unite!), and the signified (the transcription of the slogan
provided by Havel). It is safe to say that here Havel sketches a two-levelled structure of
meaning present in the slogan. The first level of meaning emerges through the ideological
signification of the slogan that denotes the Socialist notion of workers coming together and
taking a stand against bourgeoisie. The second level of meaning is the notion of loyalty
expressed by the manager towards the authority of the regime. Since the supposed

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signification of the slogan and what it practically connotates are drastically distinct from each
other, Havel argues that the manager, as well as all others who put the same slogan on their
windows, contributes to the making of what he calls social auto-totality in which people
surrender their human identity in favour of the identity of the system (52).

It thus follows that in this post-totalitarian system, the original meaning gets lost due
to the pressure exerted upon people for the sake of the maintenance of the regime. In other
words, a shift in meaning from the reality towards a world of appearances takes place
which as a consequence creates a mere ritual, a formalized language deprived of semantic
contact with reality (Havel 47). On the other hand, I argue that departure from truth in post-
totalitarian systems is even more comprehensive than Havel claims. Analyzing the slogan put
on the window of the greengrocer in the light of Roland Barthes essay titled The
Signification displays the farther spot at which semantical truth is destructed.

In his essay, Barthes uses the concept of myth to explain, like Havel, a two-levelled
structure of meaning by making a vital distinction between language and myth. He argues
that mythical structure in semantics hides nothing: its function is to distort, not to make
disappear (120) via a relation of deformation (121) between the signified and the signifier,
which carries with it, in addition to its literal meaning, a meaning that embodies its history;
nonetheless, signifier in language cannot be distorted because it is empty [and] arbitrary
(121). To illustrate the concept of myth, Barthes gives the example of a picture in which a
Negro in uniform salutes French flag. In language level, one would think about literal,
empty, arbitrary significations of the signifiers in which case the Negro in uniform would
mean no further than a young black man and the French flag no more than three different
colors one under the other. In mythical level, on the contrary, not only do the signifiers very
explicitly bespeak their histories but also distort them to put forth an ideological image. So, in
Barthes words, the picture would mean the following in mythical level:

French imperiality condemns the saluting Negro to be nothing more than an

instrumental signifier, the Negro suddenly hails me in the name of French
imperiality; but at the same moment the Negro's salute thickens, becomes
vitrified, freezes into an eternal reference meant to establish French imperiality
(124).

So, while the Negro image bears the history of slavery in French context, this history is
distorted in a way in which the image of Negro in uniform is reconciled with French

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imperialism. This way Negro in uniform becomes not the victim but the advertiser of
French imperialism. Ultimately, the history of the signifier is changed into a distorted,
amicable, promoter version of history.

By looking at the slogan in the greengrocers shop through the lenses of Barthess
theory of mythology, we can say that the meaning present in the slogan Workers of the
world, unite! is taken further away from semantical truth to the extent that there is a third
level of meaning that has emerged. Firstly, when the history of the main signifier in the
slogan, namely of workers, is considered in the context of uniting, we right away
understand that the historical reference that this signifier makes is to Manifesto of the
Communist Party written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The manifesto, very
superficially put, proposes the overthrow of hierarchical class system over a revolution that
will come true on the unification of workers. However, there is a crucial element in this
unification: in its ideal form, the revolution will be possible thanks to a working class that has
the consciousness of the situation it is in. Marx and Friedrich assert that the proletarian
movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the
interest of the immense majority (20). That is, working class will not depend on any other
power other than its own to make this revolution because they will already be conscious of
the fact that their unification will give them the power they need to be able to overthrow the
class system.

Secondly, there is the distorted meaning that the slogan denotes. The distortion comes
about in the following way: the manager of the greengrocer in the scenario of Havel
obviously lacks any kind of consciousness. Just like Havel himself implies, he does not have
any idea as to the ideal the slogan represents whilst also lacking consciousness of his class
and the potential of power that himself and his likes can form together. Rather, he is just part
of the panorama that Havel talks about in his essay later on. Consequently, it is inevitably
true that the unification of the working class that is explained in Manifesto of the
Communist Party is impossible to come true in Havels scenario because one of the main
components is openly missing. So what function does communist ideal serve, for its main
objective has become void? The answer to that question as well is placed inside the scenario
by Havel. The manager of the greengrocer, as Havel explains in his interpretation of the
slogan, buys the right to be let alone by conforming to the duty of placing the slogan on his
window. In other words, the slogan functions merely to silence people and turn them into
obedient subjects. In this case, the paraphrasing of the slogan in a practical fashion would be

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as follows: Workers of the world, be obedient! It is not difficult to see that this is the
opposite of what the manifesto idealized.

Finally, there is a third level of meaning that is bred as a result of the slogan being
used as a response by the working class to the regime. It is the signification of obedience to
the regime as discussed by Havel in the interpretation of the slogan. The regime uses the
slogan in the second level of meaning discussed in this paper by requiring the working class
to place it on the window of their shops, and the working class takes that meaning to even a
further point by placing the slogan on the window and ascribing another meaning to it, which
is: I got your message, and I am being obedient to you. This way, the original meaning of
the slogan is degraded into a third level.

The degradation of original meaning in such a way under post-totalitarian regimes is a

proof of how far away from the semantical truth such regimes compel people to stay. All that
is theoretically done for the sake of ideology is practically done for the sake of the regime

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 Works Cited

Barthes, Roland. "The Signification." Mythologies. New York: Noonday, 1991. 121-27. Web.

Havel, Vclav. The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central-eastern
Europe. NY, NY: Routledge, 2015. Print.