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The Post-Dubcek Era: Back to Prudence and Pragmatism

In sharp contrast to the turbulence and tensions which marked the period immediately following the Warsaw Pact invasion of August 1968, the domestic scene in Czechoslovakia in early 1974 was quiet and outwardly stable. The idealism of the fleeting preintervention Prague Spring had given way to a strongly materialistic pragmatism. In many ways, the population was enjoying a measure of prosperity unknown since just prior to World War II. Consumer luxuries, both of foreign and local manufacture, were available in unprecedented variety and quantity. Both real wages and savings were at all-time highs. After years of privation, the Czechoslovak people were hastening to reap the benefits of what one Western observer has aptly termed "dumpling communism." Preoccupied with their quest for material pleasures—including TV sets, cars, and most recently, summer cottages—they seemed to have lost all interest in politics. (U/OU)

True enough, a few intellectuals still held high the banner of dissent. But they were becoming increasingly isolated. Most of their countrymen appeared to be resigned, however reluctantly, both to the loss of many of their individual rights and liberties and to the continued presence of about 60,000 Soviet occupation troops on Czechoslovak soil. A consensus had gradually emerged that further overt resistance to clearly overwhelming power could only delay any loosening of internal controls and might even imperil coveted improvements in living standards. Not only did the average man on the street seem almost anxious to forget what the Czechoslovaks now refer to euphemistically as the "August events," but there also appeared to be growing feelings of resentment toward the fallen heroes of the Prague Spring—and toward erudite romanticists in general—for having gotten Czechoslovakia into such a mess in the first place. (U/OU)

Indeed, the agonizing process of "normalization"—psychological, political, and economic—seemed near completion. Czechoslovakia was once again a trusted member of the Soviet bloc. From the Kremlin's point of view, Prague's conservative domestic policies were ideologically sound, and none of Moscow's other Warsaw Pact allies could boast of a better record of loyal cooperation in the foreign policy field. (U/OU)

For better or for worse, a large part of the credit for bringing all this about belongs to Gustav Husak, the shrewd and authoritarian Slovak intellectual who

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