poster" castern Europe — already challenged by the Hungarian revolution of 1956 — was definitively shattered by events in Czechoslovakia. But, writes RICHARD JAMES, the Prague Spring and its aftermath also demonstrated the incapacity of a reforming political leadership within the ruling bureaucracy to
ssociated Pres: lead a successful challenge to the stalinist system. Twenty years on, as Gorbachev sets out on the path of liberalisation and reform in the Soviet Union itself - and Czechoslovak leader Milos Jakes proclaims perestroika in Czechoslovakia — the Prague Spring is full of lessons for today. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 7 May/June 1988
SOVIET TANKS rolled into Czechoslovakia on 21 August 1968 as part of an invasion involving over 500,000 troops, including token units from other Warsaw Pact countries. It was a military walkover. But the process of 'normalisation' of political and social life was to take place over months and years. For what the Soviet tanks were there to crush was a mass movement for reform and democratisation, encompassing the broadest layers of society, which in the course of a few months had totally transformed the Czechoslovak political landscape. Spring in Prague had posed the possibility of an alternative to stalinist bureaucratic despotism.
Crucial aid was given to Soviet leader Brezhnev by the participation in the early stages of 'normalisation' of the majority of Czechoslovak communist
These included the very same people who had led the process of reform and liberalisation that culminated in the Prague Spring. Not only had these leaders proved unable — and unwilling — to tackle the foundations of the bureaucratic edifice constructed after 1948, they were key to its consolidation, albeit at the end of Soviet guns, in the aftermath of the invasion.
They did not receive much thanks for their efforts. Over a period of eighteen months those most closely identified with the policies of the Prague Spring were driven from their positions of power in the ruling bureaucracy and expelled from the communist party.
Today, however, the 'Dubcekites' of 1968 see in the ascendency of Gorbachev in the Soviet Union - and the effects that this is having (or is hoped to have) in eastern Europe — a vindication of their line of twenty years ago. Before Gor- ness of the great majority of productive bachev visited Czechoslovakia last year, eighteen former top party officials of 1968 wrote him a letter unreservedly endorsing his policies.
According to Czechoslovak human rights campaigner and revolutionary marxist Petr Uhl, many of the Dubcekites of 1968 believe (mistakenly) that the present changes in the USSR might lead to their rehabilitation and even -in some cases — to their restoration to positions of power.' Even today's party leadership, under Milos Jakes, has felt constrained to note similarities between glasnost and perestroika and the policies of
The issues of 1968 are issues for today in at least three senses. First, the political and social framework of contemporary Czechoslovakia, the core elements of which were established in 1948, was set in the course of the Prague Spring and SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no7 May/June 1988
the subsequent invasion and 'normalisation'. Second, the policies pursued by the Czechoslovak communist party in 1968 bear a striking resemblance to
the USSR under Gorbachev. Finally, it is true in the broader
that the issues of strategy and tactics for political transformation in the countries of the Soviet bloc that were posed in 1968 are posed again today, albeit in different forms and in different
The overturn in Februray 1948 carried out by the Czechoslovak communist party, under the leadership of Klement Gottwald, was the result of a change in Stalin's post-war policy: the decison to fully integrate the east European countries into the Soviet sphere of influence through their social transformation into states modelled on the USSR. That is, states in which the means of industrial production are nationalised and control of them, along with a complete monopoly of political power, is vested in a bureaucratic caste mirroring, and beholden to, the bureaucratic rulers of the Soviet Union
The overturn was not a socialist revolution in the classical sense but it did see a bureaucratically controlled mobilisation of the working class on a large scale.
Two hundred thousand workers were mobilised on the streets of Prague during the 'February crisis': there was a surge of revolutionary enthusiasm for the anti-capitalist course taken by the Czechoslovak stalinists. But the new
was bureaucratically deformed from its inception. Politically, it was a dictatorship against the working class: the power of the new bureaucratic rulers of society rested on the powerless-
The Czechoslovak communist party became the only vehicle of political power, a mechanism by which the ruling bureaucracy organised its domination of society, its control of a multiplicity of aspects of economic and political life. The bureaucracy rapidly grew into an immense layer of planners, functionaries and officials based in and around the state apparatus.
The February overturn and its immediate aftermath were accompanied by a wave of purges, trials and expulsions which affected even those at the very ton of the party and state apparatus. This culminated in a series of trials in 1951-52 - notable for their anti-semitism -ending in the trial of the former purgerin-chief, ex-general secretary of the party Rudolf Slansky.
The motor force of this terroristic
cycle of purge, slander and violence was located in the Kremlin: it was the desire of Stalin to subordinate totally the national bureaucracies of eastern Europe to that of the Soviet Union.
In a sense Stalin's efforts in this regard, however frighteningly effective in the short term, were doomed to failure. The ruling bureaucracies of the Soviet bloc held political power in a national context. A relative autonomy from the Soviet bureaucracy was bound to develop especially over time as each bureaucracy, rooted in a particular national reality, responded to differing political, social and economic conditions. Or, to put it another way, the power of each bureaucracy came to rest on its social position in a given social formation rather than, in the first instance, on the Soviet bureaucracy.
But, while direct state power in the east European countries could not be exercised from the Kremlin, it was the Soviet bureaucracy which set the framework and general lines, attempting to act in conjunction with the national rulers.
1956 saw two events which demonstrated the character of this relationship. The Soviet invasion of Hungary, to crush the revolution of that year, upwards of 20,000 dead and a leadership installed to reimpose a bureaucratic status quo acceptable to the Soviet rulers. But 1956 also saw the elevation of Gomulka (a purge victim of 1948) to leadership in Poland on a wave of popular mobilisation. This demonstrated the pragmatic approach of the Soviet leadership under Kruschev which was forced to accept Gomulka's assurances that his 'Polish road', far from jeopardising the main elements of the system, was the best way to keep them intact.
The pressures for economic reform which began to exert themselves in the 1950s and 1960s throughout the Soviet bloc were largely the result of tensions and contradictions inherent in the stalinist system of bureaucratically centralised economic planning.
Czechoslovakia, along with East Germany, was far and away the most industrially developed and economically advanced of the east European states.
If the kinds of problem were similar throughout the Soviet bloc (imbalance between production of consumer goods and machinery, difficulties in promoting economic growth, inefficiencies caused by bureaucratic-commandist planning mechanisms, huge difficulties in mobilising the productive efforts of the workers and so forth), differing national conditions dictated that attempted solutions could only be developed on a na- 19
tional level. The tendency towards diff- ering national responses was helped by the fact that, by the late 1960s, each bureaucracy had enjoyed many years of monopolistic political power. economic The 1968 Czechoslovakia were among the most extreme and far reaching in eastern Europe. But the debates bureaucratic struggles which preceded the ascendency of the reforming wing of the bureaucracy began in the early to mid 1960s — especially after the twenty- second Soviet communist party congress which boosted Kruschev's liberalisation. TESSA VAN GELDEREN AUGUST 1967: my first glimpse of the lovely city of Prague on my way to the Tatra mountains. Young people dominate the city centre with their mini skirts and denims. Discussions with students and young workers is about music and films. Politics is out. Marx and Lenin is compulsory in school and nobody is interested in talking about socialism. But everyone, young and old, is very friendly — except to the Germans. Memories of the war die hard. I speak a little Russian but those in our party who only speak German are not very well received. One of the main stories in the paper is about a tobacconist who was robbed in her shop. Such a thing occurs so little that it hits the headlines here. AUGUST 1968: I'm to spend the summer in Prague staying with a Czech friend. Her mother works for the press agency and her stepfather is a top television reporter just back from the olympic games in Mexico. I am hoping to get some work checking translations. In the meantime I explore the city, often by myself, while my friend works. In the evenings I meet her friends who are at Prague university with her. There is much discussion about what is going on in Czechoslovakia and Dubcek's spring. Everyone I meet supports the reforms. They say 20
which advocated far-reaching economic changes: blame was attached to the cen- tralised nature of the system and centralisation was medy. A key problem was seen as the reforms in inefficiency of bureaucratic planning apparatus. and intra- omic restructuring, a policy of political liberalisation was advocated, in order to forms to succeed. Alongside the develop- to capitalism. 'May events' in France. In fact, People seem free, able to openly last year where no one discussed cafes. Prague is alive. see the mime group, 'the black theatre of Prague'. On our way be up most of the night... am by the sound of low flying says my friend's mother. Her husband is off at the broadcasts. was not seen as a threat to the
A wing in the bureaucracy developed tuals. de- advanced as a re- the cumbersome Combined with a programme of econ- provide a political climate in which it would be possible for the economic re- ment of this debate in the ruling bu- "The Russians have come" an eyewitness account Soviets they are opposed to marxism but on further discussion this seems to be opposition to the sterile teachings forced down their throats in school. No one seems in favour of a return There is little or no interest in the they seem to know very little about stopped. Every evening as we walk the streets groups of people are talking. There is a buzz in the city centre. discuss ideas and opinions for the first time. It is in sharp contrast to 'politics'. Now young and old mix on the streets, in the squares and 21 AUGUST: my friend and I go to home we see the familiar groups talking, talking, talking. Many will ...I am woken up at two o'clock aircraft. "The Russians have come', television studio and over the next few days will help transmit illegal Why didn't we know the Russians were coming? Border movements were thought to be just that. What was happening in Czechoslovakia
reaucracy, a certain radicalisation was taking place among groups of intellec- By the autumn of 1967 a reforming bloc on the central committee and prae- sidium had formed around the ideas of Ota Sik, the theoretician of economic reforms. A wider distribution of power and greater intellectual and political freedom were advocated. In order for the economic reforms to work it was necessary to change the 'image' of the party, to try to overcome the massive unpopularity of the state authorities that had develped under party leader Novot- Early next morning we are all on the streets. Many are trying to speak to the young Russian soldiers who seem distressed to find themselves an army of occupation in a 'friendly' country. The next day we learn of a soldier who committed suicide when he learnt where he was. Fraternisation with the troops is The days become one long demonstration; one long queue for food, as people panic; one long minute at noon as car horns and factory sirens are sounded and everything else stops. The streets no longer have groups of animated people; everyone is afraid to speak. Some resistance is organised through the illegal broadcasts, and cars speed through the streets throwing out leaflets. But always there are troops and tanks. On the day I left, I was waiting near Wenceslas Square when a stranger pointed out the Russian tank that stood there permanently. It was the first tank across the border after the war when the Russians were regarded as the liberators of Czechoslovakia. It was identical with one in the same square that had to come to suppress the Prague Spring Now the Czechs did not want to speak Russian, they preferred to speak the hated German. I left many friends behind, some of whom later left their homeland o SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 7 May/June 1988
ny's hardline stalinist approach.
Novotny was removed from his position in January 1968 to be replaced by the reformer Alexandr Dubcek. The balance of power in the ruling elite had shifted decisively in favour of the re-
The project of the reformers was consocial and political system established after 1948. It was neither an attempt to restore capitalism nor a challenge to the fundamental elements of the stalinist system. In other words, it was a thoroughly bureaucratic project. But the reformers' attempts to resolve the problems of the bureaucratic system without challenging the political framework of that system was only part of the picture that emerged in 1968.
One effect of liberalisation was to unleash powerful social forces whose dynamic was towards independent political expression, outside of the direct control of the bureaucracy. Especially from March 1968 there was a mushrooming of open political debate, criticism and activity spreading far beyond the official structures, Those involved were primarily intellectuals, students, those involved in the press and media and not, in the beginning, the industrial working class. Nevertheless, public pressure became a major factor in conditioning the policies and actions of the bureaucracy.
Those leaders who were closely identified with the reform moves were supported and praised; those who were more cautious came under pressure. A situation began to develop in which the bureaucracy was only in control so long as it appeared to identify with the increasing aspirations of broad layers of society for democratisation and change.
The slowness of the industrial working class to become involved deserves some explanation. An important reason was that the proposed economic measures (whose aim, after all, creased productivity to enable economic growth) were viewed with apprehension and suspicion. In April the new prime minister, Cernik, said, 'at the present time wages cannot increase until pro-
made substantially more
Conservative elements in the bureaucracy made attempts to appeal to industrial workers for support against the reformers. However, workers soon began to use the opportunity of the political thaw to make demands on local managers for increased wages and better conditions, backed up in some cases by strike action and the beginnings of indeSOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 7 Moy/June 1988
pendent trade union activity. While they were not to receive the support of the party leaders in this, they nevertheless were to throw in their lot in favour of political reform and liberalisation thus ensuring its support among the great majority of society.
The 'Action Programme' adopted in ceived entirely within the bounds of the April by the central committee set out the main elements of the new direction: "The communist party does not wish to assert its leading role by bringing pressure to bear on society, but by serving it devotedly...The party cannot impose its authority; it must earn it continually by its action...The party's aim is not to become a universal administrator society, to bind and shackle the organisations and the whole life of society by its directives..'3
'the new social formation was bureaucratically deformed from its inception. Politically it was
a dictatorship against the
working class'
The 'leading role' of the party — a centrepiece of the stalinist conception of 'socialism' — was not questioned: it was the method of exercising that 'leading role' which was up for discussion.
Political pluralism, a free many-sided contest between different political parties and tendencies pursuing differing political programmes with guaranteed and institutional rights of opposition and
embraced by the
But, indeed, how could it have been? To adopt a programme for full socialist democratisation of society, for working class power and self-management, implies the destruction of the bureaucracy as a social layer and the dismantling of the repressive apparatus through which it exercises its power. New political parties remained illegal throughout the Prague Spring.
Nevertheless, elements of the April 'Action Programme' were very radical indeed compared to previous practice in Czechoslovakia and what existed elsewhere in eastern Europe. It promised, among other things, to abolish state censorship of the media; to guarantee the right of citizens to foreign travel; to purge and re-organise the security forces; and to frame a constitutional law to federalise the structure of the state, giv-
ing complete equality to the Czech and Slovak nations and guaranteeing degree of independence for national minorities. All this was in addition to the commitment to pursue the economic reform and decentralisation process.
Demands which went much further than the positions of the party leadership were raised in a variety of ways throughout the spring and early summer months (and, indeed, after the invasion). On the May Day parade banners appeared with slogans such as 'No democracy without opposition', 'Free elections' and so on.
In late June a document appeared, the 'two thousand words manifesto', dressed to 'workers, farmers, scientists, artists and everyone' which called for the driving out of dishonest officials, by strikes and boycotts if necessary, assured the government that it would be backed by arms against 'foreign forces'. It was attacked by party leaders but it reflected widely-held sentiments.
Throughout the period leading up to the invasion, the danger of Soviet intervention was played down by the party's leaders - despite the fact that it was clearly a real threat from May onwards. In refusing to mobilise society against the threat of Soviet intervention, or even to warn of the danger, the leadership helped, in effect, to preparé the ground
For the Soviet bureaucracy dangers in the Czechoslovakian situation were not so much in the intentions or character of the Dubcek leadership: the Czechoslovak bureaucracy maintained its hold on the structures of the state throughout and substantial continuity of personnel in key positions of power from before the fall of Novotny to after the Soviet invasion and the removal of Dubcek.
The danger was perceived as being the broader social forces and political tendencies unleashed in the course of the reform project and the possibility that developments in Czechoslovakia would spill over into the other east European countries and even into the Soviet Union itself. That is to say, that the Prague Spring, if allowed to continue according to its internal logic, could develop into a challenge to bureaucratic rule and could spark movements for democratisation and change internationally.
This latter process had already begun by August. Demonstrations in Poland had raised the call for a 'Polish Dubcek' and in the Ukraine the Czechoslovak policy on national rights and federalism was gaining significant support. Evidence of far wider sympathy was provided after the invasion when there were 21
Happy days: Alexandr Dubcek at the May Day celebrations, 1968 demonstrations or other forms of protest in Moscow's Red Square, in Poland, Hungary, East Germany and even in Bulgaria.
After a massive propaganda campaign on the threat to 'socialism' in Czechoslovakia and meetings with top Czechoslovak leaders in Cierna and Bratislava, the Soviet invasion was launched and was immediately militarily successful. The praesidium of the communist party gave immediate orders against resistance by force.
The central committee building in Prague was one of the first to be taken over by the occupying forces. Dubcek and others were arrested, handcuffed and flown via the Ukraine to Moscow.
The Prague Spring was over: even as they were being arrested by foreign troops and their country was being occupied, Czechoslovakia's leaders were attempting to ensure that all possibilities for practical resistance were minimised and restrained
In Moscow, Dubcek and the Soviet leadership drew up a joint communique. Dubcek returned to Prague and read the statement over the radio: it re-affirmed the party's line but called for 'normalisation' of the situation in a 'frank and friendly' atmosphere with the Soviets.
Also agreed in Moscow was a secret protocol — the details of which became known over the next weeks — whose provisions included stopping any discussion in the United Nations, repudiating the fourteenth party congress, consolidating the 'leading role' of the communist party, controlling the communications media, and adopting measures 22 to minimise conflict between the troops
Associated Press and Czechoslovak citizens.
The signing of the protocol and the subsequent policy of compromise has been described as a 'criminal offence of high treason'* It was an offence committed by virtually the entire top leadership of the party who individually appended their names.
But the criminal response of the ruling bureaucracy was not the only response to the invasion. On the streets there was an immediate and unanimous reaction of - non-violent — opposition.
Within hours of the invasion Prague had become 'one big poster' ', there were demonstrations everywhere. Clandestine newspapers, radio stations and television sprang up and, as quickly as they were closed down by the occupying forces, they sprang up again. Railworkers managed to prevent Soviet direction-finding equipment from getting through. Local committees appeared in many areas, ready to coordinate general strike action.
The period after the invasion witnessed large demonstrations in October
November, a dent strike in November, the growth and development of workers' councils in
enterprises and further large demonstrations in March 1969 — eight months after the invasion. Political ferment continued: people's new found freedoms could not easily be taken away.
But the mass movement continued to look towards Dubcek and his cohorts for leadership. The underground radio, for example, was at the same time both the main organiser of mass resistance and the medium through which the party leaders appealed for 'calm'.
The fourteenth party congress, convened secretly on 22 August in a Prague factory, gathered together over 1,000 delegates. It was both a symbol of resistance and a mechanism through which appeals for 'normalisation' were made. A proposal for a general strike was dropped in favour of calling a one hour token stoppage for the next day.
In this way, and over a prolonged period, a solution acceptable to the Soviet bureaucracy was imposed. In April 1969 it was Dubcek himself who proposed that Gustav Husak replace him as first secretary of the party. The party was purged and reorganised, Dubcek expelled, and by the summer of 1970 relatively stable bureaucratic control had been restored.
There have been those on the anti-stalinist left — of whom Trotsky's biographer Isaac Deutscher is probably the best known — who have propounded the view that the Soviet communist party, and other stalinist parties, could become transformed into parties which defend the interests of the working class. According to this view, stalinist ruling bureaucracies are capable of self-reform, initiating a transformative process leading to genuine socialist democracy. As we have seen, there is absolutely nothing
the Czechoslovakian experience of 1968-69 to back up such a contention.
It is certainly true that divisions within the bureaucracy and the adoption of a policy of liberalisation and reform can open the floodgates of mass struggle, providing the opportunity for the masses to enter the political arena. But there is no evidence to suggest that the bureaucracy — or even significant elements within it - can be forced by such mass pressure into a challenge to the foundations of the bureaucratic syster.
In this sense the main lesson of the Czechoslovakian experience is the need
independent working class perspective and leadership, politically outside of and opposed to all wings of the ruling bureaucracy. A leadership which understands that the struggle must be developed to the point where the entire bureaucratic apparatus can be thrown and replaced with genuine socialist democracy • Footnotes 1. Petr Uhl, 'August Trauma', East European Reporter, Vol.3 No.1. 2. Quoted in A. Westoby, Communism Since the War, Harvester, 1981, p. 248. 3. Quoted in F. Fejto, A History of the People's Democracies, Penguin, 1974, p. 225. 4. Petr Uhl, op. cit
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 7 May/June 1988
JOHN LISTER A GRUDGING but significant endorsement of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 marked the end of the high point of Cuban independence from Moscow's foreign
This high point had begun in 1965 — at the same time as the launch of the Cuban Communist Party had given the Castro leadership a formal tag of orthodoxy among other communist parties. Yet