Page:NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE SURVEY 18; CZECHOSLOVAKIA; THE SOCIETY CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110015-7.pdf/9

 APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110015-7

While Magyars, Germans, Poles, and Ukrainians enjoy a legal status as minorities (the Germans were granted this right only in 1968), the Gypsies do not. In keeping with tradition, they are considered to be citizens of a different national origin eventually to be absorbed into the general population. Estimated at 300,000, the Gypsy population of Czechoslovakia may be one of the largest in any single nation. Although more settled than in the past (they are being relocated in western Bohemia in increasing numbers as industrial workers), many continue traditional lifestyles, working, for example, at odd jobs only when they need money.

Czechoslovakia is a bilingual state, with Czech the official language of the Czech Lands, and Slovak the official language of Slovakia. Both languages are members of the western division of the Slavonic language group, which in turn belongs to the eastern division of the Indo-European family. Despite some differences in vocabulary and grammar, both are intelligible in all parts of the country, except in a few areas where extreme dialects are spoken. Slovak has a softer tonality than Czech, and in this respect is closer to Ukrainian and Polish.

In addition to Czech and Slovak, other languages spoken by any significant portion of the population are German in the Czech Lands and Hungarian in Slovakia. Among both Czechs and Slovaks, German remains the principal Western language spoken. Knowledge of Russian is increasing, and many professional people educated during the interwar period know English or French. Members of the younger generation express a great interest in learning English or French, even though Russian is more politically desirable.

2. Social structure

In the independent Czechoslovakia that emerged after World War I there was no longstanding professional military class, and the remaining members of the landowning nobility lost most of their estates through land reform. Differences in wealth and social status were not as strongly marked as in Hungary, Poland, or some of the Western European countries. Such social conflict as existed was primarily between nationality groups, which themselves were socially homogenous. Furthermore, religious conflict was minimal.

The social structure during the interwar period consisted mainly of a strong, urbanized middle class—businessmen, intellectuals, and bureaucrats—and two other distinct groups—industrial workers and peasants—who constituted the lower class. Vestiges of a small upper class remained as rentiers or industrialists. Most Czechs and Germans were industrial workers, whereas most Slovaks, Magyars, and Ukrainians were peasants. The class structure was open with considerable upward mobility because of the availability of educational opportunities at all social levels.

The political and economic measures introduced by the Communists beginning in 1948 radically changed the prewar social structure. In the wake of post-1945 nationalization of major industrial and commercial enterprises, followed by post-1948 suppression of non-Communist political parties and judicial actions against "bourgeois" opposition elements, the former upper class virtually disappeared. In its place a new upper class emerged, made up of high Communist Party and government officials, leaders of mass organizations, managers of nationalized enterprises, scientists, and prominent writers and artists willing to work within the political and ideological restrictions imposed by the regime.

Despite the Communist regime's egalitarian philosophy, members of the new upper class enjoy an elite status which brings with it preferential treatment, high income, and social prestige. In keeping with the regime's political credo of the "rule of the proletariat," many members of this elite are of working class origin, but their lifestyles belie this. Actually, there is little to distinguish their way of life from that of members of the former upper class, except in their ideological orientation. They enjoy the same privileges the pre-Communist elite did: the best housing, schools, clubs, and resorts; the opportunity to purchase goods unavailable to the rest of the population; and increased opportunities to travel abroad.

Below the elite upper class is a new middle class drawn from the middle and lower echelons of the party and bureaucracy. Its members manage the government and economy for the ruling elite. One chief requirement for membership in the new middle class is ideological loyalty. A peasant or worker background is ideal but there are many exceptions in this last regard. The lifestyle of this class generally resembles that of any other European managerial class.

As in the prewar period, the lower class consists of farmers and both blue- and white-collar nonagricultural workers. A new category is the collectivized farmer, whose daily life and work comes under close scrutiny and control by the state. The lower class is by far the largest and includes many former members of the prewar middle and upper classes whose property was nationalized and whose privileges were abolished.

3

APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110015-7