We're talking about the Prague Spring, so-called Prague Spring, although it's a longer process which underlines the crisis of Stalinism in the post-war period. One of the biggest movements shaking Stalinist regimes from their foundations there were others, big movements, leading in the direction of trying to regenerate, to regenerating socialism on a democratic basis and there are many different components in this movement, which I'll try to explain the dynamics of it and how it came along and how it rose and how it was defeated and the consequences, giving a bit of a context in terms of international relations in the world at the time and and also going back to the roots of the Czechoslovak regime, how it came to power and the consequences of how the transition to get rid of capitalism and towards a planned economy impacted and the perspectives and how the movement developed in 1968 is also a consequence of that. To start the Prague Spring was sharply suppressed by the intervention, the military intervention of the Soviet Union and around the Soviet Union by the Warsaw Pact. The Warsaw Pact was a military alliance of the Eastern Bloc countries with the Soviet Union. Almost every country led by Stalinist regimes participated in the suppression of the Prague Spring movement in August 1968, except for Romania, which was then hailed as a liberal Stalinist regime in the West and we know how things have developed in Romania since that and brought to the fall of the regime of Ceausescu. Romania refused to participate in this and the suppression of the Prague Spring at the time. But going back to the movement and how it came about well, the demonstrators were greeting Soviet troops entering Prague and the other towns in Czechoslovakia with the slogan Lenin wake up, Brezhnev has gone mad and that kind of epitomized the psychology of the mass of the people in this movement they most of the students, the intelligentsia and the workers who were participating in this big wave of mobilizations had in mind a target, which was not the idea of going back to capitalism. This is a kind of myth that has been created and has been also fueled by the posterior evolution of the leaders of the Prague Spring, Dubcek first, for example, who supported the so-called Velvet Revolution of 1989 and basically the whole movement towards the restoration of capitalism. But at the time it was a different thing and the aim of this revolution immobilization was to challenge the domination over society of the bureaucracy of the Soviet bureaucracy, there were no formerly not Soviets in Czechoslovakia at the time or even before. The regime in Czechoslovakia was established by a combination of revolutionary uprising and process of mass mobilization of the working class and the presence of the Red Army, obviously, because the Red Army was the liberator troops entering Prague and the Czech Republic in 1945, in May 1945 and chasing formerly wiping out the last Nazi resistance of occupied Czechoslovakia. So basically the regime coming out of that period, of that process, was a combination of revolutionary features by expropriating the capitalist who collaborated with Nazi Germany occupation, most of them they were expropriated, their properties were expropriated, were put under workers management and control for a limited period of time in the transition between 45 and 48. All the workers' organization exploded in terms of membership, strength, roots in the working class. It was an impressive show but it was dominated by the Communist Party which was following Stalinist line in the whole in the whole struggle against Nazi occupation, the anti-fascist struggle and then in the transition from 45 to 48 defending the idea of creating a People's Republic, a sort of hybrid between bourgeois democracy and socialism without pushing for further the transition to the abolition of capitalism. And the abolition of capitalism was brought about by a combination of the internal revolutionary wave, the strength of the Communist movement and the Communist Party which was dominating the trade unions, the working class in crashing with a crashing majority because of the role they played in the resistance movement before and a combination of the international relations between the big powers which also had an impact in shaping up the whole process from 45 to 48. In the previous period when the liberation happened after the uprising in Prague which saw an important mass participation of the workers of Prague for five days of fears fighting and hundreds of people were killed against the Nazis the uprising in Prague was the biggest show of workers' power in arms, workers in arms with the militias organized by the Communist Party and the other anti-fascist parties but the whole process was frozen by Stalinist leadership with the idea that the most important strategic asset of which would defend or screen the Soviet Union for a future repetition and allow the Soviet Union to rebuild itself after the distractions of the war was guaranteed by the alliance with the allied powers Britain and the United States in particular the anti-fascist alliance the three big powers alliance as you want to call and so Stalinist Soviet Union and Stalin in particular were pursuing a policy of appeasement with the so-called democratic powers of the west which had as a casualty a number of the development of the process of the revolution in the post-war period in a number of countries which were occupied by the red army and because of the relationship of forces between the working class and the ruling class and the presence of the red army and the armed workers, the armed militias, the armed partisans and so on the relationship of forces was so favorable to to the revolutionary side that the reaction didn't really have much social base to base themselves upon in other countries where like Italy or Greece or France for example, which were established in the in the pact between Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt and with Americans in general because Roosevelt died at some point They established a partition of the world in spheres of influence and eastern Europe was to be part of the Soviet sphere of influence the other countries, although they experienced and went through analogous and even stronger in certain ways, revolution waves in the struggle against fascism were to be preserved as part of the sphere of influence of US imperialism or British imperialism in a way of preserving their capitalist setup, their capitalist constitution and state and therefore the policies of the Stalinist Comintern before the dissolution of the Comintern, which by the way was decided by Stalin in May 1943 as a gift in an exchange to his democratic imperialist partners by suppressing the communist international the message was we're not pursuing the development of revolutionary of revolutionary overthrow of capitalism throughout the world the communist international was dissolved in in may 1943 as a consequence of this policy in That policy also meant An adaptation of the communist parties to the national liberation struggle trying to to present and trying to portray the national liberation struggle as national struggle against Nazi occupation And that in in the case of the of the Czech and Czechoslovakia in general Revolution of 4548 meant a coalition government with the remaining bourgeois parties in a situation where the bourgeoisie fled with the nazis There was no alternative armed power in the country other than the red army and the partisan armed militia But the Stalinist collaborated and and propped up and allowed the rebuild Rebuilding a number of bourgeois parties a number of petty bourgeois parties and together with them in a coalition government staged a sort of Fiction of bourgeois democracy for for a number of years until the international situation changed Um, I don't I don't have much time to go into that, but There are elements of revolution and counter-revolution in all these processes and the strength of the communist party in the Czech Republic in Czechoslovakia which Was was immense the communist party Came out of the resistance war as the main force in three elections in 1947 got About 40 percent of the vote The the party went from 28 000 members in in may 1945 when when the uprising happened and the liberation happened to about Three quarters of a million 750 000 members by december of the same year. So just imagine this enormous movement The working class swelling The ranks of the communist party and strengthening the leadership of the communist party In all this process we have a contradiction between a revolutionary push from the working class Expressed in the structures of the communist party and the trade unions the Revolutionary trade unions that were built in the process of the anti fascist struggle And then became a huge powerful force In 1945 in the second half of 1945 reaching more than one and a half million members Organized in the whole working class A huge movement of workers councils developing But obviously all this movement which had enormous Put an enormous revolutionary pressure on the communist party on the trade union leadership On the government the popular front government and for for immediate transition Towards socialism. That was the aim Was reflected in the beginning in the in the structures of the communist party and the revolution trade union in clandestinity internally in in Czechoslovakia during the anti fascist struggle but then The leadership of these structures were completely overruled and substituted by the exiled leadership Which was based in moscow came back And and stepped as it took the position of leadership Their policy was to freeze the revolutionary process and prevent A revolution to to happen to keep it at the stage of a national revolution keep it at the stage of A people's republic which would not mean The the for example the establishment of a planned economy and the expropriation of capitalism But under the pressure of the working class They had to even the bourgeois had to agree to a number of Measures that were pointing in the direction of a planned economy They even agreed to an emergency economic plan a two years plan to Re-establish the productive forces of Czechoslovakia after the war and a sweeping movement of support to nationalization's measures Going from the heavy industry to the banking system To distribution to all the aspects of the economy in Czechoslovakia developed very rapidly after the liberation occurred It was a spontaneous movement of the working class It was a huge wave that the communist party could not completely Fence off although their policy was completely different Was to keep the status quo basically and limit the transition to freeze the transition And they pursued this policy up until 1947 The end of 1947 there is something that changes Just a little quote about of Stalin to to show this This the approach of the Stalinist leadership to to the process in november 1944, but that is reiterated with Many declarations afterwards Stalin stated that the alliance between the ussr great britain and the united states of america is founded not on casual transitory considerations But on vital and lasting interests So basically the soviet union the worker state The revolutionary here of october According to Stalin had strategic and or long lasting interest in an alliance with the main imperialist powers coming out victorious from from the world the war Obviously that wasn't the case the behavior of the of the us Strategies during the war for it was to establish connections with the nazi regime When it was clear that nazi germany was to be defeated and The germans also reached out to the americans and the british in order to arrive at a sort of negotiated or Most agreeable fall of of the nazi regime Which was meant to prevent The victory and the conquer All by the red army of large part of of eastern europe and they actually it's it's quite It's not thought so much in in academic history, but It's quite striking that for example the germans the nazi troops after In the last part of the war where completely Moved out of the way of the americans to accelerate the The rate of conquest and advance of the of the us troops and allied troops on the west And the german general staff moved Left only 26 german divisions on the western front To defend the western front against the allied troops Advance and concentrated all their forces to the east Towards russia 170 divisions On that front that shows the type of Struggle that was going on and there was also an attempt to Push americans to enter Czechoslovakia Before the uprising in Prague At that point It was already it had already been agreed That Czechoslovakia should be in the sphere of influence of the soviet union, but still they allied So reliable in terms of Stalin's Expectations were plotting ways of preventing the expansion of The sphere of influence of the soviet union Because they were rightly Concerned of the revolutionary impact of this of this advance of the of the red arm The regime established in 1948 was a somersault a complete Had one of the many 180 degrees turn of the Stalinist policy And it was caused by changing the war and changing world relations because obviously The the imperialists had Needed the soviet union to fight against nazi germany And and the second world war is in fact a titanic struggle between the soviet union and nazi germany and With very secondary Important, but secondary participation of the imperialist allied troops That's where most of the fighting that's where the strategic changes in the balance of forces was determined It was on the eastern front in during the second world war But yeah, this reliable allies had been at at a complete On complete diverging interest from those of the soviet union and so by The beginning of 1947 There is a u-turn in the u.s policy towards europe with a return to anti communism To raising the threat of communism as the main guiding line for u.s intervention that coincided with the marshal plan To stabilize europe and counter the revolution wave that was swiping all european country By means of Foreign direct investment by the united states the u.s loans to britain france to other countries And there was also an illusion by Stalin that Reconstruction in the soviet union would be allowed by u.s loan as well. So that's the level of hallucination and I would say I wouldn't I wouldn't call it a mistake, but a complete misunderstanding of this reading of of the class forces and why they were Going towards a breakup of the of the great alliance after the war when the situation was beginning to stabilize The british and u.s didn't need The alliance with the soviet union anymore. So They entered into a collision course and the reaction in moscow was a complete panic reaction With another 180 degree turn, which was Going back to the policies of the previous period the third period policies of Complete left-wing Extremist policies Which meant for for the Czech for Czechoslovakia that the communist party had to abandon the united front And the collaboration with the bourgeois party and go towards Seizing power and completing the overthrow of capitalism and implementing a regime of Similar to that of the soviet union So why have have I spoken about this because that shapes The future events the type of regime that was built in Czechoslovakia was built under an immense participation and Revolutionary commitment of the working class it had to give to the working class certain type of Allowance for for For example freedom of organization freedom of speech to a certain degree But by the turn in 1948 in february when when the communist party sees sees this power in Czechoslovakia They they they do that with the massive support on part of the population So there are elements which are reactionary elements which are extremely progressive in all this process and they establish a regime which is Based on the on the economic plan and the expropriation of the economy To the image of the existing Soviet union regime regime or that we call and we characterize as marxists as proletariat and bonapartism In the sense that the working class Is nominally the ruling class, but it has been expropriated by a bureaucratic Apparatus, which is embodied by the state and this huge bureaucracy expropriates the Political rights of the ruling class. So the working class which was part of this enormous revolutionary ferment before 1945 is reigned in by the Stalinist leadership and Massivized and all the energies of the working class in the Czech Republic in Czechoslovakia were turned on the internal front on the economic front to fight for the meeting the economic plan to re-establishing the basis of the productive forces demanding huge sacrifices which the workers willingly went along with So that shows the level of support that the Stalinist leadership had Enjoyed at that time amongst the mass of the population in the Czech Republic especially the working class But also the peasantry and so on number of reforms were were granted which were based on the expropriation of the economy for example on By establishing a plan in agriculture and distributing the lands and That were expropriated to the German collaborators and Czech Czechoslovak ruling class and the introduction of a planned economy With the nationalization of almost everything almost everything very very little was left To to be nationalized 20 years later, what happened that provoked this huge Revolutionary wave against against The most oppressive aspects of that regime in order to Disapply in the working class from 1948 onwards. There is a process of Stalinization of the party which means a number of Perch trials a number of Leaders or people who had authority because of the role they played in the liberation struggle But we're still putting forward the line of mobilizing or resting on The active participation of the working class where targeted and removed and The the push by the communist leadership which enjoyed of this huge enormous authority Because of the role they played in the previous period The Stalinists Effectively managed to control the process the revolution process and To divert the energies the revolutionary energies of the working class on to the internal front on the economic field and so on But that was At a huge cost. It was at an enormous cost from the point of view of the Quality of life of the of the conditions of life of the workers and so on they paid an enormous price in raising up again Czechoslovakia to the levels that were The productive forces were at before the war Um In in the in the early 1960s, there is a slowing down of economic growth All the benefits of the planned economy started to wear out Because of a number of reasons There is the policy by the soviet unions of Throwing out Technology out of the countries that were liberated Especially Germany, but also other countries including Czechoslovakia Machinery and so on. There is also the wearing out of the existing machinery and the problem of under-investment in the planned economy also The economy was paying a price for the policies of the Stalinist communist party in the previous period. For example, the Czechoslovak communists They supported the idea of the deportation of all the german speaking minority of Czechoslovakia, they were accused of collaborating with the nazis Only in part This accusation is true, especially regarding the ruling class. Obviously the german Minority Czech minority speaking german where at this proportionate part of the Czech Czechoslovak ruling class and they Collaborated actively with the nazis But it meant also the deportation about 20 percent of the working class Out of Czechoslovakia 20 percent of the working class And a lot of these workers were not fascists or were not fascist collaborators They just happened to be german part of the german minority That opened holes in the in the planned economy because a lot of these workers were Specialized workers and they could not be Substituted just by recruiting new layers of the working class out of the peasantry in Slovakia or in the Czech Republic. There were other problems There was like in all Eastern european countries each national bureaucracy was Planning to be as much as possible Independent economically from the others because there were tensions and also from the soviet union because they were aiming at having their own independence And that provoked conflicts and frictions throughout The the east your eastern european bloc And important conflicts like for example the tito styling styling clash between uber slavia and the soviet union But also other minor Frictions and conflicts between national bureaucracies So they were aiming at developing their own Particular base and in the Czech Republic the communist party enjoyed of a massive support as we have seen So they had the social basis to to base themselves upon they tried to counter the the slowing down of the planned economy which was A planned economy applied with bureaucratic methods to an economy which was particularly More developed than that of the soviet union for example already starting from a level Even after the destructions of the war an industrial level which was Of a qualitatively different level from The backward productive forces of the soviet union. So the the planned the bureaucratically planned economy Which was aimed at developing heavy industry and so on Didn't really manage to to develop in an harmonious form The whole economy like in the soviet union, but even worse than soviet union It ended up into a crisis in the early 60s which provoked a crisis within the communist party in in The Czech communist party Uh, the crisis Practically brought to a stagnation and there was a problem of consumer goods not being available So all the efforts and the sacrifices of the working class were exposed The working class didn't really see Benefit in continuing that and the bureaucracy was divided on how to uh, how to face this To this also international developments the crisis in the soviet union the exposure of the by khrushchev which destabilized the confidence in In the communist party of the soviet union in all around the world By exposing the crimes of starlin and so on the Destal linearization Which was Then applied in in all the other countries the satellite countries of the soviet union The then leader novotny Of the communist party the Czech communist party attempted the number of reforms, but these reforms Uh, were not successful. They just brought To even a bigger crisis So by the end of the 1960s in 1967 the situation was of A growing opposition within the communist party to the policies of novotny trying to find a way out of Of this situation Which was then crystallized by an event which was Could could seem secondary which was a big row a big opposition statement by the writers association The Czech writer association at the end of 1967 taking a position in support of A number of writers who were censored and repressed in the soviet union among Which solzhenitsyn So There was this public position taken by the writers association in the in Czechoslovakia, which was Suppressed in in an extreme Stupid way by the communist party leadership The some of these writers were victimized There were some of their papers were closed down and so on and that ignited a movement by the students in solidarity with With the intelligentsia a movement which was heavily repressed with Heavily attacked by the secret police With students beaten up and so on so that spread Shock waves and created the situation of crisis In which a big change in the communist party started to To happen The change was the removal of Novotny This big opposition in the within the bureaucracy was getting More and more support within the party and the trade unions and so on Even bresnev was called by Novotny to come And participate in in a meeting of the central committee of the party at the end of 1967 and And bresnev was meant to support Novotny But when he realized that the scale of the opposition he was facing he just watched his hands and said, okay Go ahead with substitution so Dubcek was elected leader of the of the Communist party who was alexander dubcek. It's important to understand Because he was not an evolutionary. I mean he in his youth Was part of the resistance movement fought against the nazis, but since He was educated in soviet union was regarded by the soviet union bureaucracy as one of ours are sasha alexander dubcek So he was a good candidate coming from the apparatus of the slovak communist party a good candidate to replace novotny dubcek had maneuvered his way up to become To enter into a leading position in the communist party By a combination of things which were mainly A wave towards a liberalization easing the repression on on for example The press and so on When he was leader of the slovak communist party since 1963. So we are talking about already several years He started to build up his position within Czechoslovakia with his brand as a liberal liberalizer a more benign Approach towards criticism and so on and so forth And also using this criticism and directing it against the leadership of novotny So basically he was elected on this wave And started a program of reforms Immediately when dubcek was nominated he started announcing for example on the 20th anniversary celebration of The february 48 conqueror conquest of power by the communist party He delivered a speech saying Basically the message was we need to change And that immediately raised enormous expectations in the mass of the People in In Czechoslovakia In april 68, and that's the beginning of the process of the so-called prak spring he Delivered what was called an action program Which was and what was the meaning of this action program by dubcek the idea was to reform the system without touching The basis and The basis of power and privilege by the bureaucracy The bureaucracy was over and compassing society was controlling every aspect of Czechoslovak life economically and Socially From all points of view. We're talking about a layer a privileged layer because of the position in the state apparatus The bureaucracy was gaining from that position. So the idea behind dubcek's reform was Not to touch the core of these privileges for the bureaucrats but to allow A process of national regeneration and create a situation where he could find Is some of the most repressive features of the Stalin's regime up until then And Bays himself on a more genuine level of popular mobilization and support So he established or announced Which is different announced the establishment of Relative freedom of press So immediately there was a big wave of new publications and papers and a big movement in the Intelligencia amongst the students but also amongst the workers and the workers started publishing every Factory council started started publishing their own their own bulletin their own voice and so on Better focus on consumer goods in order to deliver And in order to do that introducing Economic reforms which are based on the idea of giving the manager The factory managers More power So basically to build up a confrontation between different layers of the bureaucracy in order to shake up the whole productive machine but never To give proper power to the working class in order to control the bureaucratic mismanagement. That was never a Dubczyk's intention And even the idea of establishing a multi-party system. So to go back to the situation pre-1948 have A transition of 10 years towards the democratic election, which is a very ambitious program Limiting the powers of the secret police, which was hated or was becoming more and more hated because of the way the suppression of Dissidency and criticism and even in terms of workers Demands was handled was often a matter of the secret police handling it. So it became more and more hated To establish a federation on equal grounds between the Czech Republic and the Slovakian Republic Keep good relations To the west And keep strong alliance with the soviet union. So to have The cake and eat it as they say here And then and then the slogan which Encompassed all this program was socialism with a human face And I think that really struck a chord although it's kind of ironic because It meant that before socialism didn't have a human face but Actually socialism was officially established In Czechoslovakia in the early 1960s Following the declaration that socialism was had been accomplished in the soviet union by kruzshov So the idea was well if we have socialism then why do we still have to go through all the transitional period where You know of the police state So there was an element of that and that connected with the consciousness of millions of people Dubcek enjoyed Enormous support There was at some point a poll which gave dubcek 78 percent of of support The slogans in the demonstrations were dubcek svoboda the president the new president And Kind of twin figure with dubcek in leading this process Non-party organizations were tolerated So we have a springing up hundreds of associations groups and so on as a process of the revolutionary wave That Was beginning and basically what happened is already in april, but then it radicalized throughout The spring and the summer A movement of the youth of the intelligentsia But also the beginning of the movement of the working class demanding the immediate application of these measures And this is a good example of what we mean When we say that the most dangerous moment for Totalitarian regime or on autocracy Is when they attempt to reform the system because it opens up the venue which has been compressed for for two decades in this case the venue for the rising demands and legitimate demands of the youth and the working class which Is the feature The main feature of the process from now on dubcek wants to limit this process has the approach of a bureaucrat And shows it throughout the movement trying to to come down using his authority and calm the most extreme demands of the workers and the youth promising future delivery of reforms and so on and so on All this process is witnessed by the soviet union bureaucracy in moscow with a A lot of fear they know this is a revolutionary process They know what that dubcek is playing with fire And they start to put pressure on the communist party leadership to To rein in this this process of reforms and stop the pro the revolutionary process using their authority the authority of the Soviet union but it's not 1948. It's not any more 1948 20 years of past and the authority Huge authority still but it's not enough To stop the process So basically there is a dynamic where the communist party leadership the reformers dubcek and the others are Pressurized from a huge mobilization of the working class For example, there is the resurgence of the workers councils Which at some point at the peak even after soviet the Warsaw Pact invasion in august Reach about 60 of the working class electing councils in the factories although they're Kept in a sort of advisory form but they enter into constant conflict with the management with the bureaucrats there and so on So it's a big It's a huge problem from the point of view of the bureaucracy pressure to slow down and Using the specter of hungary 1956 hungary 1956 was a political revolution an enormous revolution of the working class in hungary against The bureaucracy and was suppressed in blood It's particularly violent way by the intervention of the soviet troops So dubcek and the other leaders were using that example, which obviously everyone knew about as a way of scaring the working class and the youth into Not exceeding too much not limiting their criticism not to attack the soviet union not to attack The communist party not to limit the criticism and so on Throughout the movement dubcek was the leader of the movement but at the same time also It was not leading the movement. He wanted to Control the movement And and just tried to postpone or resist to these pressures that he was subject to from different part and i'm Going almost finished So they The process was Abruptly interrupted by the intervention of the so of the Warsaw Pact troops Mostly from the soviet union but also from all the other countries around And the reason for this intervention is that The soviet union bureaucrats knew very well that regeneration of socialism, which was the aim Although confused because there were all sorts of demands even to establish some sort of protectorate by the united nation Or include some kind of united nation related Human rights code into the constitution and whatever By the demonstrators So it was confused but it was a movement which was aimed at re-establishing Something that the working class in Czechoslovakia had experienced between 45 and 48 Because they they had for a short period of time experienced Not workers democracy fully fledged workers democracy because that would be a bit too much But they have experienced the power of the mobilization of the working class by Defeating the Nazis first and then by pushing the whole process towards The overthrow capitalism throughout from 1945 to 1948 So the traditions of 1945 to 48 come back the workers councils the works Council as they were called Which had played a part in the management of industry for the first two years after the liberation Were re-established by the workers The revolution process was getting out of control and therefore The soviet union bureaucracy decided to to step in and the invasion Was aimed at suppressing putting a stop to this process But the process was so radical That it Even the intervention of soviet troops could not stop it all together The soviet troops enter In the night between the 20th and 21st of august and are met by these demonstrations mass demonstrations everywhere Doop checks advice or lead is do not resist the troops So Basically a complete capitulation The leadership of the communist party is taken away Doop check and the others are taken away they are taken to face-to-face chat with Brezhnev and company And they come back a few days later when it's clear that just the intervention of military intervention is not sufficient to stop the process are brought back in as To to spend their faces to use their their authority and so on to help The stabilization of of the process They've signed a deal one of the leaders actually refused to do so and that's to his credit But all the others capitulate to to this Soviet intervention And sign a deal which is the most it's called the Moscow protocol. Basically. It's a process of re-establishing the rule of the bureaucracy over Czechoslovakia So just to finish in two minutes The process is not finished there, but obviously The revolutionary wave is left without any leadership the leaders capitulate completely and Withdraw from from the positions they have taken they join The normalization process doop check himself Is still left as the the head of the communist party for The next eight months and that's how long it took to the soviet union to bring down the the revolt in Czechoslovakia It took eight months By april 1969 The the movement is demoralized The factory councils dissolved themselves Because they they they don't see any possible possible development of that the revolution is defeated And doop check is then removed And chucked away in he wasn't even killed. He could play His role in the 1989 velvet revolution just as a private citizen coming back from From the past glory and and so on The impact The long-term impact and consequences of this defeated revolution Were very important a crisis in the communist movement everywhere with splits and For example, the italian communist party lost about 300 000 members as a result of the repression in Czechoslovakia It was a huge party and one and a half one and a half million members at the time There was widespread demoralization, but I think the worst the most long Drown impact of The defeat of the of the Of the Czechoslovak movement was on the bureaucracy itself Because basically I think the bureaucracy in Czechoslovakia and in all the neighboring country Realized that there was no easy way out of the crisis of their own system and started looking at alternatives And these alternatives were not the revolutionary Regeneration of socialism, which would mean them losing their own privileges, but looking towards a way of achieving the goals of dub check Therefore to reform the system by maintaining their own position and without threatening their own position And the experience of of Czechoslovakia 1968 Showed that that was not possible. That was not possible as long as the soviet union was still there and as long as They could intervene in in in this way So they started looking for alternatives and that's the reason why The transition after 1989 when the new crisis emerged starting from the soviet union They were operating throughout the Eastern european bloc And then also Have having a rebound the impact on the soviet union a very complex process In this process the bureaucracy Went along all the way Towards the perspective of capitalist restoration and it was very They played a leading role in the process towards capitalist restoration in Czechoslovakia Which Dubcek in his last years tried to oppose Although he supported the velvet revolution he opposed the partition of Czechoslovakia into Slovakia and the Czech Republic But that was just the last utopian stand of Failed reform and not not a revolutionary and The consequences of 96 the defeat of 1968 Prague spring have played a long way in the Deciding the direction of the transition in eastern europe 20 years later. I'll stop there


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Stop ignoring when your talent has been recognized, validated, celebrated in multiple spaces by multiple people at multiple times. Realize it's not look, it's not random, it's not people being polite. It's genuine recognition of a gift and a talent that you have. It's saying to you, you are good at this and it's time for you to accept that and act accordingly. You are brilliant at what you do.


So, welcome to the Chaos Communication Slam here at Congress. There you get so many wonderful things. Showtime ago we could witness the world power being taken over by a robot.  Hands up. Who hasn't been at a poetry slam yet? Oh, that's a bit less. Those that haven't been here, that's great too. That's a great experience as you will see. And to have that, the fact that you can witness this, you have Torsten and Fleming from Flensburg to thank for. They wanted to bring this to the stage as a kind of mash-up, an experiment. And another experiment is that we are translating this. But it's more of an experimental translation, an experiment with language, a parallel cultural event related to what's happening on stage here. That was a quote from the interpreters. There will be an English audio track. I didn't say it would be a translation. C3lingo.org. You can see what's going on and what they make of it. C3lingo.org. Another experiment with words and language. So we have 11 slammers. And I won't waste any more time to give over the stage to the first slammers. The first two will give you a cool show. Applause please. Yeah, super. Yeah, great. Thank you. Hi. Hi. Hello, Leipzig. Hello, Leipzig. It's an honor to be here. And we did ask in the beginning, who of you has been in Islam? That's sad because the stream didn't quite see it. So how about applause? Who of you has been in a poetry slam? Right. That is quite good. And now those that haven't... You will have fun. I can tell you. Don't worry. I'm very surprised. You are more than 10 at least. And more I didn't really wish for in this slam. We have 11 wonderful poets that we collected from workshops. Some have notified us ahead. And I can't wait to hear what these people have to tell us. But first about the slam, I can hardly imagine. But we wanted to have a serious talk, submit a serious talk. And then there was a five minutes... We had five minutes until the deadline. And in a crazy idea, I said, well, before you started with all this case, I did a lot of slamming. And that's why we are now here. And I didn't really expect this nonsense to be accepted. But hey, hey, for all of those that haven't been in Islam for a long time, or those that have never been in one, I would like to explain the rules. And then I'll quickly free the stage, because you haven't come here for me, but for those great people that we have put in the first row here. A poetry slam is a poet's competition where they bring self-written texts onto the stage. And that means you can't put Goethe and Schiller on the stage unless Goethe and Schiller themselves will take part. But we don't expect them to do that. Again, we don't. These people will come onto the stage that have six minutes of time, strict limits, which may be a bit fuzzy in the end. But I will then be starting to jump and dance wildly behind these people and get them out from the stage. And I would like to claim that it will survive that. The poets cannot use any props. They cannot use any costumes. So if any of these will be coming on as the Pope, I want this to be the Pope. And again, we don't expect that today. And the competition, how is that decided upon? And that's where you come in. Yeah, that's one of these things about getting involved. My wonderful assistant Fleming has these wonderful scorecards in his hand. Because after the slam, the text will be rated on a scale from 1 to 10. How that will be distributed, I will tell you later on. But first of all, we have to get rid of the scorecards. And once we've collected those scores, we in a highly mathematical procedure will calculate this. We have seven votes from the audience and the highest and the lowest will be discarded and then it will be added up. And that will decide who will continue in the room. Because we have the two rounds and the two slammers that received the highest score in the earlier rounds will enter the final. Then that will get you four people in the final and your applause.  And normally in a poetry slam, the thing is that you have this nice flip chart at the side where someone with a marker pen will be on the calculator and they will miscalculate, but we don't want this. We put many programmers to this flip chart task. And a long time, several minutes almost, we arrived at a solution which we want to introduce you. It's a miracle of technology and it's Excel. Excel. With two sheets, I can hardly believe it myself. I did want to make the background black and I have no idea about Excel and I'm a computer scientist. This is a thing with macros and such. Right, it would be nice to have a bit of an audience light because we want to find about the people that want to do the rating. This is not the Ingeborg Bachmann Award for high quality poetry. You just have to arrive at some kind of rating. So talk with your neighbors, maybe you want to do it as a pair. Small teams are possible. Fleming will go around and if you would like to be a juror, then raise your hand. Fleming picks some of these, some that look competent. There are a few hands missing on the right. Good looking in the center. Should we motivate you because we have brought something nice. We have these top no-name gummy bears and no-name cookies with chocolate in them and we won't just throw them at you in a carnival style. No, the jurors will get extra candy in them. Now, I'll throw this into the audience. The person that catches this will be number one in the jury. This will be a bit boring for the stream. Right, I'll pass this on. Oh, the microphone is having feedback. Some people are yelling in the back there. We won't let you rate the translations, by the way. If I keep throwing things, I'll surely get in trouble with security. They won't even catch it.  We have two people standing. I can't go too far away either because I won't see it from the stage. Fleming, where are you actually? Here. There are some missing on the right. Give some to your neighbors. This is not the last time I'll be doing this. Okay, I have two left. We have people waving still. How many scorecards did I give you? There's one left. And the back will get one as well. You'll have to see these. Yeah, yeah, sure. Thanks a lot to the C3 woodcutters that gave us these papers. It's not easy to gather 60 papers in Congress. Okay, an applause to Fleming and to the jury members. You'll see that you have a scorecard with a number from 1 to 10. Now, take care which way around you will hold these to distinguish the six from the nine. And to let everyone see this, please hold up the number seven. Where are you? I see one seven. I see a second one, a third, a fourth, a sixth one. Where's the seventh seven? Ah, there it is. Yeah, it took us a while. Great. That's where they're now complete. Now, what then are these ominous points that you award? Of course, we'll have to align you then. Look, we have this poll that really wants you to be first. Because there is this rule that if you go on first, you'll never win. Because you haven't really heated up yet. You didn't know the way it goes. But we will try this. And first, I would like to hear from you a five-point applause that is average, that is a solid text. Not too many grammatical errors. You can listen. That's fun. How does that sound in Leipzig? All right. That's good. And now, five points, I don't think we'll go below five. That rarely ever happens. Unless someone falls, drops dead on stage and lies there for the whole six minutes. It never happened to me yet, fortunately. But just to test it, I would like to hear from you. We would like one point of applause. One point of applause that was the slammer went onto the stage, dropped early on, couldn't really keep for excitement. Offended your mother, interrupted, went off the stage, made three excuses, but it wasn't a coherent thing at all. And perhaps he completely missed the target and reads verses from some social democrat manifesto or whatever. So how does, with coughing, please, how does a very, very low one-point applause sound? One point. One point. One thing I need to tell you, you did something wrong. Sorry. Sorry. You are not as experienced, perhaps, as an audience, but there is one role as an audience, and that is respect the poet. There is no booing, no hissing. We want to be nice, even if the poet offends your mother. Just stand above that, or even if you meet the guy at the bar later, leave them alone. Really dead. So again, the one point of applause with perhaps some throat clearing, but with respect.  So now we'll ease into it. And dear poets, the first one or two should get ready next to the stage, because it will be your turn soon. That's very cool. And because of that, I'd like to hear from you. We'll get warmed up a bit so that we can welcome our first slimmer in a proper way. So, Leipzig, how does a five-point applause sound again? Okay, and then we'll turn that into six, seven points, eight points, nine points. Stop. Ooh, it's got an echo here. And now we want to know, very important, we want to find out what does this ten-point applause sound like? Ten points. This is a poet that is so great. Not yet. Hang on. I have to know what a ten-point poet is. A ten-point text is a poet that you want to take with you. You'll take him home with you and lead him. Put him in the cupboard, and whenever you want to have some entertainment, you open that door. You fall in love with that text. You can't hold yourself with laughter. And it touches you in very deep places that no other text has touched before. Not just there, but here as well. Rio Reiser, the singer, said, open your hearts and heart your openings. That's not really easy. It was late, and there you see what the problem is. And ten-point applause.  You can't believe it. You couldn't have imagined that the evening would be so good. And perhaps you just said it because you're nice. But prepare yourselves. Leipzig. What does a ten-point applause sound like? Welcome on the stage, Smory. Come on. Keep it. Keep it. Hi. Hi. I'm Swolli. I'm Swolli, and you are many. I volunteered to be first because my text is called, hopefully not the last. Hopefully not the last was my minimal aim when for the first time I took part in a poetry slam. Right? Now I stand here with this text and everyone can imagine target missed. No, what not everyone can imagine is the one after and the one time after. Actually always I continued with the aim of finally not being last. And on the 30th of March 2017 it was time. Finally I was not the last, but the one before. Last. Last position. Very unhappy colleague who had the disadvantage of coming in first. Although she was it was her first time in a slam. Her story was clearly underrated, which often happens when you have to be on first. It was my favorite text of the evening that came last. And I was the penultimate one before that. It was rarely that I had so little joy in reaching an aim. So why do I continue? I can't find an answer to that question because it's the one question. The real question is why do I do this at all? And the answer is not related to the slamming itself, but also the many other activities I do in my spare time. So since 2012 I'm taking guitar lessons. I wait for antiquated computer hardware, software that tries to connect programming and art. But back to the answers. It's because it's fun, because I can and because I can. Yes, twice. Because I can has two meanings. First it means because conditions allow for it. I don't have the problem not to have enough for living and I don't have to fear for my life either. Something I make myself aware of far too rarely. Because I can also means because I can manage to get the ideas from ahead onto paper or into a computer. And there is where the fun comes into play. It's an extremely great feeling to create something from nothing. Many artists have something concrete which they give a new shape to. Some sculptures with stone or clay paint for paintings. But I have a nothing and all I have to fight this nothing are my ideas. Ideas that mostly reflect inspiration. Often it's an attempt to find the limits. And this time it was the bitter fulfillment of a wish not to be lost. But this victory over the nothing is sweet. So sweet, because there is no loser, no one last behind me. Only the thing I reached in front of me. And one reason I forgot adrenaline. To stand here and give you my thoughts is a combination of having fun and a massive adrenaline rush. In my case it's more fun and more adrenaline than a roller coaster ride. And this roller coaster I'm not riding alone but with great colleagues. I love to be backstage with the others. When we all get more and more excited gradually. One less than or more than the other. And everything is about to happen. The text is new. I don't really know it much yet. Now that was a quote for myself. You could say that we are a big happy Islam family.  Family means that there are people there that you have to endure. And that's definitely not the case with these colleagues which I can share the stage. And that's why I want to ask a favor from you. And now that is the place where I had a real problem with the text. Because I realized I can't read this request from the sheet. I have to tell you. There are many people here that are here for the first time. Give them a huge applause. These are great people. Give it a huge applause. Come on. Give it your best. Thank you. Finally I'd like to try to explain this all backwards. I have printed a t-shirt. I have had a t-shirt printed that says you are a great audience. And that came from an idea that I can be a child again. Everything it takes is a stage. A stage where something is happening.  Because the person up on the stage there is also having fun. How nice it would be to cause this in someone else if I would be on a stage. Should I manage that, then I would have reached my maximum target. Who then would need a ranking? So I conclude my reasoning about why you do something like this. We want the entertainment for you and the fun for us. Thank you. One more. Somebody who is of the opinion that I can't slam hasn't listened to me playing the guitar. Thank you very much Swally. To be first is really no nice job. So everybody goes into you deeply. Think about what does it mean to you and to ensure that it's fair and that nobody cheats. You will raise your cards on three. Starting at three or going down to three. We go down from three. We count down from three and you raise your cards. You should have counted together with me. Flaming we have got a seven, a seven, a six, a six, a five and another six. Sorry. We have a total point count of 31. We move the five and one of the sevens on the plus for Swally. That was a great job. You might think we are a great organization. But we are not. I've missed my phone so I didn't know how long he talked. Do you remember how about the ten point applause? We have to try that. I think he sent the first time on the workshop. Wasn't that right, the beginner? Yes, no, yes. Where is he? Come to the stage. Did we lose Hifa? That is bad. Hifa. An announcement from the stage. You missed your chance to go to stand. That's when I asked everybody for applause for Hifa. The first stammer I know missed his appearance on stage. Ten points to that from the third row. Simon, are you done? Because you just gained a new starting position. And with that? Great. That's too chaotic for me. Welcome with a ten point applause. Simon. Hello. Here we are. This is not my first congress. This is my third congress actually. But in many circumstances it's my first time. It's my first time in Leipzig. It's the first time on the stage with more than 100 people. And it's the first time in poetry, Islam. That's why I invite you into a small travel with me. How I looked on the congress. How I... Woo-hoo! Fast roller, blink. Lights blinking. Ticket. wristband. Hey! It sparkly. It's... Walk, walk. So large. That was day zero. Day one. Shower. Eat. Walk, walk, walk. Ring, miss the train. Just stops in the back. Wait, wait, wait. Itch, itch. Damn wristband. But it sparkly. Stand, sway, stand. Walk there. Begin of day one. Walk, walk. wristband check. Steps. Oh no. Why? Why don't I have wheels? Walk, walk, walk. Dampfkäfer. Trapp, trapp, trapp. Smell of soldering. Walk, walk. Not walk, walk. Indo-forest. More lights. Boxes. Ring, ring. Missed the train. Angel shift. A jacket, a smile. A jacket, a smile. A jacket, a jacket. A smile. Jacket. Jacket. Suitcase. Just picking up. Jacket, jacket. Suitcase. The suitcase. End of itch, itch. Washing your hands. Itch, itch. Go to bed. Itch, itch. Day two. Itch, itch. Walk, walk. Google. Spare parts. Itch. Half a dose. Turning the wristband on left. Chaos west. Waffles. Chaos post. Two. Two. Chaos post. Chaos post. Two million steps to zero. Chaos post. Hermes servants. Angels. GIF, or GIF spaces. Adam sport. Clark. Dyke strives. Soon finished. Continue. Walk, walk. Five rooms this year. Angel meeting. Saying thank you. Buying food. Drinking water. No lights. Meeting. So much walking. Too much walking. Food. Smiling. Continuing. New power. Chill. And a chunk. Day three. Sleep, sleep, sleep. Sound of the year. The train starts. The train. Yawning. Preparing. Slam. Writing a text. Shower. Itching. No high speed rule. Walk, walk. What are feet? Walk, walk. To heaven. Drinking water. Time for talks. Dark outside. Sea. Glacier. Glacier. Glacier. Lighting. Dark. Glacier. Lighting. Good next year. What a first talk in this scene. Good job. But Now where I see you again. What I read in Twitter. read in Twitter, aren't you that guy who wrote that comic where it goes through the, where the wristband chafes, chafes through your wrist. But he's not that guy. So everybody should have thought about it. You have a large connection to that context.  Okay, come on, work faster.  Okay, another time, because I'm not a, the monkey, I say three and eight, two, one, go. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We have a nine, another nine, another nine, eight, nine, and a seven, and a six. Corner stays last to keep it up. Give it up. Till you see seven and six. Respect. Great job, 42 points. That's something you have to get. Nothing you have to reach. That is the crowd mind, the hive mind, the answer of everything.  Okay, continue. Our next person is at the stage and you at the stair have a very good privilege because our first scanner is in Cochrane and the live stream will just show our nice slide, this nice slide and graphics and really secret applause for our Slema, TVL, Lauda. Good morning, Leipzig. In contrast, I will be able to do 10 gigahertz because it's the first time for me on stage and I hope you'll like it. My slime is called contrasts and unlike things. Attention, the author tells you that the following text may congenitrate traces of sarcasm risks and side effects can be found in the wiki or through a phone call via decked. Part of the text was essential because they could discourage listeners. Every year I look forward to Congress starting. I know that the atmosphere will be right.  The reservation system was great and out of order. The characters or four, no video recorders though.  Despite all these days, I ask myself, how will we manage to reach the people outside? Everything is having a good time and having fun. Even if the food isn't so great, looking at the world outside, I too often think I have lost my way. Almost everyone here is open-minded and hardly anyone is going to be. I find aggression. Despite all the contrasts, I'll drop a few sentences. I don't want to raise any flags here. I am not one of the brown people, but I still allow myself the following words. The double standards are all encompassing. Everywhere you see that all creatures are welcome. But everyone's hating Nazis and everyone thinks they're well-minded. You should be allowed to say that. The pixel flood is an example. Despite all these rules, someone is sending a hat to prevent this and bury this. There's just one system. I will rhyme myself into a rage. The editor's remark will leave politics out from now on. Now why is the top of one mineral water red and the other green? Shouldn't it be the other around? The one called nature should be green. And why is classic stronger than median? Because in a classical sense, water isn't fizzy at all. Who knows? In that sense, we extend to each other and build more waffles of mass destruction. To quote Martin Sonobann's textures over these are all crazy people, but they're staying inside. I don't want to tire you over the same brush, but you're fantastic. Thanks for your tolerance. Thanks to Lukas and Sören Kiran for the help. Thank you TWL. I haven't experienced something like this. Audience involvement is normal. I say one word and the other says the other, but honestly, who was it that shouted in? You three, right. You will be given a chunk or something later on. It stays exciting. The first figures are gathering on the board and the jurors use you look so ready. Okay, you seem to be ready. Let's count down three, two, one, cards up. Some are missing, right? What is this? Wasn't there one over there? There we have it.  You are sticking to your standards. Keep them up, please. Five, five, six, a six. One's missing. Oh, I'm in the back there. There's a five missing. I probably forgot a five. Okay, that gives us 26 points for TWL. Quote your applause. Please, these unexperienced people in applause. If you're having a good time, then they'll have a great time. Right, is our next participant ready? He is standing next to the table. I'm not going to tell me that another one has his cave hat, do you? Okay, and a huge applause for SMIC. Yeah, I, yes. That's also my first poetry stem. There are quite a few people out there. Oh well, I'll just start. The text is child is capitalism. I am a child of capitalism. I have to buy and have and keep and it is my, and my being is between the buy and the can. I don't want to think quiet and nice. Many large corporations move my being. I am allowed to do so because I'm a proper, I'm just a cog in the wheel and marry just only a question of love and not because of tax benefits. What is happening? Everything is fine. Where is your, why are you so angry? And because you only think about exploitation, it just happened. I, as a child of capitalism, learned that way.  And I want, and when I'm swimming, I just, I don't find fish in a way that is dying of plastics. I don't care. My consummation is not important. It's not part of that. I just remove my frustration into stuff that I don't need. It's okay to buy something new and instead of walking to buy a VW car, Volkswagen car. We children of the capitalism, we don't have to hide because of our consummation is only part that we die of the consummation. And from the day I was born, I was supposed to be happy. Everything is not okay. And everything and all the money I gained is, it would be sad if it just we removed because its existence would not keep me alive. The only thing we notice, if at all, if there are fewer things or the rising price, but we still continue to buy and remove our thoughts in a small thought of happiness. Clothes or a computer game, everything of that I change for money or time so that at the end neither is available in great numbers. We are too locked in into our system. Everything that counts is the work and the money when we, and the money we continue to die. And in the end, I only have too little time and money. But now I just live in front of myself and work and consume and everything is fine for me. I eat the animals and my planet because I'm a child of capitalism. Thank you. Thank you. SMIC was the slammer who just left the stage. We are not allowed to say so. I'm told, but SAM is like the club. It's also political. Problematic expression is something that he didn't say that. Okay, Joris. How do you feel about capitalism? Maybe you also want to look at the text itself if you did not applaud with us. You appear to be ready. I look into the two persons up front here. If they are ready, I'm assuming the others are as well because I don't wear the glasses without a reason. I don't have an idea out there. Okay, and then we will count down. Are you excited? Three, two, one. We get to higher areas. We have a nine and a nine and an eight and another eight and another eight and seven. And that is a great applause for all of you, the first ten of the evening. The man did not stick to his six and that's good. You can break out of your normal measures. Fleming calculates it and with that we have 42 points. We don't know, but the people talk with each other on IRC. The back end, but I don't want a 23 next. That would not be appropriate. So the next slimmer is preparing and we brought somebody.  And one of our old slam crew, the Rini, welcome him on the stage. Slamigans is the name of Slam Hooligans because the poetry slam is well known because we broke the stage a few times during applause. And just to have you keep up with the ten-point applause, go for a Rini, a ten-point applause for him. Hi, I have to scale this up a bit.  Yeah, I know this. So as Sophen said, I'm from Flensburg in the far north. I have been on the stage at Kühlhaus there. And that has been a while ago though. And in Kühlhaus you have about, well, the red, the right half of chairs would fit in there. That will fill that space up. It's always very loud, though. And as we said, the stage will be kicked apart because the people that do the grating, the torpence job will always say stamp on the floor, that is allowed. People will like that. And it works better there because the floor is louder there and there's an echo. Great. Now, I brought the text that's called Student Experiences and it comes from the time when I started studies and that is four and a half years ago and I still haven't finished my bachelor thesis. But let's leave that aside. Yeah, at some time this year, I've said it at a big stage, I have to do it, I have to hand in my thesis. Let's see. Okay. What? Sorry? You won't make it? Yeah, yeah, sure. I won't make it, that was what said. Right. So before I start what I have to say, why do I actually study?  So you go studying and what do I study? Well, if I look at Congress, the people here and what is being done, computer science, of course, is very close and that's what it is. And you have to say that consider that this was intended for people that do not know what a console is. I assume that most of you know this but I left that part in any way, changed it around a bit, you'll notice. Whatever. The first events of today, structured programming, my neighbors and I intently do not stare towards the front but just like in France, stare onto my screen because the first thing we do today where finally we have a wholly access data to the air room is a complete network analysis with everything that comes with it. What else could it be? The people next to us and behind us look at us strangely as I open my console and start running a few programs for all those that see the recording and ask themselves at some point what the hell is a console. That's the small black window that you open if you fell asleep at the keyboard and that looks like as if the computer has been broken. Now, the lecture begins and our first joy about the fantastic speed of the internet connection we have to limit and enjoy in a bit more silence. That's hard for us because we're all from the village and we, when we serve at home and certain 250K nostalgia arises. Now, the lecture starts with a course introduction into the world of programming languages. Not too tough because there is no prior requirements for the course. Soon after, we look at the screen and are astonished to find that the network does seem to have a few restrictions and are now in the process of overcoming those. Now, the lecture starts talking about the fact that all tasks, examples and solutions will be in the Java programming languages. My nerds and I just moan while in the row behind us people whisper, hey, what is this Java anyway? And from the mouth of another clueless co-student, you can hear, oh, it's an island in Indonesia. You've selected the wrong study, I think. And I noticed that I may have been a bit too loud as I see the face of the people behind me. Now, that lecture is over soon and we go over two buildings to the maths lecture. Ooh, maths, you may think, the appropriate term would be, well, perhaps continue taxi-driving. Our lecturer, an Asian-influenced man, is in front of us and without any introduction of himself or the topics, talks of very complicated names and even more complicated symbols and looks at us with a face of disinterest and boredom and later a colleague from a high-semester tells us that the lecturer can write with two hands on the blackboard if time is tough and it's good. A lecturer, a quiet lecturer, if he only wipes the blackboard eight times. So that was my first day as a student, but that wasn't it because as I got home, homework starts. First I will write a smoke program that outputs my own name and my students' number. And as a few hours get passed while installing kips, we are in the country again. The first task is done, which on the next Monday the people behind us will spend 90 minutes biting into and I go to sleep with the reassuring thought that I have selected the right study. Thank you. So, thank you Rene and I think this half-finished computer science studies is something that many of you know. I will be celebrating my 10th semester and not consecutive, not the way I have anyone that's been, that has studied longer. Uh, shout out the number. 20 semesters? 21. Well, sure. 21, that's not in the bachelor study though, was it? Oh, that was the diploma study before the Bologna reforms. I did want to become a diploma engineer, but let's move away from all that. Our jurors are looking a bit stressed, so the last scoring of the first round will count down three, two, one and cards up. We have a six, a six, a four, an eight, a six and another six over there, wonderful. Keep the cards up, Fleming is still typing it in. Mathematical magic, all that computer science thing is now going to work under the hood and we'll have a result and I would like to prepare the people mentally because you then will be able to read a second text. So we have, well, surely it couldn't have been any better, we have in the final, Zimon Snick with 42 points each. Respect. Before you run away, I'll ask, do you have a second text? Great. And over there I did hear a yes to deny. Yes, do you? Okay, great. We'll manage it. Great. First round over. Take a breath. It's going well, isn't it? Have some chocolate. Not such a lot of energy there. I'm throwing chocolate into the audience. Yeah. Towards the slammers you'll need it and over there. Great, wonderful. Yeah, we do actually have a little intermission program prepared for you. We'll come to that later on. One of our slammers said, come on. A bit of an audience interaction is something we need and he has a one-minute piece. So don't worry, this is not part of the rating, but it's nice here, Leipzig. These are at least 1,000 people and you are having a good time. I want to hear the applause because I have the feeling that you're losing energy. People there hogging the benches in the back don't like culture, but you are staying, but you're staying. So let's welcome for the second time this evening a slimer with a little intermission program just for you to warm up. What did five points sound like? You have to replace the people that are leaving. They heard about chunk and six points applause. Seven points, eight points, nine points and a ten point applause for Smolli. Right. Just about the background. We in Halofa have a small reading stage for people who just have fun and want to read the text without all the organization around it and we had a really good German master slimer as a guest reader with us and we had three guests. And I had this great text. It was so short. We need interaction with our customers and with three people that just doesn't work. So I wanted to do that with the proper people around me. Cultural circles. We came from lunch and we were with three people. My others, now four of my colleagues have something together that couldn't be more different. They were migrations. Mazin, as a child, he likes to play with cliches about his view. He sells food. He sells food as falafist. Xin just came to study from China and we talked about different cultural areas and I had a thesis I just wanted to check. With just a single question I can show you that Mazin and I have the same Western cultural reference. Ying, however, not. She didn't want to believe it but she wanted to show it. I was going to be right. You would like to know what this one difficult question might be but before I ask it, if you know the answer, just call it in without knowing it. We have just three single questions. Mana, Mana. Thank you. Ah. Thank you for the nice earworms, Wally. Thank you for the earworms, Wally. We have to be quicker a bit. We thought we'd have no participants at all and we'll have the room for one and a half hours and I just want to go to bed. So I would like to tell the next climber to get to the stage very quickly. He has a name in our program that you can make a welcome out of and that's why I don't want to say much but 10 point applause to Hello Fabian. Halten, Halten, Halten. Keep it up until he has reached the microphone. Hi, I'm Fabian.  That's a beginner's mistake, surely. I brought a text that says that's called Days Like These. Give me more of this, of Days Like These where the word for a time is in order that you don't want to get to be finished because everything's great and everything else doesn't matter. Days where there's pizza in the morning and where you get to sleep in the evenings without food and where the people around you are friends where dream and reality are the same where you believe that everything makes sense suddenly and everything's fantastic. No, just right. Almost perfect, without almost. Give me less of the hours where you will wait for the bus outside while it's raining and the snow has long turned to brown sleet hours where you wait for something to happen just to have a different experience than before where you are at home and it's cold because the room isn't warm although the heating has turned up although perhaps you miss another kind of warmth giving more of minutes like these where you feel free and no one, especially not you expects something from you where you think that everything is okay it's working out where shortly it doesn't matter whether the carrot cake of mother is vegan minutes where you think you're understood where you feel understood and don't expect don't ask, it's particularly not yourself more of these where you think that everything is possible and it's the start of something new give me less of the seconds where you again realize that you wanted to study something else should have studied something else because it would have fitted you better and you start doubting your work because someone yesterday said something actually quite irrelevant or you don't understand how you could have lived in Village X for so long seconds where you realize you are somehow not part of it where you don't belong but the days, hours, minutes and seconds that are exactly like now these are good actually perfect thank you many thanks hello Fabian thank you, hello Fabian yeah, the thing with the sheets that is quite nice it has a dramatic air to it throwing them down but I've seen all kinds of things that people have been reading from laptops, smartphones, back sides don't worry, it all works out so dear jurors we are a bit pressed for time I have to rush you this side quicker and it has to be from the gut you have to count it down hold the cards up in three, two, one and up and keep them up we have a seven, a six a seven, a seven, a five, a seven please keep them up and then we'll get to 34 points an applause so now that you are a person from Fensburg who is well known there and we brought another one for the next round without talking about it too long a great applause for Pia okay, I did not send for a match like this and I've got goosebumps I'm so happy to be here I brought something with you that has nothing to do with the chaos and I hope you're fine with that if not, I don't care either silence it is so strangely silent in the heart at home I sometimes ask myself how it would be if a ghost would walk through the floors and I think that it would be exactly like this it's a ghost with a mask of happiness and oakeness with everybody wants to become happy but nobody can that's when it gets strangely quiet in the house because everybody wants to understand what just so few time ago took everybody from the normal way of life I cannot find any words what happened so long ago it had me like a steamroller and removes his I want to go into your body and move through the veins and destroy the cells that are part of your bodies and not of the one of Trump or Elegant but I can't do anything I don't have the power to I move through the world without noticing everything I'm blind and can't hear don't notice anything that is important for me otherwise but now that disappears from my brain and that's what I'm happy that for every second I don't have to think about it I love the people who try to help me who ask me how everything is and make me laugh a minute later and I want to say thank you because every word you say gives me new power and helps me to forget the silence for a minute but when the silence return I can't take my thoughts into order it could be worse it looks good it worked so often and if we are lucky then everything turns out better than we thought but with the same breath I see that this good chance is just not likely and if we have a bad luck we lose it it's a dark fried thing I could not imagine it stops you and that's even because I can't feel I'm just sending it to it and can only wait and hope that everything turns out right and the waiting and through the waiting it gets quiet it gets quiet then I see you and you talk with such a courage or is it ambivalence I don't know I'm listening to you talking and trying to ask how you really look because I believe that you can't show me everything because I'm just a small girl or maybe it really looks like that inside of you because you can just accept it better than I but still I ask myself for whom is the cancer worse shit I want to have the power to take your hand and help you just one time I want to say that I do everything and we can work together that everything will turn out well and if not that well we can manage we don't care it looks quite well everybody is worth it and we walk this path and really I notice that I talk too much because I only want to say you I love you dad thank you thank you thank you for that Pia I've just noticed that you are a really great slime audience because in the silent moments the only thing you hear is the airing and the papers falling that is immense so I'll have to rush you there because we want to have time all day deaters think about what this does with you because I will count you down with three two one and hold up the cards we have ratings okay an eight a nine a nine a seven a six and please a huge applause two tens please give the cards up we'll delete the highest and lowest lowest cards and it gives us 44 points right our next slammer should have no stage fright at all because he told me that funny anecdote that when the people here get a bit excited then we should just call him because I didn't know that this exists he is the official stage fright responsible person and that is worth an applause thank you have fun with the text by Yousef hi cardamom and on the way to Leipzig I see a train high speed train I want to sit into the direction of travel oh shit I think this will be fun and he says wow then just sit that way but I don't know which way the train will go I'm not saying anything so sit down there and then change pragmatic I think we can sit in front of each other opposite to each other what a romantic idea to be next to each other a whole life I imagine how these two in the old people's home rethinking love rethinking love I need a plug a socket why do you need a socket for electricity electricity is charged who do you want to make a call with we are going to go soon well isn't it allowed to make a call in a moving train this is the quiet carriage but I'm supposed to tell your sister when we leave Hans puts a smartphone on the table type magnesium brick but I'm impressed I only know the way my father deals with these things and my father tells he doesn't need Viagra if he had to send this via post he would just go run out of stamps and because my father kept catching viruses I installed Linux Mint and told him this was the upgrade to Windows 11 true story but not Hans I like him from the start like a ninja he swipes the login screen there he goes where is the socket there are no sockets in the train this man has his computer in a socket too I have no time sorry I'm pointing towards the place under the armrest be excellent to each other I think you have lovely stickers he won't be disturbing you just a minute but everyone does this if you don't have stickers you risk to not be let in despite having a ticket they believe you are from the secret services I'm not into that I don't want that this time because everyone knows those from the secret services do have stickers by Susie Linux for example I'm not disturbing anyone where is that cable it's not for him to decide I have learned from Feifei my father was once tricked into joining a right wing group on facebook and since then he's always had nonsense in his classic case of filter bubble inflammation and I I said Feifei as a start page for him telling him that it will be speak in online light be careful look after the spices as you plug in please look at please think of the spices oh oh I think my gut feeling tells me that this will go on for a while somehow I'm excited by the way I use Arch Linux hi what are you looking for the spices are at the very top I want that cable leave me alone with the spices oh come on then ah here it is in a tin with cheese spices funny why are spices funny at congress as you know for every assembly you can imagine exists but I haven't seen the cheese spices assembly yet why do you put my cable into a tin because it won't fold then you can leave it at home anyway what is funny about the spices cheese spice there is a space cheese spice this is from Alfons from TV your sister doesn't even like cheese well maybe she would like it with the spice she hates cheese that is your sister why do I have to tell you this she hates cheese but Alfons said everyone likes cheese with this alright then I'll buy you from Malaysia Alfons monkey brain soup I packed my bag I did pack my bag and you wanted to this is the quiet carriage I needed space for your cable give it to your sister next year the train is leaving she is moving backwards and she is standing up forget it quiet carriage thank you thank you very much love is in the air I tell you we use the thought pause euros to change the microphones that means that we have far too long and we have to quicken a bit are you finished yes the 6th person guys will that's countdown 3 raise your hands I don't know where to start we have an 8 9 another 9 3 10 great job when you write it that well I'm afraid I do a good job 47 points that's a good respect that's a good number the next has the same name at somebody else of our first round and is also not completely he is from Holstein and came to our new cluster and said hey you are doing a slam and I was on the stage before us and I just decided him and so a great applause for Fabi please yeah how can we continue on from that the text is neither funny nor 6 minutes long but has something to do with the funny word and it's called and the candle I see the candles burning in lamps the world outside is a dark storm and everybody walking through it has to carry his own light along with myself hundreds, tens, tens thousands continue with the bright torches lighting all the ways you walk along with me your torch is getting the fog and you have droplets on your face when you remove from my point of view I see lights on the horizon more brightly than others some move groups from hundreds illuminate large parts of the field but I'm alone turn towards the away from the wind trying to protect my small light it's the size of a tea light and when I notice the shadows of the others I just look at my own small light which I try with all my power to protect it against the final it would be so easy to let the candle drop to be sure that I don't have to care about it but what would remain just the uncertainty, the darkness the unstopping wind and the emptiness the emptiness we are afraid about with every continuing second of the storm with every second holding the light I do not let go not now I stick to the small only light I ever knew the one I knew when it was big in those bad times where despite the circumstances it was bright and also those where it appeared to be shortly before extinguishing my hands get closer to the flame until I only feel the heat my hands take the heat and put the pain through all my body I want to let it go I want to scream and throw it away but the light that turned the world around me to what it is the light that burns my hands but gives me courage to continue until everything even the world around myself I don't feel anymore but then the wind reduces the rain reduces to a fog and the quivering flame in my hand calms down the torches of the other people on the horizon become visible and I continue to walk as part of the illuminated shadow always afraid about the next rain, the next storm how does this story end? I don't know my light is bright enough to show me the way the future is as foggy as the past only thing I can see is the now everything I see is the now is the rain is the wind and my light the only light I ever knew after an end nobody changed the sentence and and what? thank you very much Fabi a shorter text you get a shorter time to think about it okay let's do it are you ready front here the six point guy what do you think you deviate from your six points in the second round if nobody says no three oh brace your cards and keep them up seven, a seven, a seven a seven, a six a six and a nine did you try the sixth round? no it is a nine thank you very much keep your cards up and with that we have 34 points for Fabi great applause for him soon you will have seen old Slammers of the evening we have to get rid of the prizes we have we have to continue so the next Slammer and I would like to ask him on the stage he has a nick he said to me so a great round of applause for Alex but continue until he's up don't run away come up here you'll manage hello hello I definitely have the shortest text right and it's called Plitsplatsch what am I to pick I lift my fork call me Poseidon I am the master of this bathtub no one can escape me he neither this yellow rubber duck see how I drown it in the bathtub I press on the duck's bubbles rise a psychothatic glance while I drown them a baby duck screams in a choir I drowned its parents why do you do this why are you so cruel no space for a bigger bathtub I didn't want to go into savings this bathtub isn't large enough for all of us feelings arise that I've never felt before realization that I am a lonely unloved creature the last bubble rises what have I done I put the fork aside no one must ever know this I take the baby duck how did it come that far that is the end the duck's end I'm so sad I'll let rain fall because I see the grief I do that by turning on the tap and with joy expression of joy I will exclaim how painful it is no this will not be the end every duck as far as I can I will help out of the water I will no longer judge a person or a creature by its rubber exterior I will improve I will heal the damage I will make sure that everyone can remain happily refugees are behind these lines whether it's between marine borders or between mountains whether it's in the smallest village or in skyscrapers if it can be prevented it's sad that people die we should turn our attention not to rubber ducks but to give it all and all that need help quack thank you Alex now this kind of a voice you don't have to escape from these are all kind people right now pause for thought now it's going to be exciting you will decide it's going to be a tough race a duck race right dear jurors I have to rush you look at the clock and this one and a half hour thing are you ready jurors I give you a note 3, 2, 1 the last score of the evening we have the 8 and 8 a 9, a 6, an 8 a 5 and an 8 keep the cards up don't confuse our ex a specialist so that gives us a score of 38, thanks again applause for Alex right so where do we start because now we have the final we will take it in reverse order so the people that were here last will now be first on the stage I'm very sorry to say that to Yousef but then we'll have here and from the first round Fleming, can you check first we'll have and Simon so prepare yourselves you can approach the stage but first I'd like to tell you what great prizes we brought because there are certain slam traditions and yeah we did come up with something nice for the fourth place we'll have a bottle of peppermint schnapps and it gets better because we will have a bottle of peppermint schnapps for the second place we have we can imagine a bottle of peppermint schnapps yeah and well in the the comedy area there's this rule of 3 so after that it will no longer be funny so for the first place we have two but no one bottle of Jägermeister powered by the first after are you already right no stage fright because again we'll get into it so clap please 8 point applause please 9 points and 10 10 point applause for Yousef you have to hold it thank you oh yeah I've got a text with me for self you can write this in an hour because you need to I found a tweet or a schmord between ad guys and another guy and he is called nostalgia isn't what it used to be earlier everything was better the hacker used to program C nobody knows how to program C nowadays nowadays everybody is manic some better we used to work when we grow copied torrents no we use discounts you don't know them anymore that were carryable offline clouds idiots the young people were political like really without these tupins and influenza and being famous and so on maybe selfies primak however being it's easy to work properly and have a bit of luck and the second option suicide reincarnate as cat and running around with a fish costume on a vacuum robot do you know that look at that cat how it's interested by the laser pointer oh shit I forgot to reply for the university oh shit it's Arabic for I'm a racist asshole but have we really thought about the new Heisenberg's anger idea and people they want to take our jobs but don't work at the same time what can we do oh I could tweet about that and being annoyed taking photos of his food what a shit I want to open a restaurant where you invite yourself with via social media where the food is photographed in the kitchen it will say that it is inappropriate to start eating before everybody has taken a photo of it nowadays everybody thinks they are political if they click against NTA if D on facebook we used to be really active we used to be on the street when demonstrating the others I had a rate but when Germany becomes a champion I'm part of it well champion unless nothing changes no it creates changes it doesn't important what you are angry about I have to go out like France isn't enough you can get start anytime we need more bad internet maybe then we changed the country into a new situation but back then we had the real world how great it used to be back then and what happened do you come with us to the demo which I just have to finish which Disney princess are you I'll tell you Friedrich Merz Lord of the Rings used to be a bug yeah bug nobody knows that's hardware look at the Leagastinica back then nowadays every hero looks the same for them take your Kai and Lu or deep learning and do something usable Navi that tells people who behave the right way but no instead lootbox is an advertisement oh a floor a glass fell on the floor the floor earlier we picked it up we used to pick it up we had our own jokes there was no jack norris or fortune or beams everything was simpler but you just sit there even the awareness somebody else has to do I'll prove it to you how do we call a bad like woman on the moon an astronaut what else thank you very much Joseph so and now we don't have anymore another rating so you have to keep the text put it in your thought fridge ensure that nothing runs out then we continue are you finished? yeah we have three more texts and we want to hear them so please to the stage 10 point applause for Pierre it's a far walk yes we applaud louder are you sure that you want this okay your fault okay I wasn't prepared for this and do we have dog people here people that really like dogs please show up I'm sorry this text is not for you the following text is a dialogue it maybe is a bit improvised it will be even more it may be a bit one-sided my communication partners sometimes a bit hard with words and her voice is a bit higher I hope I manage that because she is half deaf yeah no it's not your time yeah no still not yeah you've just had something your sweeties I looked at the watch nope yeah yeah mmhmm yeah you're starving I know yep nope is she gone okay what is this Jordy what is this yeah world domination plans uh-huh enslaving of humanity yeah okay don't you believe that this is a bit exaggerated yeah okay I think my watch is broken I'll get the food ready thank you thank you do I have to worry about this waving cat there I wonder so we are officially above behind time so I'm not going to talk much more I will now welcome for the second time in the finals make big applause so this time I don't have any papers I can let drop to the floor yeah sad no most of you finished school I have to continue to go there next year spend some time there and because it's so unreal I have already written my university entrance exam talk farewell speech I want to read here the school system is a concept which I don't really get all day we annoyed children sit and try to sweat thoughts of knowledge onto the paper it learning is illness in the morning you enter the building without wanting to even despite should be something fun and interesting it's more like throwing up I don't know how people are supposed to learn because you're supposed to learn and to work and then die in the school it's all about learning and breaking it out throwing it out here learning is an illness and you don't learn to learn but to learn how to work properly now not to fall down or change if you have to learn how we have to learn how we have to interpret and until we have I used to like school and learning and after the first week I came home where I had to repeat everything I already knew first food eat and then throw up it's all about learning a lot and not breaking up with a thought and don't ask until then if there's something more important than school even if then and now and then I learned something interesting even if it's all about interpretations or integrals the learning for life is in the foreground thank you very much now I have the feeling that it was a stupid idea to not tell the people the prices and then learn that one of our participants is still at school shit all right yeah she's 18 all the leaf and everything is fine think you're still ready to go we have a last text another text the angels nearly done and another last large applause keep him up until he's on the stage for Simon yeah thanks a lot and I don't have papers with me either I wasn't prepared actually to come back onto this stage but just over two years ago on Twitter I had a project that was called 10 o'clock poetry and I would just like to read a few of these tweets for all very short because then back then we had the 140 character limit back then everything was better yeah my left space is free I would like to have an axe for the right one first half was a popular German rhyme starts with I wish someone to sit down there the rainy day because the kid has finished its food or their food why is there ruby hey listen IT fairy tales once upon a time there was a windows update 1% 2% and if they well they died all so if they didn't die it doesn't apply you are an open book to me I would rather outside tacky inside for the next one I'd like to apologize to my family who might be listening it was a ending in fisting water, basis of all life cause of death, expression of sadness but first of all the foundation for ice cream Lord of the towels to bind them and to travel as a hitchhiker and find the question you to me are an open book written in comic sans thank you stay on stage thank you for that last text and all finalists come up on stage and you will stay here cause we will have to ask you now to the front they are not biting you now to motivate you we will throw in a bit of chocolate cause you will crank rate all this now you will have remembered what these texts were like ok you and you have been growing up a long time so you will now through your applause rate which texts you like the most and we will then find the winner of the first chaos communication slam in Leipzig and everywhere are you standing up the right way? right I would like to hear let's start in the reverse order I would like to hear you have to put everything into this if you are in favor of this boat but especially for those that you like the most you clap a bit more and that's why I want to hear an applause for the twitter short story collection of Simon applause in the back I hear some foot stamping that's well done, great and then smirk told us a school graduation fair was very courageous it chocked me at first so therefore a huge applause to smirk do you have a fan group back there apparently you're good, you're in the final Cat takes over the world a great applause for Tia okay I see there are dark people here and now the last question of the last poet the carrying around discats with oneself so applause for Joseph or joseph I think is the name you're not making it easy we have overrun a lot angels are all tired including translators and you'll make me even more tired now so all these poets have been wonderful they've had great texts it was a huge fun that this stupid idea was now the schnapps idea and it's going to be turned into real schnapps so I want to hand over the prizes traditionally in the slam and schnapps there's always a bottle of herb schnapps and this bottle the first on the case communication congress goes to joseph huge applause to joseph and all participants come on he won't leave empty handed either turning up to 11 thank you thank you for being here thank you to all poets come back here applause to all poets they fought bravely and the schnapps will be divided fairly we are a small communism here and keep that applause up by these people if you meet them at the bar from us writers fantastic organisers give it all thank you