Martin Šmíd

Martin Šmíd was a fictitious Czechoslovak university student, who was supposedly killed in the police attack on the November 17, 1989 student demonstration in Prague that launched Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution.^[1] The rumour of Šmíd's death was spread by Drahomíra Dražská, a porter at a student dormitory in the city's Troja district. The dissident Charter 77 activist Petr Uhl believed her story and passed it along to Radio Free Europe, the BBC and Voice of America, who broadcast it.^[2] The news of a student's death shocked many, and the rumour is thought to have contributed to the fall of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia.

The Martin Šmíd in question was allegedly a student of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Charles University. Two students with that name attended the school at the time, both in their second year at the university, but nothing happened to either of them on November 17. One did not attend the student demonstration, and the other left it just before the police attack. After the story spread across the country, the public reaction was one of outrage. The government showed the two Martin Šmíds and interviewed one of them on television, but people did not believe their assertion that the story was fictitious. Massive demonstrations began across the weekend and the government responded by arrested Uhl for "spreading false rumours".^[2]

Drahomíra Dražská's actions, and her motivation for them, have never been fully made clear, but the most likely explanation is that she invented the story of Šmíd's death.^[3] There is evidence that the rumour was an attempt by the StB, Czechoslovakia's secret police, to inflame the situation, and that they induced Dražská to spread the disinformation.^[4] Victor Sebestyen says that the StB "faked the 'death' of Martin Šmíd in order to create a groundswell of popular anger that would remove [General Secretary] Jakeš, Prague Party boss Miroslav Štěpán and other hardliners and replace them with Gorbachev-type reformers. It seems far-fetched, but evidence which established the conspiracy as genuine, rather than a plot in a spy movie, was provided later in a commission of inquiry set up by a post-Communist government."^[2] The plan, code-named "Wedge", was authored by General Alois Lorenc, head of the StB, and a small group of reformers. They thought that the only way they could save their jobs was to negotiate with from a position of strength with a divided opposition. The other half of the plan involved infiltrating the opposition and finding dissidents who were willing to negotiate with the Communist regime. Young StB Lieutenant Ludvík Zifčák had infiltrated the student movement and took part in the demonstrations on November 17. He was one of the leaders of the main march and helped to direct it to Wenceslas Square, where he knew there was a trap waiting. When violence erupted there, he lay low, fell to the ground and played dead. Dražská, another agent, then passed on the story to Uhl that "Šmíd" had been killed.^[2] Sebestyen says that the plan was "convoluted, ill-judged and entirely misunderstood the Czech opposition and character, but undoubtedly it was bold."^[2]

The personal testimony of one of the real Martin Šmíds, about what he experienced on November 17, is available on his personal website.^[5]

References