| 1968 - 1998 |
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In last part, we talked about the temporary political relaxation in Czechoslovakia in the nineteen sixties, with attempts by the communist party to explain the brutalities of the fifties, and the Czechoslovak intelligentsia questioning the role of the Communist party as the country's leading political body. This process soon seized the entire Czechoslovak population and led to a cultural boom, represented by writers such as Milan Kundera, Ludvik Vaculik, Josef Skvorecky and Bohumil Hrabal, film makers Milos Forman, Jan Nemec, Ivo Passer, and dramatists Vaclav Havel, Ivan Vyskocil or Josef Topol. While such relaxation was possible with Nikita Khruschev in power in the Soviet Union, the situation changed dramatically with the arrival of Leonid Brezhnev in 1964. Brezhnev became deeply concerned about one member of his flock evidently heading off in its own direction.
Part I. Return |
In January 1968, Alexander Dubcek replaced Antonin Novotny as the head of the Communist Party, and soon after, a group of so called Reform communists gathered around him. This was a section of the ruling communist elite which saw in the uncompromised Dubcek an opportunity to transform the political system with their own ideas. It should be emphasised that the Reform communists had no intention of introducing political plurality in the country, and neither did they wish to part with the system of a planned economy and the rest of it. They only wanted to improve the existing socialist system - give it a 'human face', as they called it, and put the economy back on its feet. Whether or not this half-hearted attitude would have eventually succeeded in delivering the country out of its fifties' trauma, we will never know, as the Warsaw armies thwarted the experiment in its early stages.
But let's not overtake the events. We are still in the early moths of 1968, coined by the media as the 'Prague Spring'. In the surge of happiness and enthusiasm at the dynamic changes and the new political direction, no-one seemed to be too concerned about what was brewing outside Czechoslovakia, in the rest of the communist bloc. After all, why should they worry? They were not talking of changing the system, or anything like that, so what objections could the Soviets possibly have? Well, object they did, and not only the Soviets, but the communist leadership of the neighbouring Soviet-bloc countries as well. While Dubcek's focus was on resolving immediate issues in his country, the communist governments outside Czechoslovakia became worried about the long-term consequences of the reforms. This socialist experiment could eventually lead to the abolition of the one-party system, which could then infect the other countries of the Soviet bloc. But there weren't just the ideological worries. There was the military aspect, too. The Soviet block defence lines had to be particularly strong in Central Europe, and that's why it was necessary to deploy Soviet divisions there...for which, there had to be a reason. As early as February 1968 - only one month after Dubcek had been elected the head of the Communist Party - the Northern Units of the Warsaw pact, deployed in Eastern Germany, received sealed envelopes with orders to move closer to the Czechoslovak border and, according to some sources, the invasion plan was drawn up as early as April. Of which the country's politicians was of course unaware. Between March and August, Brezhnev tried to exert political pressure on Czechoslovakia - at the meetings of the Communist Parties in Dresden, Warsaw - where the Czechoslovak communist party refused to turn up - , in the Slovak town of ¬ierna Nad Tisou, and finally in Bratislava. Along with the diplomatic efforts to convince the Czechoslovak leadership to stop the reform movement, the threat of military intervention was being used right from the beginning, albeit in a disguised way and therefore naively ignored by the leading Czechoslovak officials, who were intoxicated with the Prague Spring. In early May, to commemorate the end of the 2nd world war, the Soviet marshals tried to send a tank division from Poland to Czechoslovakia, supposedly to 'celebrate' the liberaton. They also brought forward the date for the Sumava military manoeuvres, from September to June. These manoeuvres were the practical exercises for the invasion, which foreign observers didn't fail to realise, but which the Czechoslovak leadership couldn't believe was possible. At the end of March, Antonin Novotny resigned as the president and was replaced by Ludvik Svoboda, who soon appointed a new Communist government, which in April announced the so called Action plan. Although it was supposed to contain the recent changes in Czechoslovak society, the Action plan still intended to maintain the leading role of the Communist Party. To the nation which by this time had got used to reading uncensored newspapers and speaking openly, the ideas in the Action plan were too restricting, and it was clear that things were getting out of the communists' control. The rest of the communist block countries attacked the Czechoslovak reform in the press, most viciously Bulgaria and Eastern Germany, whose communist leaderships repeatedly declared their determination to put a stop to the political changes in Czechoslovakia. Isolated cases of disapproval with the reforms appeared even within the country, such as at the June meeting of the infamous People's Militias, the covert appeal by 99 workers of the Praga factory calling to the Soviet Union for help, or the speech of the communist Vasil Bilak - who will always be remembered for attaching his signature to the letter officially asking the Warsaw armies for help in freeing Czechoslovakia from the grip of the counter revolution. During the month of May, following the Communist plenary session, even the sceptics in society were seized by enthusiasm. Workers committees were being established in factories and the traditional youth organisations Junak and Sokol emerged again, which were previously forbidden for promoting other ideals than those of communism. New organisations were being founded and the church and religious groups were coming out of seclusion. The Club of Committed Non-Party Members, otherwise KAN, and the Klub 231, which united the former political prisoners of the communist regime, were the early germs of plural democracy. The media were practically uncensored, every new day bringing new articles disclosing the crimes of the Communist party during the fifties. Some of those implicated in the crimes committed suicide under the weight of the media revelations. On June 27, on the eve of the regional Communist conferences, the 2000 Words Statement was published by several newspapers. This document, written by the writer Ludvik Vaculik and subsequently signed by the country's leading figures from all spheres of social life, demanded that the reform process must continue regardless of the Communist party and if necessary, even against its interests. This was the last straw for Big Brother. In mid-July, at a meeting in Warsaw, the Soviet, East German, Bulgarian, Hungarian and Polish communist leaders signed the key element of the Brezhnev doctrine: the duty on the part of national Communist parties to defend socialism and the whole socialist bloc, which gave them the right to intervene in the internal matters of another socialist country if they felt it was necessary. The Czechoslovak Communist Party refused to take part in the meeting, though it had been invited. When it was clear that the Czechoslovak leadership wouldn't budge from the reform course on which the country had embarked, the Soviet political bureau set the date for intervention for July 29. The two meetings between Brezhnev and Dubcek, in July and early August, only postponed the date. |
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