In
the early 1960s Czechoslovakia
suffered
an economic recession. Antonin Novotny,
the president of the country, was forced to make liberal concessions
and in 1965 he introduced a programme of decentralization. The main
feature of the new system was that individual companies would have
more freedom to decide on prices and wages.
These
reforms were slow to make an impact on the Czech economy and in September
1967, Alexander Dubcek, secretary of
the Slovak Communist Party, presented a long list of grievances against
the government. The following month there were large demonstrations
against Novotny.
In
January 1968 the Czechoslovak Party Central Committee passed a vote
of no confidence in Antonin Novotny
and he was replaced by Alexander Dubcek
as party secretary. Soon afterwards Dubcek made a speech where he
stated: "We shall have to remove everything that strangles artistic
and scientific creativeness."
During
what became known as the Prague Spring, Dubcek announced a series
of reforms. This included the abolition of censorship and the right
of citizens to criticize the government. Newspapers began publishing
revelations about corruption in high places. This included stories
about Novotny and his son. On 22nd March 1968, Novotny resigned as
president of Czechoslovakia.
He was now replaced by a Dubcek supporter, Ludvik
Svoboda.
In
April 1968 the Communist Party Central Committee published a detailed
attack on Novotny's government. This included its poor record concerning
housing, living standards and transport. It also announced a complete
change in the role of the party member. It criticized the traditional
view of members being forced to provide unconditional obedience to
party policy. Instead it declared that each member "has not only
the right, but the duty to act according to his conscience."
The
new reform programme included the creation of works councils in industry,
increased rights for trade unions to bargain on behalf of its members
and the right of farmers to form independent co-operatives.
Aware
of what happened during the Hungarian
Uprising Dubcek
announced that Czechoslovakia had no intention of changing its foreign
policy. On several occasions he made speeches where he stated that
Czechoslovakia would not leave the Warsaw
Pact or end its alliance with the Soviet
Union.
In
July 1968 the Soviet leadership announced that it had evidence that
the Federal Republic of Germany was
planning an invasion of the Sudetenland
and
asked permission to send in the Red Army
to protect Czechoslovakia. Alexander Dubcek,
aware that the Soviet forces could be used to bring an end to Prague
Spring, declined the offer.
On
21st August, 1968, Czechoslovakia was invaded by members of the Warsaw
Pact countries. In order to avoid bloodshed, the Czech government
ordered its armed forces not to resist the invasion. Alexander
Dubcek and Ludvik Svoboda were taken
to Moscow and soon afterwards they announced that after "free
comradely discussion" that Czechoslovakia would be abandoning
its reform programme.
In
April 1969 Dubcek was replaced as party secretary by Gustav
Husak. The following year he was expelled from the party and for
the next 18 years worked as a clerk in a lumber yard in Slovakia.
(1)
Alexander
Dubcek, Hope Dies
Last (1992)
Two weeks after my meeting
with Gomulka came the twentieth anniversary of the Communist takeover
in Czechoslovakia, which, under the circumstances, had to be celebrated
appropriately. Representatives of all the Communist Parties of the
Soviet bloc were invited. As we worked or arrangements, Brezhnev himself
called me, proposing that top leaders of the whole "socialist
camp" take part in the celebration.
I didn't really know what
the precedents were, but I confess that welcomed his initiative. For
one thing, the presence of all of these heads of state would give
us an opportunity to reassure them that our reforms would not threaten
their strategic interests, as well as to elicit their tacit approval
of our subsequent steps.
Thus, I agreed with Brezhnev's
suggestion, and he said that he would inform the other leaders, including
Tito and representatives of the Yugoslav Union of Communists. Relations
between the bloc and Tito were relatively good at that time. In the
end, all the general secretaries came except Tito: who sent his deputy,
Vlahovic.
It was customary for the
speakers at such ceremonies to exchange the texts of their speeches
beforehand, so, the day before the main ceremony we sent the text
of my speech to Brezhnev as well as to all the other leaders. In the
speech, I cited the basic tenets of my proposed reform program. I
used cautious formulations and employed the habitual jargon, but the
ideas were undiluted. It was important to me that they would be articulated
in Brezhnevs presence, which would make them automatically more acceptable
to my opponents in the Presidium.
Instead of talking about
five-year plans and other perennial themes, Walter Ulbricht opened
the conference by saying that at issue was the situation in Czechoslovakia.
I got so angry at the knavish way Brezhnev had fooled me that I was
tempted to walk out, but I forced myself to calm down and wait.
After Ulbricht's opening
sermon, Brezhnev spoke, succeeded by Wladyslaw Gomulka, Janos Kadar,
and Todor Zhivkov, the leader of the Bulgarian Communist Party. Each
had a thick file of clippings from the Czech and Slovak press, which
he occasionally culled for a suitable quotation to illustrate his
exasperation. With varying intensity, they attacked us for "losing
control" over our situation and permitting a diversity of opinion
that, in their view, bordered on "counterrevolution." Mixed
in were the usual references to "outside threats to the socialist
camp."
I noted with regret that
the harshest criticism came from Gomulka, with Ulbricht only a little
less arrogant. Brezhnev put on the face of the worried parent, but
he was as stinging as Gomulka or Ulbricht in what he actually said.
I noticed that Brezhnev
was flanked not only by senior members of his Politburo but also by
several marshals and generals of the Soviet Army. This was quite unusual
at a conference that was not a formal Warsaw Pact meeting, and I realized
they were instruments of none too subtle intimidation.
(2)
Alexander
Dubcek,
Hope Dies Last (1992)
The Action Program did
not even touch on the possibility of an independent initiative in
foreign policy; for now this was a secondary issue. It focused entirely
on domestic problems, political, economic, or cultural. Even in these
areas, however, the Soviets had been accustomed to meddle. It was
obvious that they were not happy that the program had been composed
without their advice and consent.
The program declared an
end to dictatorial, sectarian, and bureaucratic ways. It said that
such practices had created artificial tension in society, antagonizing
different social groups, nations, and nationalities. Our new policy
had to be built on democratic cooperation and confidence among social
groups. Narrow professional or other interests could no longer take
priority. Freedom of assembly and association, guaranteed in the constitution
but not respected in the past, had to be put into practice. In this
sphere, there were to be no extralegal limitations.
The program proclaimed
a return to freedom of the press and proposed the adoption of a press
law that would clearly exclude prepublication censorship. Opinions
expressed in mass communications were to be free and not be confused
with official government pronouncements.
Freedom of movement was
to be guaranteed, including not only citizens' right to travel abroad
but their right to stay abroad at length, or even permanently, without
being labeled emigrants. Special legal norms were to be established
for the redress of all past injustices, judicial as well as political.
Looking toward a new relationship
between the Czechs and the Slovaks, there was to be a federalization
of the Republic, full renewal of Slovak national institutions, and
compensatory safeguards for the minority Slovaks in staffing federal
bodies.
In the economic sphere,
the program demanded thorough decentralization and managerial independence
of enterprises, as well as legalization of small-scale private enterprise,
especially in the service sector.
This proposal, I should
say, was immediately viewed by the Soviets as the beginning of a return
to capitalism. Brezhnev made this accusation directly during one of
our conversations in the coming months. I responded that we needed
a private sector to improve the market situation and make peoples
lives easier. Brezhnev immediately snapped at me, "Small craftsmen?
We know about that! Your Mr. Bata used to be a little shoemaker, too,
until he started up a factory!" Here was the old Leninist canon
about small private production creating capitalism "every day
and every hour." There was nothing one could do to change the
Soviets' dogmatic paranoia.
Neither my allies nor I
ever contemplated a dismantling of socialism, even as we parted company
with various tenets of Leninism. We still believed in a socialism
that could not be divorced from democracy, because its essential rationale
was social justice. We also believed that socialism could function
better in a market-oriented environment, with significant elements
of private enterprise. Many legitimate forms of ownership, mainly
cooperative and communal, had not been used to any effective extent
mainly because of the imposition of Stalinist restrictions.
(3)
Statement issued by Alexander Dubcek's government on 21st August,
1968.
Yesterday, August 20,
1968, around 11:00 p.m., the armies of the Soviet Union, of the Polish
People's Republic, of the German Democratic Republic, the Hungarian
Peoples Republic, and the Bulgarian Peoples Republic crossed the borders
of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It happened without the knowledge
of the President of the Republic, of the Chairman of the National
Assembly, of the Prime Minister and of the First Secretary of the
Central Committee of CPCz, and of all these organs.
The Presidium of the Central
Committee of the CPCz was meeting in these hours and was discussing
the preparations for the Fourteenth Party Congress. The Presidium
appeals to all citizens of our Republic to keep calm and not to resist
the armed forces moving in. Therefore neither our army, security forces
or the People's Militias have been ordered to defend the country.
The Presidium believes
that this act contradicts not only all principles of relations between
socialist countries but also the basic norms of international law.
All leading officials
of the state, of the CPCz and of the National Front remain in their
functions, to which they were elected as representatives of the people
and of the members of their organizations, according to the laws and
other statutes valid in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
Constitutional officials
convene for immediate session the National Assembly and the government
of the Republic, and the Presidium of the CPCz convenes a plenary
meeting of the Central Committee of the CPCz to deal with the situation.
(4)
Alexander
Dubcek,
Hope Dies Last (1992)
The main door flew open
again and in walked some higher officers of the KGB, including a highly
decorated, very short colonel and a Soviet interpreter I had met before
somewhere; I think he had been in Prague a few weeks earlier with
Marshal Yakubovsky. The little colonel quickly reeled off a list of
all Czechoslovak Communist Party officials present and told us that
he was taking us "under his protection." Indeed we were
protected, sitting around that table - each of us had a tommy gun
pointed at the back of his head.
I was delivered to the
Kremlin around 11:00 p.m. Moscow time, on Friday, August 23. My watch
had stopped somewhere in the Subcarpathians, so I had only a vague
idea of what time it was. Today, however, I can reconstruct a rather
accurate chronology of those days based on documents and testimony.
In the Kremlin, they gave
me no time to wash away the dust and dirt of the previous three days.
They led me directly to "a meeting," as one of the KGB men
called it. I remember a tall door, an antechamber behind it, another
door, and then a large office with a rectangular table. There I saw
the four men most responsible for the criminal invasion of my country:
Brezhnev, Kosygin, Podgorny, and Voronov.
(5)
Mikhail
Gorbachev, Memoirs (1995)
How did the Soviet leaders
justify their action on 21 August 1968? First of all, they argued
that there was an external threat to the Warsaw Pact countries; and,
secondly, they claimed that internal counter-revolution with Western
backing was seeking to trample the socialist achievements of the workers.
We saw, however, that the working people themselves resented this
kind of defence of their interests. Was there really an external threat?
The fact that, in mid-1968, articles were appearing in the Czechoslovak
press hinting at the possible withdrawal of the country from the Warsaw
Pact reflected the attitudes of Czechoslovak political forces. In
other words, it resulted from developments inside the country.
During my visit I was
informed that the Soviet leadership had originally welcomed the replacement
of Novotny by Dubcek. Novotny's request for Soviet support against
Dubcek had been rejected as an internal affair of the Communist Party
of Czechoslovakia. The new Czechoslovak leadership had regarded this
as a sign of the CPSU's approval to carry on with the reforms which
had hitherto been shelved. However, the scope and dynamic development
of the reform process in Czechoslovakia had frightened our leaders
into scrapping their own timid attempts at economic reform and tightening
the political and ideological screws.
(6)
Discussion
that took place in Moscow between Alexander
Dubcek
and Leonid
Brezhnev in August 1992.
Leonid
Brezhnev: Lets agree
not to bury ourselves in the past, but to discuss calmly, proceeding
from the situation that has developed, in order to find a solution
that will work to the benefit of the Czechoslovak Communist Party
so that it can act, normally and independently along the lines laid
down by the Bratislava Declaration Let it be independent. We don't
want and we're not thinking of further intervention. And let the leadership
work according to the principles of the January and May plenary sessions
of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. We have
said this in our reports and we're prepared to affirm it again. Of
course, we can't say that you re in a good mood. But your moods aren't
the point. We must sensibly and soberly direct our talks toward the
search for a solution. It can be stated flatly that the failure to
carry out fixed obligations impelled five countries to extreme and
inevitable measures. The sequence of events that has materialized
confirms entirely that behind your back (by no means do we wish to
say that you were at the head of it) right-wing powers (we will simply
call them antisocialist) prepared both the congress and its actions.
Underground stations and arms caches have now come to light. All of
this has now come out. We don't want to raise claims against you personally,
that you're guilty. You might not even have been aware of it; the
right-wing powers are broad enough to have organized it all 'We would
like to find the most acceptable solutions that will serve to stabilize
the country, normalizing a workers' party without links to the right
and normalizing a workers' government free from those links.
We don't need to conceal
from each other that if we find the best solution we will still need
time for normalization. No one should have the illusion that everything
will all of a sudden become rosy. But if we do find the correct solution,
then time will pass and every day will bring us successes, material
talks and contacts will begin, the odor will dissipate, and propaganda
and ideology will start to work normally. The working class will understand
that, behind the backs of the Central Committee and the government
leadership, right-wingers were preparing to transform Czechoslovakia
from a socialist into a bourgeois republic. All that is clear now.
Talks on economic and other matters will begin. The departure of troops,
et cetera, will begin according to material principles. We have not
occupied Czechoslovakia, we do not intend to keep it under "occupation,"
but we hope for her to be free and to undertake the socialist cooperation
that was agreed upon in Bratislava. It is on that basis that we want
to talk with you and find a workable solution. If need be, with Comrade
Cernik as well. If we stay silent we will not improve the situation
and will not spare the Czech, Slovak, and Russian peoples from tension.
And with every passing day the right-wingers will fire up chauvinistic
emotions against every socialist country, and first of all against
the Soviet Union. Under such circumstances it would be impossible
to pull out the troops; it's not to our advantage. It is on these
grounds, on this basis, that we would like to conduct the talks, to
see what you think, what's the best way to act. We're ready to listen.
We have no diktat; let's look for another option together.
And we would be very grateful
to you if you freely expressed different options, not just to be contrary,
but to calmly find the proper option. We consider you an honorable
communist and socialist. In Cierna you were unlucky, and there was
a breakdown. Let's cast everything that happened aside. If we start
asking which one of us was right, it will lead nowhere. But let's
talk on the basis of what is, and under these conditions we must find
a way out of the situation, what you're thinking and what we must
do.
Alexander
Dubcek: It's hard for
me, given the trip and my bitter mood, to explain immediately my opinion
about why we must reach a solution about the real situation that has
arisen. Comrades Brezhnev, Kosygin, Podgorny, and Voronov, I don't know
what the situation is at home. In the first day of the Soviet Army's
arrival, I and the other comrades were isolated and then found ourselves
here, not knowing anything. ... I can only conjecture what could have
happened. In the first moments, the members of the Presidium who were
with me at the Secretariat were taken to the Party Central Committee
under the control of Soviet forces. Through the window I saw several
hundred people gathered around the building, and you could hear what
they were shouting: "We want to see Svoboda!" "We want
to see the president!" "We want Dubcek!" I heard a number
of slogans. After that there were shots. It was the last thing I saw.
From that point on I know nothing, and can't imagine what's happening
in the country and in the Party.
As a Communist who bears
a great responsibility for recent events, I am sure that - not only
in Czechoslovakia but in Europe, in the whole Communist movement -
this action will cause us the bitterest consequences in the breakdown
of, and bitter dissension within, the ranks of Communist parties in
foreign countries, in capitalist countries.
Thus the matters at hand
and the situation are, it seems to me very complex, although today
was the first time I read the newspapers. I can only say, think of
me what you will, I have worked for thirty years in the Party, and
my whole family has devoted everything to the affairs of the Party,
the affairs of socialism. Let whatever is going to happen to me happen.
I'm expecting the worst for myself and I'm resigned to it.
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