The Revolution Begins in Czechoslovakia
Holesovsky, Vaclav
IN TIMES LESS ACCUSTOMED to disappoint ment than our own, the recent events in Czechoslovakia would be cause for jubilation and toasts to the progress of freedom. As it is, they are cause...
...Poland did not go through an economic recession—as did Czechoslovakia in 1963-65...
...However, the main reasons for the isolation of democratic intellectuals in the current constellation of political and social forces may be of a more objective sort...
...Thus far, the spirit of the nation does not indicate any loss of momentum...
...The writer Pavel Kohout has a nightmare vision of democratization being turned into the new Party line, and implemented in the old style by the professionals of the totalitarian aparat, hunting for deviationists among the democrats...
...Is there a chance that Poland now will follow the Czechoslovak example in the near future...
...Amidst the debris of totalitarian organizations, society is beginning to reconstitute itself according to the authentic needs of social groups...
...The danger lies in the possibility that what has until now been deliberately accepted self-control might in time degenerate into a pretext for the imposition of barriers to further democratization...
...Is there still such a possibility in the case of Czechoslovakia...
...The censors are asking to be relieved of their duties, and police organizations plead to have their activities clearly circumscribed by constitutional guarantees of civil rights...
...For the time being, then, Czechoslovakia will have to go it alone...
...The bloody denouement of the East German uprising of 1953 and of the Hungarian revolution of 1956 have been a constant reminder of the Soviet will to intervene with military power...
...The logic of the democratization process leads straight to an exit from the Warsaw Pact and to an elimination, or at least a massive reduction, of the role of the discredited Communist party as an institution...
...Pavel Kohout's nightmare would then become reality...
...This psychological blow was to some extent returned when unofficial spokesmen dropped unofficial hints that Czechoslovak soldiers would fight if confronted with a Soviet or East German invasion...
...Soviet and East German attempts at interference with domestic democratization are being firmly rejected...
...Morally speaking, the Czechoslovak population has lived until now with a weighty chip on its shoulder: a sense of national cowardice...
...Now that historical events have offered the Czechoslovak people an opportunity to redeem their true or imaginary guilt-by-lying-low, they seem to be stubbornly resolved not to let it pass them by...
...he does not threaten the stability of the Soviet power establishment...
...On both counts, present spokesmen of democratic currents have shown their awareness of this logical outcome, while at the same time understanding the need for restraint in the immediate future...
...And even if there were any faithful at the top, Moscow may wonder about their dependability—once General Sejna, the principal organizer of Novotny's still-born coup, had fled and sought asylum in, of all places, the United States...
...Democratic revolutions do...
...As it is, they are cause for jubilation and toasts but at the same time for worry and apprehension...
...When will it be `forbidden...
...The spontaneous outburst of democratic instinct (if one may call it that) has been accompanied by an astonishing degree of self-control on the part of the population...
...During the Hungarian revolution, Czechoslovak Communists were trembling out of fear the movement would engulf their country, too...
...There has been an outpouring of free speech on radio, television, and in print...
...People seem to know intuitively that a hasty denunciation of ties with the Soviet Union would be an unnecessary provocation, and perhaps a superfluous one, since these ties have implicitly been devalued in fact...
...However, the "contact" between the "progressive intelligentsia" and other social groups, under the supervision of totalitarian organizations and press, may have antagonized workers against intellectuals in general, and perpetuated the narrowness of their political outlook...
...If the Soviet Union decided to cut off some crucial exports to Czechoslovakia, it would provide the Czechs with a perfect pretext to ask the West for economic help, which may be easily or even gladly granted, certainly by West Germany...
...To the extent that there is such a thing as a spread of revolutions, Czechoslovakia may at this moment be contributing to world peace...
...THINKING BACK TO the year 1956, one is led to muse on the possibility that a version of today's developments might have taken place at that time, 12 years ago...
...Long-despised potentates, starting with Antonin Novotny, are being toppled...
...As one compares the internal situation of the two countries from afar, one is struck by the narrow social base of the current democratic COMMENTS AND OPINIONS strivings in Poland...
...Current history is once more posing the problem of synchronization of events in East European countries, and it invites a comparison of Czechoslovakia and the enervating struggle between unequal forces in Poland...
...The gnawing doubt remains: does the outcome really depend only on the determination and the political sophistication of the COMMENTS AND OPINIONS people...
...People are not asking the government to have their rights and freedoms returned: they are exercising them—freedom of expression, assembly, petition, and also the beginnings of free association and organization...
...IN TIMES LESS ACCUSTOMED to disappoint ment than our own, the recent events in Czechoslovakia would be cause for jubilation and toasts to the progress of freedom...
...This danger, of course, exists...
...The Czech people has been overwhelmed by the prospect of realizing long-repressed dreams...
...If the coup had been set in motion and begun to fail, one could easily imagine Novotny invoking the Warsaw Pact to call for the assistance of brotherly armed forces...
...The concentration on domestic political revolution constitutes a greater threat to Moscow than any Titoist episodes...
...The moment of greatest danger was in January, when Novotny and his forces were preparing a military coup to get rid of the liberal adversaries...
...A threat delivered apres coup (manque') —the unceremonious proposal to hold military maneuvers of Warsaw Pact armies on Czechoslovak territory—was also unceremoniously rejected...
...One is also appalled by the anti-Semitic and anti-intellectual campaign, chosen by the regime to isolate the democratic forces from other social groups, particularly since there is a suspicion that the strategists of the regime may know what they are doing: perhaps they do have sure-fire ammunition in popular anti-Semitism...
...Nevertheless, the Soviet Union seems to have such a vital interest in stopping the new developments in Czechoslovakia that a recourse to desperate measures cannot be absolutely ruled out...
...Assuming we are right in minimizing the danger of outside pressure and interven tion, the question remains whether, to use an old phrase, the revolutionary wave will not exhaust itself within Czechoslovakia itself...
...Besides, there might be some crucial commodities Czechoslovakia could deny the Soviet Union in retaliation...
...I believe that Israel's ability to take its fate into its own hands last spring had a highly invigorating effect upon the morale of the Czechs...
...Soviet regard for world opinion (e.g., for the enthusiastic endorsement of the Czechoslovak course by the Italian CP) may also count for something in promoting restraint, though, judging by the Hungarian experience, not for much...
...they reverberate throughout the area and feed the hopes and self-confidence of democratic forces elsewhere...
...If this had been otherwise, economic reform might have prepared the ground for further social and political dislocations, as it did in Czechoslovakia...
...Students ask Dubcek, the new Party chairman, at an impromptu midnight rendezvous: "Where is the guarantee things will not return to status quo ante...
...How strong are the economic sanctions at the disposal of the Soviet Union...
...One may argue that Soviet restraint toward Rumania sets a reassuring precedent...
...They have been confined to students and some university professors, with the rest of society idly standing by...
...Could it be that if Czechoslovakia had gone beyond the brink at that time, the Hungarian revolution might have been saved and the Polish October pushed beyond the point at which Gomulka's consolidation of the regime was still possible...
...And for the time they are willing to work for democratization by using the Communist party framework as an instrument...
...Undoubtedly yes, but the probability is diminishing...
...We have living evidence of this in the person of Ladislav Mnacko, the Czech writer who went to Israel last year to gather material for a book on this very subject: the courage of a small nation...
...It does not seem very likely...
...The most immediate international repercussions will probably come through a normalization of relations with West Germany which are aimed, on the German side, at prying East Germany away from the bloc and the Soviet protector, and engaging Pankow in direct negotiations with Bonn...
...Since December, steps of liberation from the totalitarian system have been succeeding one another at a spectacular pace...
...All of this seems almost too good to last...
...Not too strong, we believe...
...As a Czech daily put it, expressing a widespread feeling: "How long will all this be permitted...
...During postwar industrialization, the heritage of social and political backwardness might have been overcome had the growing working class been in open contact with the educated...
...Ceausescu depends for his political life on a suitably totalitarian environment, as Tito used to...
...And Dubcek's answer: "You are the guarantee...
...The Czechoslovak economy is in the midst of a difficult attempt to reshape its structure so as to become less dependent on Soviet-area markets and to integrate itself into the world-trade network...
...It is interesting to note that Novotny and his supporters also tried the maneuver of inciting the workers against the reformers, though with much less success, it appears, than their Polish counterparts...
...Three historical episodes have been waiting to be abreacted: the Munich surrender, the Communist coup of February 1948, and passivity during the Hungarian revolution...
...Now that the Soviet Union cannot coordinate a military intervention with anyone in a high position, the chances of an intervention seem more and more remote...
...However, it may be easier for the Soviet regime to stomach dissidence in international affairs than to attend passively to the disintegration of totalitarian systems within its vassal states...
...Furthermore, the relative weakness of Polish democratic tradition may also have something to do with the limited impact of students and intellectuals upon the imagination of the people...
...It is my deep conviction that in the long run a durable peace can be founded only on the ruins of the totalitarian regime in the Soviet Union itself...
...The prestige of the regime was spared a shock of such magnitude, with the consequence that no substantial reform of the economic system appeared necessary...
Vol. 15 • May 1968 • No. 3
