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during the waning years of the Novotny regime and during the reform era, his reversal on the issue of federalization, and his cooperative attitude toward the Soviet Union all indicate an ability to weigh carefully the pros and cons of a given course of action. Influenced no doubt by his own long incarceration, Husak also seems to have little stomach for oppression and terror despite a willingness to use hard measures in order to avoid being exposed to political pressure by the ultraconservative elements in the party. His interest in federalization also indicated a willingness to treat with moderation traditionally troublesome problems such as Czech-Slovak rivalries and the church, as long as neither threatened to undermine Communist control.

Husak's success in his attempt to pursue a course somewhat akin to the reformist but politically correct program of Hungarian party leader Kadar is by no means assured. Husak is caught in the crossfire between those who still fear and wish to suppress everything reminiscent of the 1968 reform era, and those advocates of reform who will accept only a wholesale revival of the Dubcek program. In between are those elements which, like Husak himself, see that nothing can come of such continual sniping, proclaim 1968 to be "history," and ardently wish that moderate forward movement would replace the stagnant hostility which had to a large extent sapped the energy of the regime and maintained the wide gulf between it and the people. There were signs in 1973 that this might be accomplished, but these signs were still inconclusive.

2. The Communist regime (C)

a. Background

The introduction of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia in February 1948 effectively terminated the popular democratic parliamentary form of government which had first been introduced in 1948. Non-Communist political parties were either disbanded, or merged with or reduced to mere puppets of the ruling Czechoslovak Communist Party (KSC).

The Communist Party, four puppet parties, and various mass organizations were molded into a unified mass organization, the National Front, dominated by the Communists, which presented a single list of approved candidates at election time. While giving some attention to the maintenance of a democratic facade, the Communist Party influenced all facets of national and social life, much on the pattern of its prototype in the U.S.S.R. Gradually the party became the dominant force through coercion and terror, which reached its zenith during the bloody anti-Titoist trials in the late 1940's and early 1950's. The regime at the same time moved quietly to tighten its grip on the educational institutions, the church, and the information media.

Virtually all outlets of cultural and political expression eventually came under Communist control. Trade unions became a mere transmission belt for the imposition of labor discipline and the party's economic directives. In order to facilitate indoctrination and control of the population, the Communists created such organizations as the Communist Youth Union and various athletic, and friendship societies. Although choice was permitted theoretically, membership in these organizations was, for the most part, compulsory.

From 1953, when Antonín Novotny became Party First Secretary, until 1960, the Czechoslovak regime was one of the most stable in Eastern Europe. After Stalin's death in 1953, the regime successfully suppressed pressures toward liberalization. Unlike its Polish and Hungarian counterparts, the Novotny regime maintained a tight grip on the country and was able to prevent the serious unrest which broke out in neighboring Communist states. Although there were forces in Czechoslovak society that retained some vitality during the years of repression, they were devoid of the massive popular support which elsewhere in the Soviet orbit was successfully pressing indigenous regimes toward varying degrees of de-Stalinization.

It was not until the 12th Party Congress in December 1962 that reform elements in the Party Central Committee, possibly with veiled Soviet support, gained enough influence to push through a resolution favoring at least some tentative steps toward liberalization. The regime began this campaign by calling for a review of the purge trials and executions of Communists between 1949 and 1954.

At about the same time that the party began to loosen its grip somewhat, the once prosperous Czechoslovak economy, damaged by misdirected Communist management in the 1950's, began to decline precipitously. In 1963 shortages and industrial stagnation triggered widespread popular discontent. Criticism of the economy led to a wider call for reform. Debates on virtually every aspect of the party's political and social policy became commonplace, and an overall deterioration in party discipline ensued.

Growing dissatisfaction among other sectors of the society contributed to the malaise. The intellectuals—emulating their counterparts in Poland and Hungary in the mid-1950's—were particularly active in pushing

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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110010-2