1968 was a landmark in the breakdown of With all due allowances, Czechoslovakia
Stalinism. Among other things, it provoked might be called the first laboratory for such the onset of the acute crisis of the major reform from above.
Western Communist parties, which has
Its lessons therefore are even more important become chronic and is continuing to now, 20 years after the "fraternal" tanks rolled accelerate. It also revealed the impasse of the bureaucratically-run collectivist economies that has now forced Gorbachev to ANNA LIBERA
A FTER sharp clashes at the begin-
ning of January 1968, the Presidium of the Central Committee of A the Czechoslovak Communist Party appointed Alexander Dubcek first secretary. It was only on March 4 that a detailed transcript of the CC Presidium meeting began to circulate confidentially. Among other things it said:
"In the course of the discussion, deliberations on implementing the party's policy were marked by a conflict between the old and the new. An initial tendency emerged that to a greater or lesser extent failed to take account of the stage already attained in the socialist development of our society, and which insisted on defending outworn forms of the party's work.
"In its eyes, the causes of our failings were primarily difficulties encountered in the functioning of the economy, inadequacies in ideological work, lax and liberal attitudes on the ideological front, the effects of the West's ideological diversion maneuvers. For this tendency, there was enough democracy both in the party and in the country. One speaker even expressed the opinion that there was "too much democracy' in our country.
"Against this view, very marked tendencies emerged...which called for a new course....They spoke of the need for raising political action to a level corresponding to the evolution of our society today and taking account of the effects of the scientific and technical revolution.
*The development of the economy and its new forms of management unavoidably required a change in the party's methods of leadership in order to offer a broad enough field for initiative and public activity by social groups as such." (Reported by Jiri Hajek in Ten Years After). The heterogeneous into Prague. second camp found its spokesperson in Alexander Dubcek. The Prague Spring had begun. On April 5, 1968, with the publication of the Czechoslovak CP's Action Program, it began to heat up.
Effects of Khrushchev's
"de-Stalinization"
One of the features of the Czechoslovak reform, a factor that partially explains its mass character and its acceleration, lies in the fact that the Communist Party, and by extension the society as a whole, was barely touched by the "de-Stalinization" unleashed by Khrushchev at the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1956.
Relative to Poland and Hungary, the Czechoslovak CP (CzCP) still enjoyed support in broad strata of workers, and therefore was not forced by popular pressure to change its Stalinist practices and leadership. A few political prisoners had indeed been released, but timid attempts at debate launched by intellectuals in 1956 were quickly repressed. Drawing the lessons of Poland and Hungary, Novotny, the main leader of the CzCP, reinforced party discipline and stepped up the "antirevisionist struggle."
This preventative hardening up was ultimately to increase the discontent. This occurred first of all in the intelligentsia, which saw it as in profound contradiction with the policy of "peaceful coexistence and opening" advocated by the USSR at the time, as well as with the new denunciation of Stalinism opened up by Khrushchev at the Twenty-First Congress of the CPSU
The discontent expressed by the intelli-
68-88
CZECHOSLOVAKIA gentsia was gaining an echo in the early 1960s with the deepening of the economic crisis. For some years, the rate of growth kept on dropping, until it hit zero in 1962 and become negative in 1963 (-3%). Young party economists, including Ota Sik, quickly put the blame on too servile copying of the Soviet model of industrialization, the hyper-centralization of planning and the incompetence of plant managers, appointed for their submissiveness to the party rather than for their skills in management.
At the start of the 1960s, these various elements of crisis were to deepen and reinforce each other, making these years a time of more and more public debates, more and more open criticisms.
Economic reforms linked to political change
Faced with the failure of its economic policy, the CzCP leadership could not avoid opening a debate at its Twelfth Congress in 1962 with those who were proposing a deepgoing reform of the economic mechanism. While a discussion did take place, no measures were adopted at this congress.
The debate was then pursued in the following months in the economic press (mainly Hospodarské Noviny). Ota Sik, the leading reformer, long upheld the fundamental idea that economic reform could not be carried through unless adequate changes were made in the country's political and economic structures.
He came out against all the taboos and for an open discussion of all the problems. For him, the plan should respond to needs of the population (and not vice-ves any can 23 lective ownership was a means and not an July 25, 1988 • #146 International Viewpoint
CZECHOSLOVAKIA end. He called for decentralizing planning, relative autonomy of production units, for applying the law of supply and demand in setting prices and for "efficient" management of enterprises. This meant, among other things, the right to fire workers.
It was not these last elements that set off the conservatives in the CzCP. (At the same time in the USSR, Lieberman and Trapeznikov were proposing the same recipes without arousing negative reactions). Their reflexes were triggered by the insistence with which the economists questioned the monolithism of the party and its absolute monopoly on economic and politi-
Sik repeated endlessly that it was impossible to stimulate economic initiative without this spilling over into the political domain. The conservatives were also afraid that their jobs would be threatened if chiefs were to be chosen on the basis of their competence and not their adherence to the party's line.
Reform obstructed by party apparatus
However, they were disarmed. The economic crisis could only encourage debate, and it was difficult to respond by hailing past policy. The reform was thus proclaimed in principle in 1964, but only adopted at the beginning of 1967. However, its application was totally obstructed by the party apparatus, which carried on a demagogic campaign in the enterprises about the effects it might have (which would be real for the workers). It also tried to counterpose the workers to the intellectuals.
Parallel to this, the intellectuals, encouraged by the Twenty-Second Congress of the CPSU, went on the offensive on the question of the balance sheet of Stalinism. In the April 1963 Central Committee Plenum, Novotny was obliged to present a report on "the violations of the party's principles and of socialist legality in the era of the cult of the personality."
This meant reopening the Slansky trial after eight years. But the report was considered so explosive that only a greatly expurgated version was distributed to the members. Even this watered-down version aroused violent reactions.
It was questions more directly affecting the national culture that were to mobilize the intellectuals, in particular, the rediscovery of Kafka, one of Czechoslovakia's greatest writers, who was banned in his own country because he was judged to be pessimistic and decadent. In February 1963, Edvard Golstücker wrote an initial article in Kafka's defence in Literarni Noviny, the writers' union magazine.
In May, an international conference on Kafka was held in Prague. His writings were drawn on to criticize the bureaucratic 24 sysk place in April of of Seval ries cad- system. The congress of Slovak writers that International Viewpoint #146 • July 25, 1988 ing role played by the intellectuals in exposing Novotny's bureaucratic dic-
Thrown on the defensive by the combination of criticism from economists and intellectuals, the dictatorship responded with the only means it understood - repression. The Central Committee stepped up its warnings, and a violent campaign was launched against the intelligentsia. Some publications, such as Tvar, were banned. Finally, on January 1, 1967, a very strict law reinforcing the censorship was adopted. Far from having the expected effect, this attitude was to radicalize the demands of the intellectuals and to unite them and the liberals in the CzCP leadership.
The Fourth Congress of the writers' union, which was finally authorized in June 1967, offered a good picture of the situation, and in fact marked the opening of hostilities. Cultural and political debates were mingled. The censorship was denounced. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's letter to the Soviet writers' union was read (it had not been distributed to the writers in the USSR). But, most of all, there were a growing number of accusations against Novotny and his personal regime.
Once again, Novotny's only answer was repression. The new leadership of the writers' union was not recognized by the party. The magazine Literarni Noviny was taken out of its hands. Leading intellectuals such as L. Vaculik, A. Liehm and P. Klima were expelled from the party. But the violent campaign waged in the press against the writers' union only helped to spread the news about what had happened at the congress.
Despite appearances, the Novotny leadership was on the defensive. It had no solu-
tion to oppose to that of the reformers, except repressive measures. Liberals and conservatives were now clashing openly in the Central Committee. The spokesperson of the liberals, Alexander Dubcek (the Slovak party head) challenged Novotny's personal power and his accumulation of posts (he was both party secretary and president of the republic).
### Dubcek's "palace revolution"
The Central Committee plenum that met at the end of 1967 and the beginning of 1968 was to take a stand on accumulated posts. But no one was fooled by that. The main issue was the reform and the fight for the leadership of the party, which everyone saw as the essential instrument for carrying it through. In the face of the violent attacks directed against him, Novotny resigned as party secretary, hoping by this tactical gesture to rally a conservative majority.
However, the maneuver failed, and, on January 5, the Central Committee accepted Novotny's resignation and appointed Alexander Dubcek to head the CzCP. Novotny remained president of the republic, and his supporters continued to be thick on the ground in the leading bodies of the CzCP. Nothing in the outcome of this plenum gave any forewarning of what was to unfold in the following months.
It was a palace revolution of the usual sort in bureaucratic regimes. There was no better indication of this than Brezhnev's reaction. When Novotny appealed to him in Prague to come to the rescue, he limited himself to saying "This is your business." But he stopped off in Bratislava on his way back to take stock of the prospective new
In the aftermath of its victory, the new CzCP leadership did not envisage making any radical changes. It intended to transform the party gradually from the inside, using the intellectuals to shake up the conservative apparatus a little. At the conclusion of this gradual process, a congress at the end of 1969 or the beginning of 1970 was to institutionalize the changes effected.
However, in accordance with its conceptions, the new leadership was to let a debate open up on the country's problems. The writers' union protesters were reintegrated into the party, and the union got its weekly publication back. Under the new name of Literarni Listy, this journal was to take the lead in the debate (at the end of February/ beginning of March, more than a half million copies of this publication were being sold). The press, radio and television were to become vehicles for expressing the questions, fears and hopes of the population.
These fears and hopes were given impetus by the continued presence of Novotny and his supporters in the leading bodies and by Alexander Dubcek's statements. After General Sejman's defection to the West, it was learned that when Novotny saw that his cause was lost at the beginning of January 1968, he tried to organize a military putsch. From then on, it was impossible to block debate about the positions of the conservatives in the party and the country.
In mass meetings in March, the party leaders were able to sound out the population. It was with them, but it demanded that the changes undertaken and promised be consolidated by getting rid of Novotny and all his supporters in the party.
All sectors of the society were affected. The unions demanded the reestablishment of the right to strike. Students created an independent student parliament. Embryonic political parties and various sorts of clubs were formed. Even the censors organized and came out for the abolition of censorship! Facing this popular pressure, on March 21, 1968, Novotny resigned, and was replaced as president by Svoboda.
Attempt to please both bureaucracy and masses
However, Dubcek and his friends were well aware that the problem went beyond the personality of Novotny. The dynamic of the mass movement was breaking out of the bounds that they had set. It was threatening to upset their plan for transforming the party and society gradually, from above. Many people in the CzCP and in the mass organizations did not believe that the post- January policy could be followed in company with the conservatives and demanded an "institutionalization" of this policy by a special congress of the CzCP.
At the April Central Committee plenum, Dubcek addressed himself to two different publics — a reticent Central Committee, and a public opinion far in advance of it. He reassured the first by rejecting the idea of a special party congress. He tried to calm the second by appointing well-known liberals to important political posts. Frantisek Kriegel was appointed to head the National Front (a group of recognized and controlled parties and organizations officially independent of the CP). Jozef Smrkovski was appointed to the presidency of the National Assembly, and Cernik to the post of premier. In addition, he got the Action Program adopted.
As often happens, this compromise satisfied no one. The conservatives blocked implementation of the Action Program (which was in fact very moderate). As for the intellectuals and the people at large, they saw the conservative apparatus remaining in place. Becoming distrustful, they stepped up the pressures for a special
The formation of the Cernik government, however, was not a formal gesture. It was going to apply an extensive program of liberalization — a law on the right of assembly, freedom to travel, a law on rehabilitations and compensation, independence of the judiciary, a restrictive definition of
CZECHOSLOVAKIA the powers of the Ministry of the Interior and a law on workers' councils. A number of these measures were to be used to accelerate and widen the debate on the necessary transformations.
Within the post-January leadership, divisions appeared. In response to the obstruction of the conservatives, a group led by Smrkovski and Cisar took more radical positions, which were increasingly echoed in the working class. Many of the regional party conferences that took place at the end of April called for a special congress.
Finally, an inadvertent alliance between the conservatives and the progressives led to the calling of such a congress. At the CC plenum at the end of May, Dubcek sought again to temporize. But Novotny stepped up his attacks, drawing a violent response from the more radical wing of the new leadership. The CC expelled Novotny. His followers then came out for calling a congress quickly. They wanted to take advantage of the positions they still held in the apparatus to win over delegates to their ideas. So, at the end of the plenum it was decided to convoke the congress at the beginning of September and to hold democratic elections of delegates by regional congresses.
While all energies were now concentrated on preparations for the regional congresses, the publication of a long document, Two Thousand Words, written by Ludwik Vaculik, reflected an important evolution of a part of the intelligentsia and a part of public opinion. The document hailed all the positive initiatives taken by the party leadership since January. But it warned against blind confidence in it, and called on workers and young people themselves to take the leadership of the struggle for transforming the Threats from the Warsaw
Pact countries
The document reflected the frustration at all of the Dubcek team's evasions and the fear of seeing some gains threatened if the "democratization" was not institutionalized. It was to be at the center of the debate in the election of delegates to the September conference. The conservatives held it up as a confirmation of all their fears. The liberals tried to downplay it, stressing the good intentions of the authors. They decried only the "unfortunate forty words," that is, those that called for independent ac-
This document was to be the main pretext used by the "brother countries" for offering their "internationalist" aid to the Czechoslovak party, which was supposedly being threatened by an "offensive of counterrevolutionary forces." By late June, the situation in Czechoslovakia began to be conditioned by growing pressures and threats from the Warsaw Pact countries against the CzCP leadership.
The Soviet leaders had watched the 25 change at the top of the Czechoslovak party July 25, 1988 • #146 International Viewpoint
CZECHOSLOVAKIA without any concern. Dubcek was a faithful ally of the USSR, and his project was, after all, quite moderate. By March, this attitude had changed in response to the rise of the mass movement and the freewheeling debate developing in the country, and what the Soviet chiefs considered an excessive sensitivity on the part of the post-January Czechoslovak leaders to pressure from
The decision to call a special party congress was to speed things up. The party's loss of control was, in fact, considered a point of no return. At the beginning of July, the USSR, Poland, East Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria sent a letter to the Presidium of the CzCP expressing their concern about the way in which the situation was evolving. The Presidium said that it was favorable to bilateral meetings with the brother parties to inform them of the situation. But the Five wanted to "summon" the Czechoslovak party to appear before them, hoping in that way to be able to take advantage of the divisions that existed within it. The Presidium refused to meet them.
The Five met, nonetheless, in Warsaw on July 14-15, and sent a letter to Prague in which they drew the attention of the CzCP leaders to "the offensive conducted by the reactionaries, with the aid of imperialism, against the party and the bases of the socialist system." They expressed their lack of confidence in the Prague leaders who failed see these dangers, and raised a hue and cry about counter-revolutionaries in the CzCP leadership itself. The situation was supposedly so grave that it was no longer something that concerned the CzCP alone but required the intervention of the entire socialist community.
### Dubcek announces
Soviet "understanding"
In its response the Czechoslovak Presidium rejected these accusations and defended the line followed since January. A vast movement developed within the country against what was seen as intolerable interference. The Presidium's letter was endorsed by all the party bodies and mass organizations. Preparations for the special party congress went ahead according to schedule. At the beginning of July, delegates were elected by the regional congresses. More than 80 per cent were aligned with the progressives (and 10 per cent of these were considered "radicals").
In order to reassure the Soviets, a bilateral meeting was held on July 29 on the border between the USSR and Czechoslovakia. The tenor of the discussion is not known. But on his return, Dubcek informed his friends of the Soviet's "understanding." Perhaps he was trying to convince himself of that. At the same time, he refused to listen to some generals who pointed with concern to unusual move26 ments by Warsaw Pact troops. They were to enter Prague on August 21, 1968. International Viewpoint #146 • July 25, 1988
Up to the end, Dubcek hoped to reconcile what in the bureaucratic world could not be reconciled — democratization and the party's "leading role," its monopoly of power, national independence and the acceptance of subordination to the interests of the Kremlin bureaucracy. In this way, he both aroused the hopes of the Czechoslovak workers and left the door open to those whose only goal was to crush them.
Massive Soviet military invasion
The massive Soviet military invasion was designed to stun, to paralyze the population. Insofar as no section of the Czechoslovak army would have mounted any resistance and the masses had not in the course of their previous struggle achieved the means for self-defence, there was little likelihood of a "Hungarian-style" confrontation. Therefore, what the Soviets wanted in the first phase was to use the presence of the troops to reestablish bureaucratic control over the political institutions so that in the second phase these institutions could defeat the popular movement. The Dubcek leadership of the CzCP was, unfortunately, to prove a pliant instrument for carrying
The spontaneous mass movement of unarmed resistance to the occupation showed the profound attachment of the masses of workers and youth to the Prague Spring's ideals of freedom. But its very breadth was soon to show the full consequences of the delay in the emergence of an independent leadership before the intervention. Despite the remarkable resistance activity of many left communists, they did not manage to set up such a leadership in the underground conditions that existed after August 21. This, along with Dubcek's capitulation, opened the way for the triumph of the "normalization" in the course of 1969.
The Soviets' task was not easy. They did not want a purely military solution. They wanted to use military pressure to "resolve" the crisis politically. They needed to reestablish the legitimacy of a subordinate Czechoslovak Communist Party. But what personnel was available for that? Novotny was far too discredited. Other conservatives, such as Indra and Bilak, enjoyed no support among the workers. There was no alternative to the Dubcek team. It had to undo the movement that it had called up.
The Prague Spring leaders, therefore, were taken to Moscow and put through the wringer, as one of the participants, Zdenek Mlynar, has recounted in memoirs. Nonetheless, it was not these pressures that explain why they capitulated and signed the Moscow Protocol accepting the "temporary stationing" of Warsaw Pact troops on the territory of the Republic of Czechoslovakia. After all, one member of the leadership, Frantisek Kriegel, refused to sign.
The principal cause of this surrender lies in Dubcek's conception, in his commitment above all to the interests of the bureaucratic apparatus of the CzCP and the "international Communist movement" subordinate to the Kremlin. This loyalty took precedence over the interests of the Czechoslovak masses. Of course, the CzCP had differences with Moscow. But in the eyes of Dubcek and his associates they were of a tactical nature, and they never envisaged that these differences could lead to a break. Dubcek's attitude in Moscow, but above all on his return to Prague, shows quite clearly that he never at any time envisaged repudiating the Moscow Protocol and basing himself on the resistance movement that embraced the overwhelming majority of the Czechoslo-
As soon as the signing of the Moscow Protocol was announced, on August 27, the new Central Committee rejected it. But on its return to Prague, the Dubcek leadership declared the Fourteenth Party Congress null and void. It restored the 1966 Central Committee. A few members elected on August 22 were added. But they were overwhelmed by the mass of conservatives and had no chance of influencing events, even if, despite the pressures, they did not hesitate to speak out against the occupation at the August 31, 1968, CC meeting (Jaroslav Sabata in particular).
Qualitative leap in self-organization
The immediate result of this Central Committee meeting was to put a brake on mass mobilization, because the Dubcek leadership was the only one with authority. Among the population, a wait-and-see atti tude prevailed in September and early October in the hope that Dubcek would succeed anyway in rescuing the essential reforms of the Prague Spring.
While the atmosphere was no longer favorable to street demonstrations against the occupiers, the mood was not one of blind confidence in the party leadership either. It was in this period that the self-organization of the masses took a qualitative leap, in particular in the election of workers' councils in all the enterprises. This election was provided for by the Workers' Council Law, but now it took on a directly political dimension that it probably would not have had in other circumstances. Likewise, the students reinforced their independent organizations.
Very quickly the timid hopes placed in the post-invasion Dubcek leadership started to dissipate. At the end of October, demonstrations resumed. On October 28, the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the Czechoslovak state, thousands of demonstrators marched in Prague demanding the withdrawal of the Soviet troops. The demonstrations were even stronger on November 6 and 7 at the time of the official celebrations. The response of the leadership was to ban the three publications in the forefront of the resistance — Politika, Literarni Listy and Reporter.
The students were the first to understand that it was necessary to relaunch action against the occupation and set up a leadership independent of the Dubcek team. They decided to take an initiative on the eve of the November CC plenum, which was considered a test of the real intentions of the CzCP leaders. They formed an action committee representing all the schools and in December transformed it into a student
At the urging of Karel Kovanda, Petr Uhl and Jiri Muller, the action committee called for a demonstration on November 17. It was banned, and was immediately transformed into a two-day sit-in in the universities and high schools throughout the country. The students then issued a "Letter to worker and peasant comrades," which said, among other things:
"We cannot accept a verbal sovereignty, when in reality constant pressure is being put on us from the outside.... We cannot be satisfied with a few vague statements about the need for a policy open to the inspection of the people, when in reality we have less and less information about the activity of our leaders...The working class is brave, wise and diligent. It does not panic. It does not give up. It wants peace and friendship with all coun tries, justice, democratic socialism, socialism with a human face. It hates violence and injustice, humil-
There was nothing remarkable about the document, except that it existed and forthrightly declared the weariness with the Dubcek leadership's maneuvers that was beginning to spread among the workers. The letter was in fact the signal for a relaunching of the activities of the mass organizations. It was telexed from factory to factory. The students were invited to speak in the shops. Delegations of workers went to the occupied universities.
Many factories pledged to strike if the students were attacked. The workers' assembly at the Skoda factory in Plzen came out for the election of a new leadership that "would commit itself to implementing the process of political and organizational democratization." The 22,000 workers in the Kladno steelworks demanded the resignation of those leaders opposed to
Similar positions were adopted by the Ostrava miners and the workers in the CKD factory in Prague. The latter even staged a warning strike on November 22, when the Prague students defied an evacuation order. The intellectual community threw itself completely into the movement.
Confronted with this movement, the Dubcek leadership itself put an end to all the hopes that it might have aroused. It reinforced police presence in Prague. It decided to censure all information about the student strike, and launched a campaign denouncing the "irresponsible people" who were supposed to be behind it.
However, at the time workers' confidence in the Prague leadership was breaking down; the mass movement had not seen the emergence of a new leadership with a broad authority. The students themselves acknowledged this when they decided to end their strike on November 21: "The events took on a scope and gravity that we had not envisaged....During this crisis we realized how badly prepared we were...no one had foreseen that events would take on such a character."
TCHECOSLOVAQUIE
A broad vanguard developed in action around a united front between the students and trade-unionists in the big workplaces. A pact was signed between the powerful metalworkers' union and the student union in Prague. It was designed to be a real action program. And in the words of the president of the normalized National Front, it made the Two Thousand Words look like a nursery rhyme.
Similar pacts were signed between many other unions, and this coordinating body continued to function up until the spring of 1969. However, a mobilization of such breadth could not be maintained indefinitely without a political project. But the cadres capable of transforming this powerful resistance action into a political offensive that could have divided the party leadership and thus undermined the occupiers' political instrument remained dispersed. Very active in the resistance, they were submerged in the mass organizations. They had no links among themselves, and were unable to define a project. This first experience was too brief.
Two events were to contribute to the demoralization of the resistance at the beginning of 1969. Since the autumn, differences had been appearing in the Dubcek team. Husak and Strougal were beginning to line up openly with the Soviets and step up the pressures for accelerating the nor-
CZECHOSLOVAKIA malization. In December, Husak began to call publicly for ousting Smrkovski from his post as president of the National
Numerous resolutions of support for Smrkovski came from factories throughout the country. But on January 5, he appeared on TV to denounce those who were defending him. Two days later, he was removed. This was the sign that the most popular leaders of the Prague Spring were deserting the battlefield. It was also the signal for many still hesitating party cadres and functionaries to choose their camp in time and line up alongside Husak. The suicide of Jan Palach, who immolated himself in the center of Prague on January 16, was to show symbolically that while the population was still ready to mobilize en masse, it had lost any hope of having its demands taken up by the CzCP and of being able to win. On January 21, 100,000 demonstrators marched through Wenceslas Square. For the first time, the flag of the 1918-1939 Czechoslovak republic replaced the red flag at the head of the march, marking the changed attitude of the population in response to the betrayal of the CzCP. At Palach's funeral on January 25, a million people marched in silence through the streets of the capital. They no longer had any demands. They no longer had any rights, except that of silence. At the end of February, Dubcek told an assembly of police: "We have succeeding in overcoming the most acute phase of the January crisis." He was right. He no longer had any usefulness for the occupiers. On March 28, a Friday, the Czechoslovak hockey team defeated the USSR four goals to three. Demonstrations in the cities against the
The Kremlin then instituted the second part of its intervention. Generals Grechko and Semyonov installed Husak and removed Dubcek. The latter was to be sent to Turkey as ambassador, where he kept silent. Recalled in January 1970, he was expelled from the party. That was his reward
It took the expulsion of hundreds of thousands from the party, firings, threats to wreck the education of children, forced exile and imprisonment in order to break the
The path of normalization in the shadow of Soviet tanks was also smoothed by economic concessions, mainly in the area of consumer goods.
Unlike Poland in the 1980s, Czechoslovakia in the 1970s experienced relative economic growth. But the strength of the opposition to the regime, regrouped in Charter 77, still testifies 20 years later to the breadth and depth of the movement that shook Czechoslovakia in the spring of 27 July 25, 1988 • #146 International Viewpoint