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Prague" (as author Joseph Wechs–
berg termed this thousand-year-old
city in the heart of Europe) seques–
tering themselves? I couldn't believe
they were all whiling away three
dreary days in their cramped quar–
ters in the massive, prefabricated
apartment blocs so characteristic of
Communist Prague - which stand
in grotesque contrast to the archi–
tectural treasures still extant from
Gothic and Baroque Prague.
The answer to my question,
1
sub–
sequently discovered, lay in the
stream of privately owned Czech-,
Soviet-, and East German-built au–
tomobiles which funnel back into
the city at the end of every weekend
and extended holiday. (Nearly one
out of every 6 inhabitants of Prague
owns an automobile.) The citizens
of Prague find welcome relief from
the grim, gray (and, at times, in–
tensely smoggy) atmosphere of the
capital in the beautiful surrounding
countryside, dotted with lake and
river resorts and thousands upon
thousands of simple, privately
owned weekend cottages.
The countryside dachas serve
three good purposes. First, they pro–
vide a substitute for foreign travel -
especially travel out of the East
bloc. Czechoslovakia, along with
Romanía and East Germany, are
very restrictive of this privilege.
Secondarily, the scratch-built cab–
ins help drain off accumulated per–
sonal savings which still can't be
spent to the degree desired on good
quality imported consumer items.
(The best imports are sold in the
hard-currency stores that cater to
tourists. This is the reason why in
Prague, more than anywhere else
except Warsaw, one is approached
on the street continually with otfers
to swap
koruna
for dollars at rates
far exceeding the official exchange.)
Lastly, the retreats in the wooded
hills and mountains of Bohemia ab–
sorb, or at least attenuate, "dan–
gerous political energies." As one
professional Czechoslovak lady told
an English journalist a short while
back: "Fooling around in the open
air is a substitute for serious in–
tellectual or political pursuits - not
to be recommended."
Perhaps that is why Alexander
Dubcek - the officially disgraced
leader of the abortive 1968 "socia l-
8
ism with a human face" reform
movement - is now consigned to
planting trees in a somber Czech
forest somewhere.
A Slogan in Every Window
The first week and a half of May
is always a good time to judge the
relative freedoms enjoyed by the
people in the various nations of the
Soviet orbit. The three-day May
Day is followed closely by Victory
Day - May 9 in Eastern Europe - a
very big holiday celebrating the vic–
tory of communist forces over Hit–
ler's Reich. The two holiday periods
- the one political and the other
military - tend to blend together
into one. Especially was this so in
1975, the 30th anniversary of the
defeat ofNazism.
In Prague, signs, banners, fiags ,
pennants, posters, and pictures were
everywhere present. There was not a
single shop window, regardless of
the business conducted, that did not
dutifully display a prominent "30"
poster or the ubiquitous picture of a
World War
U
Russian tank crew
hugging the girls of Prague upon the
city's "liberation" by the Red Army
in May 1945. (There were no dis–
plays, incidentally, of Prague's
"reliberation" in August 1968.)
In contrast, Budapest, which we
visited next on our tour, appeared
remarkably free of propaganda with
mostly just small national and Com–
munist Party fiags displayed on
lamp posts and building facades -
nothing ostentatious.
Access to written material from
the West proved to be quite ditfer–
ent in the two cities as well.
In Budapest,
it
was possible to
obta in newspa pers at the hotel
(though not on the newsstands)
from severa) Western nations, in–
cluding the popular American–
owned
lnternational Herald Tribune,
which is published in París. Also
available was an eight-page daily
news digest, half in English, half in
German, published by MTI, the
Hunga rian news agency.
It
was
fairly newsworthy, carrying dis–
patches from Western news wires as
weU as Tass, the Soviet agency.
Access to such information was
impossible in Prague, however. At
the hotels as well as at the news
kiosks, one was limi.ted so l.ely to the
Communist press, including the im–
mensely boring
Morning Star,
the
joumalistic flagship of Britain's
Communist Party.
HumanScars
On the surface, at least, few scars
remain in Prague of the events of
August 1968 when the invading
forces of five "socialist brother"
Warsaw Pact nations brought the
liberalizing reforms of the Dubcek
government to a screeching halt. Of
course, the Czech capital sustained
relatively little damage in the first
place, especially when compared
with the pitched battles which raged
through the streets of Budapest dur–
ing Hungary's 13-day etfort to gain
freedom from Sovi.et dornination in
1956. The docile Czechs succumbed
much more easily.
Human scars still remain, how–
ever. Under the post-Dubcek slogan
of a "return to Leninism" the Czech
Communist Party was purged of
half a million members. Trade
unions and other institutions were
similarly cleansed of all those wbo
had even partially participated in
what was called tbe "Prague
Spring."
Vera's busband, once a prominent
singer, was one of these unfortunate
individuals "officially disgraced" be–
cause of bis involvement in the 1968
political reform. Vera showed us a
well-worn copy of tbe February
1968 edition of
National Geographic
magazine. In it, on page 162, was a
picture of her husband performing
at the annual three-week-long
Prague Spring music festival (wbose
gay and airy atmosphere lent its
name to the política! movement
wbich was intended to add a
brighter side to socialism). Never
again, Vera assured us, would he be
privileged to perform in a major
musical production in bis country.
Economic Dilemma
The Czech people enjoy, despite
tbeir many limitations, a higher
standard of living than any of their
Communist neighbors with the ex–
c~ption
of the East Germans.
But danger signs for the Czecb
economy are showing up. Growth
rates are slowing. Tbe state eco–
nomic planners have yet to institute
(Continued on page JO)
The
PLAIN TRUTH Aprii -May 1976