| 1968 - 1998 |
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In modern Czech history, the month of August represents a tragic watershed which will be remembered for generations to come. This month, thirty years ago, the five armies of the Warsaw pact, of which Czechoslovakia was also a member, crossed the Czechoslovak borders in order to crush the democratic process which had started in the country earlier that year and which has become known as the Prague spring. In the next two editions, we will be going through the events preceding the tragic night of August 21.
Part II. Return |
After the horrific nineteen fifties, during which the Soviet political model had been forcibly installed in Czechoslovakia, including staged political trials with innocent people, death sentences and imprisonment, the nineteen sixties started showing some signs of relaxation. The country was still headed by the Communist Party, but its leadership, encouraged by the changed political climate in the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev, and the exposure of the Stalinist purges, took some steps which would have been previously unthinkable. The victims of the fifties persecution were being rehabilitated, albeit inconsistently, and usually only the victims from the communist ranks. The tens of thousands of non-communists who were released from prisons as part of the 1960 amnesty had to wait much longer for their rehabilitation.
The same half-hearted attitude was applied to resolving the economic crisis in Czechoslovakia, which culminated in the 1963 collapse of the third centrally-run five-year economic plan. Only at this point did Antonin Novotny, who was both the Communist Party leader and the Czechoslovak President, agree to create a special team of economists which would lead the country out of the crisis; wondering perhaps, how the wonderful Soviet model had failed. The group of experts, headed by the economist Ota æik, analysed the situation and kicked off economic reforms which were expected to bring the country's economy back to some of its previous market principles. However, little by little, the reform movement started spreading through the entire Czechoslovak society. And while the Prague Spring is often described as a power struggle between the reformist and conservative wings within the Communist Party, this interpretation is limiting, as it leaves out a large group of non-communist Czech intelligentsia who had been actively working towards the reform way before 1968. Following the rehabilitation of political victims of the nineteen fifties purges, it of course became necessary to explain the staged political trials of the forties and fifties, as the silence surrounding them was discrediting the country's leading force - the Communist Party. So, as well as the group of economists mentioned earlier, a team of historians, political scientists, philosophers and lawyers was put together, led by ZdenØk Mlyn ý, to examine the political issue. At the same time, the scientific and technical progress in the outside world penetrated the Iron Curtain and opened up new space to independent scientific research - once again, something unthinkable under socialist conditions. Finally, in addition to the economic and scientific progress, we mustn't forget the boom in journalism and the arts - literature, film and theatre - which all made it further obvious that Czechoslovakia was slowly freeing itself from the communist grip. Rock'n'roll and big-beat music replaced the falsely cheerful songs from the fifties, telling you how wonderful was is to be working at a metal lathe eight hours a day; and the country's youth was clearly preferring long hair and jeans to the party ideal of polyester trousers and a red tie. The once frightened population was more and more bold in their criticism of the shortcomings of the socialist regime, no longer worried that the police might drag them out of bed in the middle of the night and dispatch them to a labour camp in uranium mines or elsewhere. However, these processes in Czechoslovak society didn't pass unnoticed by Czechoslovakia's partners in the Warsaw alliance. In 1964, Leonid Brezhnev replaced Nikita Khrushchev as the head of the Soviet Union, and his new hard-line Soviet leadership watched the developments in Czechoslovakia with a growing concern. A recently revealed document shows that Kremlin classified Czechoslovakia as the least ideologically reliable element of the Warsaw pact at that time. Meanwhile, the victory of Israel over the Arab countries in the Six-Day war in 1967 worsened relations between the superpowers - the USA and the Soviet Union - as the communist bloc supported the Arab states, and the conflict in Vietnam just added fuel to the fire. Both sides desparately needed some agreement preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and so their cold-war relationship developed into some sort of "gentlemen's agreement" of not interfering in each other's zones of interest. Only a year later, Czechoslovakia was to feel the impact of this silent arrangement between the powers. In summer 1967, at the IV. Congress of Czechoslovak Writers, the leading Czech writers such as Milan Kundera, V clav Havel, Ludvik Vaculik and Pavel Kohout criticised the entire era of "building socialism" in Czechoslovakia. They accused the communist leadership of material and moral devastation of the society, as well as its responsibility for the 50ies persecutions, and opposed its further role as the country's leading body. It was then, that the wish for the return of Czechoslovakia to Europe - meaning Western Europe - was openly expressed for the first time since the end of the 2nd world war. On October 31, a student demonstration called the 'Strahov Events' was brutally suppressed by the police. The rest of the world talked about it as the first student revolt in the Soviet bloc, and the wave of unrest and student meetings which followed, only added to the already charged atmosphere in the country. The Communist Party session which was taking place in October 1967, immediately after the Congress of Czechoslovak writers, had to deal with the criticism expressed at the congress, and show its awareness of - as they put it - 'the deep political crisis within the society, including the Communist party itself'. It was for the first time since the communist take-over of power in 1948, that members of the Communist Party dared to criticise the party leadership and express their own opinions. Antonin Novotny, whose role as the Communist Party leader was threatened by different opinions in the Party's central committee, decided of his own accord and without informing his comrades, to invite the best comrade of them all, Leonid Brezhnev, to personally resolve the party dispute. Brezhnev arrived in the first week of December 1967, only to make his famous brief statement: 'Eto Vaçe DØlo', 'It's your business." Whether he meant this rather generous statement seriously is hard to divine. But Antonin Novotny lost his chair as the Communist Party leader and, in January 1968, was replaced by Alexander Dubcek. From then on, things started moving fast. When he came to power, Dubcek was forty seven and a relatively unknown politician. It was particularly his informal behaviour and friendly smile, which won him his popularity and made people disregard a certain lack of political concept. On the one hand, Dubcek trusted in people who later let him down, like the infamous communist Vasil Bil'ak or the next president Hus k, but on the other hand, he knew how to use his media image to get rid of his party opponents. For a long time, his unaffected behaviour totally confused the Kremlin, and his enthusiasm infected many other party representatives. Although they were in no way thinking of abolishing socialism, in a sudden surge of conscience and moral, they decided to run public affairs better. What a turn around! This group was named the Reform Communists, and their role has perhaps been glorified in the light of later events. But this already takes us to another stage of the events preceding the military invasion in August 1968. In the next two editions, we will follow the events of the seven months which still remained to the fateful night of August 21. Till then, Good Bye! |
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