Ferment among Czechs and Slovaks

Abstract

The enormous statue of Stalin, which, until October, 1962 overlooked ancient Prague from its commanding position above the Vltava, seemed to symbolize the continuing orthodoxy of a communist country that had changed but little since the death of Stalin. True, the demolition of this huge group of stone figures was physically not as easy as that of its smaller counterpart in Budapest, which was torn down in a matter of hours in 1956. even the smaller statue in Bratislava, which could easily have been removed, gazed down benevolently on the May Day procession in 1962 as it passed through Stalin Square. In fact, in the year which followed the XXII congress of the CPSU in October 1961, Czechoslovakia, unlike some of its neighbours, was hardly influenced at all by the new spirit of Moscow, and showed no signs of relaxing its strongly Stalinist course. Paradoxically, this country, almost unique in its devotion and subservience to Moscow, was increasingly out of step with Khruschev's policy of de-Stalinization. Orthodoxy seemed to be evolving into heterodoxy. In early 1963, a fresh current of air began to be felt in Czechoslovakia, with more pungent and uninhibited criticism of matters as far removed as literary criticism and economic planning. This modest liberalization of public discourse seemed to reflect a mounting discontent, beneath the surface, with the continued conformity of Czechoslovak political and cultural life, but was not welcomed in high political circles. In a speech delivered to the party dktiv in Ostrava at the end of March, and devoted largely to the critical economic situation, Novotny rejected any effort under a subjective view of freedom, to smuggle tendencies of decadent capitalist society into our life, especially our culture. While avowing the needs for constructive criticism, he went on: But to criticize every-