Jiri Pelikan

The Struggle for Socialism in Czechoslovakia

We would like to begin by asking something about the period in which you first became politically active, just before the Second World War. You joined an anti-fascist organization in 1937, while still at school, and became a member of the Czech Communist Party in 1939. Could you tell us how you experienced the major events of those years, the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939, the German–Russian pact in the summer of 1939, the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 and the Czechoslovak resistance movement?

My case is typical of many people of my generation who entered the political arena as secondary school students in the late thirties. The Spanish Civil War was in progress and the danger of a German invasion already hung over Czechoslovakia. We were, of course, very excited about the fight of the Spanish people against fascism, and saw the important role of the communists in that struggle—though without any real understanding of the problems involved. Then we saw that the Communists were the most resolute opponents of fascism in Czechoslovakia and internationally, and this brought us into sympathy with the Communist Party. It is most important to understand that Czechoslovakia, unlike the other East European countries subsequently liberated by the Red Army, had always had a legal Communist Party before the war. During the twenty years of bourgeois parliamentary government between 1918 and 1938, there had been real guarantees for democratic freedom. The fact that Czechoslovakia was an industrialized country, and had a working class with long revolutionary and democratic traditions, was the basis for the subsequent success of the Communist Party.

When the invasion of Czechoslovakia proper started in 1939, we saw the Communist Party as the only force which opposed it—although there were, in fact, other patriotic groups which did so too. It was at this time that I joined the Communist Party and became a part of its underground network. I helped to produce and distribute leaflets and newspapers, organize students and so on, until 1940 when I was arrested.

The Nazi–Soviet pact, of course, came as a great shock to us. But right from the moment of the invasion, when the resistance started, Russian policy had dismayed us. For example, I remember clearly a friend’s case. He was much older, had been a Communist since his university studies in 1933 and was one of the leading members of the party in our city in Moravia. When he received instructions from the Comintern after the Nazi occupation he was extremely shaken. Even messages signed by Gottwald himself stated that the German soldiers who had invaded Czechoslovakia were, in fact, proletarians in soldiers’ uniforms and therefore in no way class enemies!1 The real enemies were the Czech bourgeoisie headed by Beneš, and the American and British plutocrats.2 This was the Comintern line at the time. I remember my friend refused to transmit these instructions to the members of the party. They would have meant that instead of fighting against the occupiers we would be fighting against our own people. In fact the party throughout the country modified these instructions, saying firstly that the comrades in Moscow were not well informed about the situation and secondly that the instructions were completely out of touch with reality. When the German–Russian pact was signed at the end of August, this was a further shock. We had received a lot of explanations of how the Soviet Union had been obliged to do this, because of the refusal of the Western powers to conclude a military treaty and in order to buy time. Despite our feelings, we could appreciate rationally that the pact probably was necessary. But what we did not understand at all were the positive articles which we started to read in the German newspapers about the Soviet Union and the broadcasts we heard from Radio Moscow at the time: instead of working to build up the Resistance, they began toning down all anti-fascist propaganda and just putting out items about how many pigs there were on some kolkhoz or other and how many tons of such and such a product the Soviet Union had produced. I remember the comrades were very angry when they saw that what was involved was not just a pact of non-aggression with a fascist country, but rather some sort of political agreement. Another thing which dismayed us was Molotov’s speech after the collapse of Poland, in which he spoke of Poland as an artificial state from its creation, now destroyed forever by the common action of the German and Soviet armies. But all these hesitations came to an end in June 1941, when the war between the Soviet Union and Germany started. After that, of course, the situation changed completely; the Moscow party leaders now gave full support to the Resistance and cooperation with other anti-fascist forces began.

Yet the Communist Party had not lost its position as the main force of resistance in Czechoslovakia during the period from March 1939 to June 1941?

I would not say that the Communist Party was the main force. In fact we claimed after the war that we were the main force, but it is difficult to assess. There certainly were other groups—though not so well organized as the Communist Party. I think the claim that the Communist Party was the only, or the main, force in the Resistance was a sectarian one.

Could you say something about the development of the party during the war? For example what were the relations between the leadership in Moscow and the new leaders in the Resistance? Were there differences destined to be important later on?

To answer that, one must go back to the history of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. I have mentioned that the party was always a legal one, unlike in the other Eastern European countries. It was founded in 1921 as the result of a break with the Social Democratic Party. Again, in contrast to other Central and Eastern European countries, it was from the very beginning a real mass party. The leader at that time, Šmeral, developed some sort of conception of a Czechoslovakian path to socialism, which brought him into conflict with the Comintern and with the twenty-one points laid down by it. The mass base of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia which was the sign of its real success was very adversely affected by the Fifth Congress in 1929, when Gottwald took over the leadership. This Congress, officially called the Congress of Bolshevization, was in fact a congress of subjugation of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia to the Soviet leadership. It accepted the crushing of the Soviet opposition and Stalin’s conception of building socialism in one country, and acknowledged the Soviet Union as the single monopolistic centre of the international revolutionary movement. The acceptance of this line led to the elimination of many outstanding leaders from the party, which lost about 70 per cent of its membership during this period. Later on it won a lot of them back through its fight against fascism, starting in 1934–35 with the new line of the Comintern—the Popular Front. It was in this period between 1929 and 1939 that a new leading nucleus of the party was developed—Gottwald, Slánský, Kopecký and others.3 They were educated into complete subordination to the Soviet party and to Stalin. It was, in fact, this leadership which was in the Soviet Union during the war, and which came back unchanged to take power after the liberation. The people who were inside the country were never, in fact, integrated into the leading positions of the party and they were always viewed with a certain suspicion. Take, for example, Smrkovský. Smrkovský was one of the leaders of the Prague uprising and a central figure in the underground committee of the party at the end of the war. He became vice-president of the Czech National Council in 1945. But the very fact that he organized the popular uprising was held against him. For Gottwald’s aim had been that the country should be liberated by the Soviet Army, not by a popular uprising, whereas the whole strategy of the ‘internal’ party had been directed towards a popular uprising, towards partisan struggle. Of course during the war the contradictions were not apparent, because even Gottwald appealed for an uprising and for armed struggle. But as we learnt later, the Soviet Union insisted categorically that Czechoslovakia should be liberated by the Soviet Army and this fact was of decisive importance. Consequently, in all ideological work and propaganda the role played by the Resistance Movement at home was played down and sometimes even portrayed as hostile. It was in this context that when the political trials started in 1949, Smrkovský was accused of being an agent of the Gestapo, put in prison and condemned, together with many other leaders of the resistance movement. Since they drew their political strength from the popular movement, they were considered insufficiently disciplined or loyal to the Soviet leadership, and for this reason they were viewed with a certain suspicion.

What was your personal involvement in these events? What happened after you were arrested by the Gestapo in 1940?

My personal role was a very small one because I was a young student. When I was arrested I was seventeen years old; I spent about one year in prison, then I was released on parole because I was under eighteen. I was on the point of being arrested again when the German–Soviet war began, but I escaped from where I had been assigned to stay while on parole. I spent the remaining four years of the war underground, with a false name, in various regions of Czechoslovakia. Since I was being looked for by the Gestapo, my parents were taken as hostages, and my mother was killed by the Germans. My brother had been arrested with me in 1940, but he remained in prison for the whole five years the war lasted. I spent the last two and a half years of the war in a small village called Koronec near Boskovice in Moravia. I was the secretary of the local village administration—under my false name of course—and was able to continue my underground work at the same time. There was a partisan movement in the area; there were a lot of Soviet prisoners of war who had joined us and we were able to help our people.

When did partisan struggle begin, and what was its extent?

It began in 1944 and was, of course, strongest in the mountainous part of the country. It was strongest of all in Slovakia, after that in eastern and central Moravia where I was, and it was weakest in Bohemia, which is much more densely populated and industrialized, lies on a plain and was more tightly controlled by the Germans.

What happened when the Red Army liberated Czechoslovakia? Could you tell us how the new administration was established, and about the workers’ councils which sprang up in 1945, especially in Bohemia?

During the last years of the war, there was an attempt to create underground Národní vybory or National Committees as popular organs for the future, local society. In the factories there were also to be Závodní vybory or factory committees formed by the workers and technicians. There were some factories, I would not say that there were many, where such underground committees actually existed; where they did exist they organized the rising of 5 May 1945—above all in Prague. This insurrection, we know today, was launched against the will of the Soviet leadership. The same was true of the uprising in Slovakia in August 1944. Stalin wanted this uprising to start only when the Red Army had already surrounded the frontiers of Slovakia as far as Katowice.

But the uprising broke out spontaneously and although the Soviet Army tried to give it support, it was suppressed. It was a tragedy like that of the risings in Warsaw and elsewhere. I would not say myself that the Russians did not want to help it, but I would say that they did not view with enthusiasm a popular uprising without clear political control from Moscow.

Was there any resistance to the imposition of the Moscow leadership and Gottwald immediately after the liberation?

No, I don’t think there was any real resistance, because the war was a victorious one. Everybody knew after Stalingrad that the Soviet Union had played a decisive role in it, and I think that Gottwald was accepted as the acknowledged leader of the Communist Party, and hence also of the resistance movement as a whole. It was argued, I think in Rude Pravo, that the liberation of Prague by the Soviet Army was some sort of confirmation of the correctness of the line of Gottwald.

There were some Czech detachments with the Soviet Army, weren’t there?

Yes, there were some Czech soldiers who had first tried to fight with the Polish Army in 1939; General Svoboda, at the time a colonel, was their commander.4 When Poland was defeated they went to the Soviet Union, where they were at first interned in camps. But when the war started with Germany, they were reorganized as a part of the Free Czechoslovak Army, which had units in England and elsewhere.

Was Svoboda himself interned in that period?

Yes, he was. This was, in fact, rather an interesting period of his life. He later explained to a visitor that while he was in prison in the Soviet Union, it was learnt that he knew the Hungarian Military Attaché in Istanbul, who had been with him in military school. He was sent to Turkey on behalf of the Soviet military intelligence service to contact this Hungarian officer, and succeeded in getting some very important information. However, when he returned to the Soviet Union he was put in prison and condemned to death, and was only saved before the execution by the NKVD.5

To return to the Prague rising, when it broke out the Czech detachment in the American Army was already in Pilsen, and it naturally wanted to go to help the uprising in Prague. But since they were part of the Allied Forces, they were stopped by order of General Antonov. The Russians themselves have now published an account of how General Antonov sent a cable to Eisenhower saying that the British and American Armies must stop at the line which was established at Yalta. This line went from Pilsen to Budejovice and meant that the British and Americans were only to liberate a small part of Czechoslovakian territory in the extreme south-west of the country. Thus the Prague workers were obliged to fight for three days before Russian troops could arrive from Berlin. They tried to come as soon as possible, but the American Army would have been there in two hours. Nevertheless, the decision was probably a correct one, although psychologically hard to accept for the Czech Resistance. The interesting thing is how the line of demarcation was respected and, in fact, is still respected.

Yes, just as it was respected, although it prevented the victory of a socialist revolution in Greece. What was the situation of the bourgeoisie in Czechoslovakia at the time of liberation? What was the relationship of class forces between the working class and its allies and the bourgeoisie?

I think that the bourgeoisie was discredited. First of all by the defeat of the First Republic in 1938, secondly by the collaboration of part of it with the Germans—although it must be acknowledged that part of the national bourgeoisie also participated in the resistance movement. At all events, the formula of the ‘national and democratic revolution’, as it was called at the time, allowed the party the occasion to undermine all the economic and political power of the bourgeoisie in 1945. The four parties which were permitted to exist—the Communist Party, the Social Democratic Party, the National Socialist Party and the Catholic Party (there were other parties in Slovakia)—all agreed to put through the programme of the National Front which had directed the resistance. It was a programme for national and democratic revolution, but it already went beyond the programme of any bourgeois government. It was, in fact, the programme of a ‘People’s Democracy’. It involved the nationalization of big industry, the banks, all external trade; agrarian reform; the establishment of national committees as the legislative and executive organs of power; a single union federation, and so on. The bourgeoisie lost any real power and the balance of forces was completely in favour of the working class. The peasants supported the workers because they wanted the agrarian reform. Of course, there were still some remnants of the reactionary forces left, and when they had got over the first shock of defeat, they started to oppose the new course and tried to sabotage the realization of the National Front programme. This is what led to the crisis in February 1948.

What was the character of this crisis? It appeared as an attempt to push the social revolution through a further stage, but it also appeared as an episode in the Cold War. How did this seem to you as a Czech Communist at the time?

I think there were both internal and international aspects of the Czechoslovakian crisis of 1948. Inside Czechoslovakia, tension was growing. Although the other political parties supported the programme of the National Front and collaborated with the Communists, the rightist forces which I mentioned had stabilized certain positions of strength within these parties, and even had some support among the population at large—as a result of dissatisfaction with the country’s economic development, the difficulties, hardship, shortages and so on. As a counteroffensive, the Communist Party launched proposals to extend nationalization even to small industries, to confiscate all personal fortunes exceeding one million crowns, and to carry out a further distribution of land. From this point of view, the 1948 crisis did represent a sharpening of the class struggle. But at the same time, from an international point of view, it was clear from the time of the Informburo meeting in Poland in 1947 that the Soviet Union saw itself not as a base for the revolutionary movements of the world, but increasingly as a great power essentially concerned with the distribution of zones of influence.6 Moscow wanted to consolidate its influence and power over Czechoslovakia, since these had not been clearly established at Yalta. At Yalta there had been no discussion about Czechoslovakia as such—at least as far as we know. Nobody knows exactly what was discussed, but from all the evidence and documents published it emerges that there was a lot of discussion about Poland, Yugoslavia and Greece, but the Czechoslovakian problem was never discussed at all. Perhaps this was because it was then the only government recognized by everybody. However, I would say that the 1948 crisis was not just a putsch launched by the Soviet Union or by Stalin; it was an internal clash between the progressive and reactionary forces in which the latter were defeated by the tactics of Gottwald, who emerged as the leader of the country.

You mean that neither the Russians nor Gottwald had been restraining class struggle in 1945–46? You have no impression that the workers perhaps wanted to strike some more decisive blows for socialism than had been achieved?

This problem, of course, existed. I remember, for example, I think it was in about 1946, a meeting of the party activists in Prague to which Gottwald was invited and where he was obliged to defend the strategy of the party against heavy criticism. A lot of the delegates, particularly those from factories, were saying: ‘What are we doing and where are we going? It is all very well talking about the national and democratic revolution, but we want socialism and the party does not speak about socialism.’ Gottwald was trying to explain that, of course, the final aim of the party was socialism, but at the present stage to propagate socialism too much might create problems amongst certain sections of the population, and the party should not go beyond this stage of the national and democratic revolution. I remember that some people were not very much convinced by this, saying that this sort of practice could, of course, be valid if the party publicly declared that its aim was to build a socialist society, but as it was being carried out it appeared that the aim was to deceive the people and confront them with a fait accompli. Then again, I was a student at that time, and I remember there was a lot of critical discussion of party strategy among the students. It was felt that the party had no clear strategy or perspective, but was too much involved in day-to-day political problems. Of course, these criticisms were superseded in 1948 when people thought that the way to socialism was open.

What was your personal experience of the internal life of the party in the period between 1945 and 1948? What sort of things were discussed in party circles?

Discussion was quite free. There were none of the limitations which appeared later on, when the party took over power. The leadership wanted discussion to be concentrated mainly on economic problems and on how the Communists could contribute to the building of a new Czechoslovakian State. Gottwald’s slogan was ‘the better we work, the more we shall be accepted as a leading force’. This line of course implied avoiding real ideological discussion. But the arguments used by other parties against the Communist Party were inevitably reflected within the latter, especially in intellectual and student bodies. There was also frequent discussion about the Czechoslovak road to socialism—about the aim of the whole development. But there was never any clear explanation from the leadership, from the representatives of the Central Committee, on this question.

Another subject of great discussion in 1947 was Zhdanov’s speech on proletarian culture, and the measures taken against Akhmatova, Khachaturian and Shostakovich.7 An exhibition of Soviet painters was put on in Prague at which the so-called socialist realism made its first appearance. There was a violent clash between the party and the communist intellectuals, because the latter were for the most part people who were Communists before the war, when to be a Communist artist meant to be an avant garde artist. Many of them were, for example, surrealists. They recognized in Soviet socialist realism the reactionary realism of the bourgeoisie of the First Republic, and they refused to accept this kind of art as real socialist art. The leadership tried to resolve this conflict by explaining that ‘socialist realism’ was due to the historical development of the Soviet Union, and that at all events in Czechoslovakia there would not be any such imposition of a single style on the artists. Nevertheless, this was a big topic of discussion.

You spoke of ‘the Czechoslovak road to socialism’. What did this phrase mean in 1948?

Gottwald and other party leaders, in fact, had promised since 1945 that after the liberation Czechoslovakia would develop according to its traditions and its specific conditions. The reactionary forces used to say, as the 1948 crisis approached: ‘If the Communists come to power they will collectivize the land and set up kolkhozes’; or ‘they will expel the non-Communist students from the University’ and so on and so forth. They pointed to the example of the Soviet Union. The Czech party leaders always denied this, saying that we would not collectivize or establish kolkhozes, because it was not necessary in Czechoslovakia. I even remember a speech by Gottwald in which he said that when he was in Moscow and his shoes were worn out he had spent three days trying to find somebody to repair them. We said to ourselves why, when there are so many small enterprises in Czechoslovakia, should we liquidate them? Even after we took power in 1948, Gottwald stated categorically at a meeting of small artisans and merchants that we had no intention of nationalizing petty enterprises. Just one year later, of course, all small enterprises were nationalized and smashed. But to return to the immediate post-war period, when in 1946 Gottwald explained the party’s strategy, he referred to the interview which Stalin gave to British Labour Party representatives in Moscow after the war, in which he declared publicly, for the first time it seems, that there might be other ways to socialism than that followed by the Soviet Union—i.e. not through Soviets, but through ‘parliamentary elections’ and a ‘democratic development’. I think you will find that this interview got quite a lot of publicity. Gottwald said that as a result of the changes after the Second World War—the strength of the Soviet Union, the end of capitalist encirclement of the Soviet Union, the great prestige of the Communists because of their participation in the resistance movement—as a result of all these factors we do not need a real armed revolution or to take power through any violent action. In fact, we could win power through elections and transform the national and democratic revolution into a socialist revolution by steps. Indeed, he claimed at the time that the Czechoslovakian state after the war was already actually in transition to socialism. It was no longer a capitalist state because the bourgeoisie no longer owned the means of production and although it was not yet a socialist state, it was in the first stage of a socialist revolution. There was some opposition to this view at the time, although many people were able to accept that perhaps the armed struggle characteristic of the socialist revolution had, in fact, taken place in the form of the clash between the Soviet Army and the German Army, representing two class systems.

What about the question of workers’ power in Czechoslovakia? Were there people who felt that the workers did not get real state power in Czechoslovakia in 1948?

No, I don’t think that this view was expressed at all in 1948. The official line in Czechoslovakia in this respect was typical of all the Eastern European countries. Once the Communist Party takes power, the Communist Party which represents the working class, once it has a leading role in the state, the parliament, and the trade unions, then this leading role of the Communist Party is seen as identical to the leading role and to the power of the workers. The workers themselves have nothing to do except follow the instructions of the party. I think this was the original source of the crisis which appeared later. The working class, which had been rather active before the war, during the war and after the war, was systematically being depoliticized by the party’s leadership. Party slogans claimed that since the working class was in power, the role of the workers was to work to increase productivity, to compete in Stakhanovite fashion; this would be the best contribution the working class could make towards the building of socialism. Of course, some of the best working-class cadres were taken from the factory floor and made into directors, or given posts in the diplomatic service. The universities were opened to the children of the working class. This was real progress and was also necessary to ensure the stability of the new regime. But we were to realize later that this was an inadequate conception of workers’ power. The workers soon discovered that they were in almost the same situation as in a capitalist country. They had to work, they received a money wage and, what is more, they could not buy what they needed even with this wage because of the shortage of goods. However, I do not think that the problem of workers’ power was really posed at this time—except by Kalandra, a Communist poet and writer, a Trotskyist, who was arrested in 1948 and executed. A lot of other people whom we did not even know, people who had criticized the Moscow trials in 1936–38, were the first victims after the victory of the Communist Party. Then, of course, after the Informburo resolution on Yugoslavia, the real clash came on the question of the specificity of roads to socialism. The conflict with Yugoslavia was reflected in Czechoslovakia, Poland and elsewhere. I do not think that this conflict broke out because Yugoslavia was the most liberal of all the East European countries. Czechoslovakia, for example, was probably more so. But Yugoslavia was the only country in the Soviet zone in Eastern Europe which had effectively liberated itself. True, it did so in the overall context of the Soviet Army’s defeat of Germany, but nevertheless Yugoslavia had a real partisan army, whereas the other countries’ resistance was on an altogether smaller scale. For this reason the Yugoslavs did not want to accept the monopoly role of the Soviet Union. In Czechoslovakia, the Yugoslav issue was used as a pretext to break all potential opponents capable of thinking independently or contesting (I don’t say they did any real contesting) the leading role of Moscow. If you take the people who were arrested among the Communists, it was the old Communists, those who had been in the Spanish Civil War, those who had been in the resistance movement abroad, people of Jewish origin who had been in exile in the West, the best economists—in short, all the people who were able to think for themselves. The victims were, in fact, themselves Stalinists at the time, but the blow was directed against potential enemies. I should say that I only realized the full significance of the repression of 1949–54 years later. It was after the events in Poland and Hungary in 1956 and there was a meeting of the Central Committee, in 1957 I think, when they were discussed. Kopecký, who at that time was a member of the politburo, said that the reason such events did not occur in Czechoslavakia was that Kádár and Gomułka had been arrested, but not liquidated physically, while we had liquidated all our political opponents physically.8 Thus we were able to overcome this crisis because there was no alternative leadership in Czechoslovakia. At all events, the political trials put an end to all attempts at specific national paths of development and initiated the imposition of the Soviet model of socialism in all the Eastern European countries.

If one reads the proceedings of the official 1968 investigation into the trials, which you edited in English, there is one thing in the report which seems very surprising. The impression is given by the report that the choice of Slánský as the ultimate target was somehow not the result of any decision on the part either of Gottwald or Stalin, but was arrived at in the course of interrogation of various figures. This is scarcely credible?

No, I think the report says that the interrogators did not ‘discover’ anything about Slánský, rather that they compelled those already under arrest to name him. There was even an attempt on the part of Gottwald to stop this. The only question is who the interrogators were and who was behind them. They were, of course, Soviet ‘experts’. Was the decision Stalin’s or was it an initiative on the part of the secret police? In any case the choice of Slánský, in my opinion, has another meaning. He was of Jewish origin, though in fact from an anti-Zionist family long established in Czechoslovakia, and his arrest coincided also with the change of Soviet policy in the Middle East. Originally the Soviet Union had supported the creation of Israel. The idea was that through Yugoslavia and through Israel they would be able to penetrate to the Mediterranean region. But first of all they did not succeed through Yugoslavia, and then after the establishment of Israel they realized that the place left empty by the British had been filled by the Americans. It was at this point that the Russians decided to play the card of Arab nationalism. But in order to change the former policy, it was necessary to prove they were sincere and hence to condemn that policy. This was not, of course, done through any self-criticism by the Soviet Union, but by putting the main blame on Czechoslovakia, which had played a special role in relations with Israel—naturally on the initiative and with the permission of the Soviet Union. For example, some officers of the Israeli Army were trained in Czechoslovakia. The latter was the Soviet Union’s main intermediary in the Middle East (these days it deals direct). So when the Russians wanted to change their old policy, they wanted to show that not only had they stopped Czechoslovakia sending arms and instructors to Israel and training its officers, but that, in fact, it had never been Russian policy to do so—what was involved was some sort of conspiracy, by people like Slánský. At the time Slánský was chairman of the State Defence Committee, so it was easy to name him the man responsible; after all, he had signed all the relevant documents. A further advantage of choosing Slánský was that he was a man of the party apparatus, which was by now not very popular; choosing him, it became possible to utilize residual anti-socialism and to put the blame for the party’s excesses onto people of Jewish origin. All in all, I think there was clearly a premeditated plan to choose Slánský for this role.

Perhaps we could now turn to a somewhat later period. You, of course, in the 1950s and early 1960s became very prominent in the International Union of Students?

From 1953 I was general secretary and from 1955 the president of the IUS.

What was your experience of working within that organization? Was there any contradiction between its subordination to Russian interests and the presence within it of many student unions which were genuine, militant anti-imperialist organizations?

First of all I must say that personally I was very pleased to be able to leave domestic politics; like many other Communists, I did not feel very happy about the way things were going. In the IUS, I found again the genuinely revolutionary, extremely free atmosphere of the student movement. At that time, of course, I had no doubts about the sincerity of Soviet policy. It seemed to me that this policy was basically correct because it was directed against imperialism. Don’t forget, it was still the period of the Korean War. There was even felt to be a danger of world conflict, and it was a period when a great number of African and Asian countries were still colonies. So the IUS at the time played a very positive role in mobilizing students against colonialism, and in that respect there was no basic contradiction with Soviet policy, which supported the anti-colonial revolutions. Later, of course, after the Twentieth Congress and Khrushchev’s speech, we had our first doubts. But Khrushchev’s policy initially seemed positive—broader contacts, a rejection of sectarianism, which we felt had been a great failing of the IUS in the period of the Cold War. We welcomed the opportunity to extend the common front to organizations which, although not Communist, were generally anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist.

But the policy of peaceful coexistence as it was in fact carried out created the first and real problems inside the IUS. There was on occasion a conflict between its anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist mission and the way in which the Russians applied the policy of peaceful coexistence. For example, we were very much involved in organizing support for the national liberation struggle in Algeria. But when Khrushchev went to France, the Soviet representatives became reluctant to vote for IUS resolutions in favour of Algeria, because to do so would create problems with the French government. Other conflicts of interest arose. With regard to the Cuban Revolution and the Latin American movement as a whole, whereas the Communist Parties were unenthusiastic the student organizations were very revolutionary, very progressive. Differences also emerged on the question of peace. The great discussion in the IUS between 1956 and 1960 was about the connection between the fight for peace and that for national independence. On the one hand, the tendency of the Soviet Union was to concentrate solely on the fight for peace. On the other, the majority of students in the colonial or newly independent countries felt that the main problem for them was the fight against colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialism; they were therefore not in favour of this policy of peaceful coexistence. Further contradictions arose on the question of atomic weapons, since the Soviet Union was always trying to impose its tactical policy of the moment on the organization. For example, the IUS urged a campaign for stopping all nuclear tests, and then, just as the Congress of the IUS was taking place in Leningrad—I think it was in 1961 after the Youth Festival—there was a nuclear explosion in the Soviet Union. The Japanese delegation proposed that it should be condemned, in line with IUS policy, and there were very heated discussions on the subject; many delegates were frustrated by the fact that the IUS could condemn US nuclear tests but was not allowed to condemn Soviet ones. We tried to explain to Soviet comrades that this was a mistake, because we were convinced that it was due only to their failure to understand the mentality of students. But, of course, it became increasingly clear that they saw the IUS and similar organizations merely as unofficial instruments of Soviet foreign policy.

A further type of contradiction reflected within the iUs derived from the internal conflicts of the international Communist movement—for example, the Sino–Soviet dispute, which had its first impact on the iUs as early as 1957.

What was your own reaction to the eruption of the dispute between China and the Soviet Union? Were you fully convinced by the Soviet case at that time?

First of all we did not realize that it was a real and deep disagreement. We thought of it as mainly due to the difference in mentality of the two Parties and two peoples; also to a clash of personalities between Khrushchev and Mao Zedong. When Khrushchev visited Mao in Peking in August 1958, I had the opportunity of observing them both, and realized what different personalities they had. I must confess frankly that at that time the majority of us sympathized more with the Soviet point of view that war should be avoided through agreements and negotiations, whereas we felt that the Chinese view at the time was rather crude. The slogan which they proposed at the IUS congress was that we should not be afraid of war. This was not very well understood. Although I can see now that the Chinese side was not able at the time to explain its attitude to this conflict, there was another thing which disturbed us. Everybody was quoting Lenin and Marx, but the Chinese made constant references to Stalin too. In Eastern Europe, of course, Stalin was the symbol of all the deformations of socialist society. All in all, we were very distressed by this conflict, but hoped that it would not lead to a real split. But both sides were hiding the real reasons for the dispute, and it was very difficult to realize its true dimensions.

Czechoslovakia was the country in Eastern Europe where an unreconstructed Stalinist system seemed to be strongest and to survive longest—up to 1966–67 in fact. How then was it possible for a movement of change and renewal to emerge in the Czech party in 1966–67, a movement which culminated in the Prague Spring of 1968?

This does appear strange on the face of things, but it can be understood if one looks back at the development of Czechoslovakia before and after the war. It was in Czechoslovakia that there were the most favourable conditions for socialism in the whole of Eastern Europe; because of the industrialization of the country, because of the developed working class, because of the role and prestige of the Communist Party and because of the friendship of the people for the Soviet Union. From this point of view it would seem strange that the greatest purge in any Communist Party was that which took place in Czechoslovakia in 1949–54. I think it was precisely because Czechoslovakia had the most favourable conditions that it seemed likely to be the most independent in seeking its own path of development. This did not at all suit the Soviet leadership. They wanted to monopolize Eastern Europe, and to impose the Soviet model. For this reason they were obliged to strike hardest against the Czechoslovakian Communist Party. Parties like the Polish, Hungarian or Bulgarian were just small groups who had been underground for twenty to thirty years; it was not so difficult for them to accept Soviet hegemony. But in Czechoslovakia, although the party was subjectively willing to accept that hegemony, it was nevertheless seen by the Russians as a potential heretic. Naturally, it appeared paradoxical and shocking to us that the number of the victims of repression should be highest in Czechoslovakia, despite all our democratic traditions. Nothing comparable in scale occurred elsewhere in Eastern Europe. Fourteen people were assassinated in the Slánský trial, several hundred people, as the Piller Report revealed, were condemned to death.9 In Poland it was possible for Bierut to save Gomułka’s life, even though he had been politically disgraced.10 The same was true for Kádár in Hungary. In the GDR, Bulgaria and Russia, too, the repression was on a lesser scale. In Czechoslovakia there was both the greatest degree of repression and also the deepest crisis as a result of that repression, precisely because of the contradiction between the former favourable conditions for a democratic road to socialism and the complete destruction of the country’s democratic tradition. Furthermore, since this political terror created a kind of moral crisis, the Novotny leadership later tried, as far as possible, to avoid any real rehabilitation and hide the truth about the trials.11

This was the reason why Stalin’s system was maintained for a long time in Czechoslovakia. I would not agree with you that Czechoslovakia was the most Stalinist country up to 1966–67. That was the general impression given in the Western press. But I would say that the crisis in Czechoslovakia goes back to the Twentieth Congress. It is true that it was halted for a time, as a result of the events in Hungary, but it recommenced in 1963, after the report of the so-called Kolder Commission to the Central Committee, when a great part of the truth about the political trials, though not all of it, was revealed. I think the process of liberation began when Novotny, under pressure from various sides, was obliged to make concessions. Pressure was coming from the youth, a section of which had lost all faith in socialism and was creating a lot of problems. There was also a conflict between the party and the intellectuals—writers, film-makers and so on. This did not begin in 1967, but long before. You can see this by looking at Czechoslovak literature and cinema, which had been among the most progressive in Eastern Europe since 1964–65—the so-called Czechoslovakian New Wave. Then there was the conflict between the Czechs and Slovaks—the unsolved national problem. There were the economic difficulties, which led Novotny to accept Šik’s proposals for partial economic reform.12 All these contradictions were already present from 1963 on, and were steadily growing. From time to time Novotny tried to halt the process by administrative measures, but he no longer had the power to do so.

All these contradictions came to a head in autumn 1967 and January 1968, and culminated in this so-called Prague Spring. But this had been prepared for a long time previously. For example, in the ideological sphere, progressive intellectuals had organized themselves into discussion groups which had been working together for several years before 1967. One was the group around Radovan Richta, which was concerned with the scientific-technical revolution. Another group around Zdenék Mlynár was preparing reforms of the political system. There were several other groups too, working inside the party for specific reforms.

I think the Novotny regime falls into two distinct phases. In the first, prior to 1965, Novotny directed the repressive role of the party. But after the Twenty-Second Congress of the CPSU, when Stalin was once again condemned by Khrushchev, Novotny realized that it was impossible to stop the movement towards liberalization. Because there was a continuing trend towards de-Stalinization in the Soviet Union, he could not rely on Soviet support for a continuation of the old policies. He therefore, instead, decided to take the opportunity to get rid of the people most directly responsible for the trials. New people were brought in, and Novotny tried to present himself as the leader of the liberal tendency. But, of course, he could not succeed, since he could not wipe out his own responsibility for the political trials.

What role did the crisis in the Czechoslovak economy play in this whole development?

Certainly it played a role but I do not think it was a decisive one. Economic difficulties always have political repercussions, particularly in socialist countries. They expose the inability of the bureaucratic-centralist system to develop production and increase the standard of living of the masses, thus creating dissatisfaction both in the leading circles and among the population in general. Since the party leadership wants to score economic successes to maintain its political monopoly, it accepts some proposals for economic reform which it hopes will boost production and improve its competitive position vis-à-vis the capitalist economies. In this way Novotny endorsed the proposals for economic reform, but it was to the credit of Šik and other Czechoslovak economists that they clearly linked political with economic reform.

It is interesting to note that popular dissatisfaction with the economic situation in Czechoslovakia was greater in the more recent period, when living standards were much higher, than in the period immediately after the war when the masses believed that austerity was in the service of revolutionary ideas and socialist construction. By replacing revolutionary ideals with the promises of a consumer society, the bureaucrats only create trouble for themselves. On the other hand, it should be stated that an economic crisis itself is not sufficient to bring about a change in the situation since bureaucratic regimes have reserves with which to prevent an explosion caused by purely economic factors.

Perhaps we could turn now to the Prague Spring itself. What do you think of the criticism that has sometimes been made by Marxist analysts, that the Prague Spring involved liberalization—economic reforms, certain individual rights—rather than democratization, in the sense of real control by the workers over the decisive institutions of the State, genuine workers’ power in the factory and in political life as a whole?

Yes, I am aware of this line of criticism, but I do not think that it corresponds exactly to the reality of what took place. I would say that the Czechoslovak ‘new course’ in the spring of 1968 was, in fact, directed more to democratization than to liberalization. The opposition was united in the fight against Novotny, because all agreed that there should be a division of functions between the first secretary of the party and the president, that Novotny was unable to solve the real problems of the country and should be replaced. But part of this anti-Novotny opposition, of course, merely wanted changes in personnel and improvements in the party’s methods of work. This group would include people like Indra, Piller, Bil’ak and so on, and it had a majority in the Central Committee. But there was a minority, which would include Smrkovsky, Kriegel, Šik, Špacek, etcetera, who soon became aware that merely to replace Novotny by somebody else was not enough, and that real structural changes were necessary in order to come back to the sources, to renew socialism as a power of the people, to renew the dialogue between the party and the masses, to change the role of the party from administrative to inspirational hegemony. This group did not have a clear programme, because it was effectively impossible under Novotny for those in opposition to meet or discuss. Thus the whole development of the Prague Spring began almost spontaneously, after the palace revolution which overthrew Novotny, and it soon led to a permanent conflict between these two groups. The working class, initially, was rather passive, as a consequence of the depoliticization which it had undergone since 1948. The same was true of the peasants, who had never had any political representation in the system. The groups which reacted most quickly were the intellectuals, who had been prepared by their conflicts with Novotny in the previous years; the youth, in particular, the students, and to some extent the Slovaks. The working class on the whole adopted a wait-and-see attitude. They were not sure whether what had happened might not be some new trick. Moreover, they were also influenced by some of the older workers who said that the economy would collapse. They would have to work longer hours for the same pay, prices would rise and there might even be some unemployment. However, this initial passivity, or suspicion, on the part of the working class subsequently changed, when the workers had more information. I must stress that the demand for freedom of expression, particularly in Eastern Europe, is not at all just an intellectual’s demand as some people, even some people on the Left, suppose—it is the basic condition for the workers and peasants to take part in politics. For example, the Czech workers were told that the factory legislation was for them, but they did not even know the financial balance sheet of their factories. They did not know if their factories were working with a surplus or a deficit, or what was planned for them. They had no information at all, even less than in a capitalist country. The explosion of information which followed the abolition of censorship set the working class in motion. This process accelerated after the adoption of the Action Programme of the party. This laid the basis for the workers’ councils, though not very clearly, by initiating discussion on the forms in which the working class can really exercise power. This of course was a new problem for Czechoslovakia. There were only a few people who had studied the Yugoslav, Polish or Hungarian experience (nothing was published about them in Czechoslovakia) or who had read left literature from the West.

At all events, the discussion began and developed during May, June and July, with the creation of ‘committees of initiative’ which were to establish the workers’ councils. The workers, for the first time for many years, found that their own speakers were able to appear on radio and television and write articles for the press. They saw that they were able to ask questions and obtain basic information. It was then possible for them to discuss the forms of the participation both through the workers’ councils and through independent trade unions, through representation in the national committees, etcetera. In short, I think that there was a clear tendency towards democratization. I say ‘tendency’ because the Prague Spring was only the beginning. We can only say a tendency, we cannot say that it was definitely this or that. Do not forget the external pressure which started immediately after February. This was mainly directed not against intellectuals talking here and there, but against all measures which weakened the bureaucracy of the party and the state. The Russians were most upset by any talk about workers’ self-management or workers’ councils, of replacing state ownership by collective ownership, etcetera. On the latter question they said there was no difference; once the working class held state power, state ownership was the most socialist form of ownership in the means of production.

If there had been no Soviet intervention, I am convinced that it would sooner or later have come to a conflict within the Czechoslovakian ‘new course’. For there were those who were for real, all-out democratization, and there were also those who were for certain concessions, certain measures of liberalization, but who wanted to maintain the existing structure. The latter were, of course, very much encouraged by the Soviet pressure. They said: ‘we cannot do much more, because otherwise the Soviet Union will occupy us’. That was always the argument of those who were against full democratization. But I think the masses had been mobilized to such an extent, had become so active, that the tendency for a thoroughgoing reorganization would have won.

But what about the possibility that the economic policies would have led to the appearance of unemployment, as in Yugoslavia? Do you think then that a working-class opposition would have emerged within the party and ensured that this unemployment was abolished?

In that case, yes, but this argument about unemployment was, in fact, used a lot by the opponents of decentralization, that is to say by those in the economic apparatus of the party and the state. Of course, it may well be that certain factories or even certain branches of industry would have been closed because they were not economically viable. But I think that it would have been possible, in the framework of the socialist economy, to find alternative jobs for the workers. Of course, it is true that local sentiment is always strong. We had one case, for example, where they were proposing to shut down a small factory and said that the workers would all be given jobs in another one. But the latter was five kilometres away and the workers resisted, saying that they wanted to go on working in their own factory, even though it was a hundred years old and the machines were obsolete. Such minor social conflicts were inevitable. But I think that if the party had been able to draw up a real comprehensive plan for the country’s future economic development, a plan altering the whole structure of the economy—which had simply been following the Soviet model, concentrating on heavy industry and neglecting branches such as chemicals, for which there were excellent conditions in Czechoslovakia—then it would have been possible to win over the mass of the workers to the new course. If the party had been able to transform the economy, something which clearly could not be done overnight but would take time, I think the people would have accepted certain temporary sacrifices; that is, if they had been convinced that this would be to their advantage in the long term. I think this was possible.

Perhaps there is a difference here between the Czechoslovakian and Yugoslav working classes. For if you look at the statistics published in 1968 about what the workers expected from the councils, there was no immediate demand for them to concentrate on raising wages. The workers said the councils should act to improve the management of the economy and make it more efficient; they should improve conditions of work, they should select really competent people to direct the factories, and they should also give more thought to planning. Nobody said ‘now we can take all the money we have produced, and distribute it among ourselves’. One cannot eliminate that danger completely, but I think that in Czechoslovakia the people would have been able to solve this problem.

How about the tendency of a decentralized system to increase economic inequality? Do you think that would have happened in Czechoslovakia?

Yes, I think it would have happened and it was already happening even before 1968, as a reaction against the egalitarian system introduced in 1955. Under the latter, everybody in Czechoslovakia was within a narrow range of salaries. This means that there were no material rewards for responsible jobs, whether for intellectual work or for important posts in the factories. From the ideological point of view, you may say that this was progress. But in the transitional period of development of a socialist society, I think it is necessary to use both moral and material incentives. Precisely because a socialist society should favour technical and scientific development more than capitalist society does, its technical and scientific personnel should be paid accordingly. Of course, even in this period, inequalities did exist, in the sense that even if people had identical salaries, some of them—party leaders for instance—had many other facilities.

Certainly Czechoslovakia in the early 1960s did not give an impression of great equality—quite the opposite. High party officials had cars, large flats, a very comfortable existence in general at a time when this was not true of the mass of Czech workers. There were even special shops where party officials could buy foreign produce and other goods not generally available. This was not equality, was it?

I was coming to that. I was speaking before about the great majority of the population, and I think there was equality among them. For example, if you walked through Prague on Sunday, it was difficult to perceive who was a university professor, who was an engineer and who was a worker. All were roughly on the same level. But, of course, the exceptions were the party leaders. The party bureaucracy had a lot of special privileges. They had been far more numerous in the fifties; by the early sixties they were already diminishing, but they still certainly existed. For example there was a famous story about what happened in 1968, when the party treasurer was dismissed from the Central Committee and as a sort of defence he sent a letter to the Central Committee meeting (the letter has never been published, I might add) in which he enumerated how much money the various members of the leadership had received over and above their official salaries. The leaders named were obliged to pay into the party coffers all the party contributions which they had neglected to pay over the years on their earnings. In some cases this came to enormous sums of money. Even so, these privileges were far smaller in Czechoslovakia than in the Soviet Union or some other Communist countries.

But I was mainly speaking before about the majority of the population, and I think it is true perhaps that we were tending in 1968 towards a greater differentiation of salaries among workers, and also among the intellectuals and the peasants. This differentiation was tied to the real contribution they made to the national economy, or to the productivity of their work. In general, it meant greater rewards for the intelligentsia, who had been undervalued and underpaid. I do not think this would lead to any very great contradictions, and I do not think that we could apply the same system in Czechoslovakia as in China, with everybody having basically the same salary. I do not think this could be viable in a modern European socialist society. What do you think?

The equality of ‘to each according to his needs’ is surely the goal of socialism, isn’t it?

Yes, it is the goal.

We could come very close to that goal in advanced industrial economies today.

What do you mean by advanced? In Czechoslovakia, which was the most advanced industrial country in the socialist bloc, in fact there was a terrible shortage of the most basic goods. No poverty, of course, but you still cannot apply the formula ‘to each according to his needs’ until there is an abundance of goods.

Surely it is not just a question of shortages, it is also a question of a bureaucratic system of administration, which is not responsible to the workers and which must repress their initiative if it is to defend its monopoly of decision-making. Very often, large quantities of things are produced that nobody wants to consume. There is a sort of bureaucratic overproduction of goods that can’t be sold.

That is not by chance. This is a necessary result of a centralized planning system which imposes the plan of production from a single centre without taking into consideration the real needs of the country. There I would like to take up another left criticism of the Prague Spring. I am referring to the view that Šik’s economic reforms were designed to introduce a market economy in Czechoslovakia. This is a misunderstanding of the real aim of the reform. It was to combine the system of centralized state planning with responsiveness to certain pressures of the market; but market in the sense of socialist market, i.e. what the people really need. The aim is precisely to prevent the production of goods which are not needed and cannot be sold, and to ensure that goods which are needed are on the market.

The goal of revolutionary Marxists in a transitional society must be to rediscover the appropriate contemporary form of workers’ power, corresponding to the Soviets in Russia during and after 1917. Do you think that this could have been one possible line of development of the Prague Spring, or was the latter merely an attempt to put a human face on bureaucratic socialism?

I think we have already discussed the question of whether the Prague Spring involved liberalization or democratization, and I said that its momentum was towards democratization. The expression ‘socialism with a human face’ was coined to make clear that the aim was to build a socialist society different from that which had been constructed in the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries. But it is true that there was a real difficulty in using basic Marxist concepts which had lost their original meaning entirely for most people. For example, ‘Soviet power’ had no meaning beyond that of the Soviet Union; a great power, symbol of ‘order’, with a specific economic, social and political system which was considered by some communists as a model.

Soviet power only lasted for a short period after the Revolution. The usual explanation is that this was due to foreign intervention and civil war, and it is true, of course, that these played their roles. But the real tragedy in the Soviet Union was that certain measures which were probably necessary as provisional measures for a certain period were then taken as real socialist ones. I am referring above all to the limitation of opposition inside the party—the ban on factions and discussion, which put the party on a semi-military footing appropriate only to a war situation.

Perhaps we could turn now to the question of foreign policy during the Prague Spring. Many people on the Left were concerned about this and felt that Czech foreign policy was tending towards increased rapprochement with the West and decreased emphasis on the anti-imperialist struggle. But was there at the same time any fundamental discussion on what a socialist foreign policy should be? After all one of the things that clearly began to happen during the Prague Spring was that a whole range of problems connected with the nature of Stalinism began to be examined. Many things were published which had previously been banned. Did this discussion of Stalinism go back to the theory of ‘socialism in one country’ and was there any discussion of foreign policy in terms of a return to proletarian internationalism?

There are two problems here. First, on the ideological level, that of discovering the deep roots of Stalinism. There was a lot of discussion about this and many articles were written on the subject. Moreover, we were able to read certain texts which had previously been prohibited; for example, Literary Listy translated Isaac Deutscher and even some texts by Trotsky and Bukharin were published and some articles about the Moscow trials. But such things were discouraged by the party leadership, on the grounds that they would create problems with the Soviet Union, whereas we should try for the time being to avoid anything which might worsen relations. It should never be forgotten, as left critics sometimes do forget, that the whole development of the Prague Spring took place in the shadow of Russian pressure. Furthermore, Moscow did not merely have the ability to exert economic, military and political pressure, it also had a fifth column inside Czechoslovakia, within the security forces, army and state apparatus. This constant Russian pressure certainly explains why some things happened more slowly than many people would have liked—but it would hardly have been able to prevent them permanently.

The second problem concerns foreign policy. This was, in fact, the field least affected by the new course of 1968. This may seem paradoxical, since the Russians justified the invasion at the time principally by the approaches which Czechoslovakia was supposedly making to West Germany, the United States, and so on. But, in fact, Czechoslovakia in 1968 was in total contrast, for example, to Romania, where internal policy remains basically Stalinist while there is a certain freedom and initiative in international politics. In Czechoslovakia in 1968 it was the contrary. There was innovation in internal politics, but on the international level there were no particularly new developments and Czechoslovakia declared quite sincerely that it basically supported the policies of the Soviet Union.

Of course, what was new was that international policy was no longer a monopoly of the party and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It began to be possible for people to express their own views about it, which they had not previously been allowed to do, and it began to be influenced by public opinion. For example, take the question of relations between Czechoslovakia and Israel. In the Arab countries it was sometimes alleged that Czechoslovakia was moving closer to Israel. This was not true. Czechoslovakia continued its support for the Arab countries and it continued to supply them with armaments. What was new was that certain people, particularly among the intelligentsia, asked why we had this one-sided policy in the Middle East. They said that we should re-examine whether this policy was really progressive; whether these Arab countries were really socialist as we were told, or whether they were not, in fact, nationalist countries; whether it was correct to have broken off diplomatic relations with Israel when we had diplomatic relations with the United States who were waging the war in Vietnam. At that time I was the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Commission of Parliament, and I defended party policy at many meetings on this topic. At the same time I realized that these critics were quite logical in asking why we had not broken off diplomatic relations when the United States had started to bomb North Vietnam. For this was a far more blatant case of imperialist aggression than the situation in the Middle East. Moreover, Communists were in prison in several of the Arab countries. As for West Germany, we only asked them to annul the Munich Agreement. Scheel was invited to Prague and I received him in my capacity of chairman of the Foreign Affairs Commission.13 The Soviet Union attacked his visit, calling him a ‘war-monger’, but only one year later the ‘war-monger’ went on a friendly visit to Moscow.

Czechoslovakia continued its foreign policy on issues like Vietnam. True, not much popular enthusiasm was shown in support of Vietnam or Cuba, but this was because any popular initiative was quickly absorbed or neutralized by the State. Furthermore, if you are allowed to protest against the political repression in Greece or Spain, but not against student arrests in Poland or Czechoslovakia, you become easily demoralized. For example, the students once decided to collect money for Vietnam following a suggestion from the IUS, but the party came out against it. It was said that as the government had already given money to Vietnam, the best way the people could help Vietnam was to increase production. Again, during the Bay of Pigs invasion, the foreign students in Prague took the initiative and called for a demonstration at the American Embassy. Many Czech students joined in, but it was stopped by the police in case it created problems with the Americans. In the course of time such expressions of international solidarity lost their attraction. The foreign policy at the popular level was characterized by confusion. For example, during the May Day Parade in 1968, some students were carrying placards saying ‘Long Live Al Fatah’ while others shouted ‘Long Live Israel’. For some people, supporting Israel meant opposing the official party policy and that of the Soviet Union. This confusion had its roots in the fact that real problems were never discussed publicly or with the masses.

To conclude the question of foreign policy, there was no shift in the basic alignment. Some people did feel, however, that it should become more independent, that Czechoslovakia should not only repeat what the Soviet Union said.

Could we move on now to the Soviet military intervention? What, in your view, was the decisive reason for the Russian decision?

I think it was the fear of the Soviet bureaucracy that the Czechoslovakian experiment would overcome its difficulties and succeed in creating a different kind of socialist society. For this would have exerted a powerful force of attraction on the neighbouring countries of East Europe and threatened Soviet hegemony over them.

I don’t think the Russians really believed for a moment that Czechoslovakia was threatened by invasion from West Germany. Nor do I think that they really believed there was any danger of counterrevolution. They knew the situation, and they knew that right-wing forces were much too weak to take to the streets in Czechoslovakia. Moreover, there was no intervention when the Czech party was genuinely under pressure in March and April. At this time, the party had lost the initiative. There was great pressure from below, but the party had no programme, until the Action Programme was published at the end of April. The ‘Progressive Group’ had not yet been formed. There was an explosion of information and almost complete freedom of expression; the Communist Party was under fire and on the defensive. In this situation, the Russians did not intervene to prevent counter-revolution. With the publication of the Action Programme and the adoption of measures showing that it really meant to carry this programme out—I am thinking of the law on rehabilitation, the plan for the establishment of factory councils, the new party statutes, etcetera—the party won back the initiative. Thanks to the external pressure, it even became a real national force supported by the majority of the people. When the decision was taken in June to call a party congress, it was already clear that the congress would consolidate the position of the Dubcek leadership.14 There was no danger of any split in the party itself, because the conservative group was quite small and isolated. It was clear that the congress would give the party even more strength to carry out its policy. I think it was precisely this that the Russians feared. They saw that the new Central Committee, with its new statutes, would be much more difficult to control than the old one—which was after all still unchanged from Novotny’s time. I think a definite date for the invasion was decided when the Russians realized that the date of the Congress could not be changed. At the Cierna meeting between the two politburos at the beginning of August, the main pressure from Brezhnev was to postpone the congress, which was already convened for 9 September 1968, and to put through certain changes of personnel before the congress took place. It should be stressed that the Czechoslovak party did not seek to present its new course as a model for other countries. On the contrary. Some intellectuals went on about the eyes of the world being on Czechoslovakia, but the party was concerned to dispel any idea that it was setting itself up as a model. But the Soviet Union was well aware that if the Czech experiment was allowed to succeed, it would inevitably have repercussions in the other socialist countries. It was not accidental that Gomułka, Ulbricht and Shelest, the first secretary of the Ukranian Communist Party—that is, the leaders of three countries bordering on Czechoslovakia—should have been the most enthusiastic proponents of intervention.15

Who else was pressing for it in the Soviet Union? Do you think the Army command was enthusiastic about it?

That is difficult to say. I think it was seen more as a political than as a military necessity. But the Army was certainly in favour of the invasion. Soviet officers with whom we talked after the intervention claimed that Stalin’s greatest mistake, after his failure to prevent the German attack in 1941, was his failure to incorporate the East European countries as constituent republics of the Soviet Union in 1945.

But quite apart from whatever the Russian military may think, the Soviet leadership certainly sees the presence of the Red Army as the only real guarantee of their political control over the other socialist countries. Czechoslovakia was one of the few countries with no Soviet troops on its territory. Novotny himself has said that he was asked several times to accept Soviet military bases, but that he had always refused. The Prague Spring provided a pretext to put Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia. The party bureaucracy really does consider the army as the best means of controlling the Eastern European countries; and as long as there were no Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia they were uneasy.

Incidentally, it is interesting to learn from the Piller Report that this issue had arisen as early as 1949, when Rákósi and Bierut wrote to Stalin and to Gottwald expressing their concern about developments in Czechoslovakia.16 They pointed out that the Czechs had so far failed to discover any agents of imperialism in the party and they claimed that Czechoslovakia was the weakest link since there were no units of the Soviet Army on Czech soil.

Could you tell us something about the discussions which were taking place inside the Czech party before the invasion? About the possibility of invasion, about the appropriate response to the invasion threat, and about what could be done to make it less likely?

In fact I think there were very few people in responsible positions in the party who really considered the possibility of Soviet military intervention. First of all I think it was probably a mistake for Dubcek to hide the true extent of Soviet pressure from the masses. It meant that nobody was aware of how great the pressure was. Of course, there were rumours, there were reports of articles hostile to the Czech development, but the daily pressure which was exerted by the Soviet leadership on Dubcek and the other leaders was not known even to the party activists.

What was your own estimate of Soviet reaction to the developments in Czechoslovakia?

I knew something of the way they were thinking, but only through my personal contacts in the Soviet Union. My case was not typical and the position of the Soviet Union was not discussed within the Central Committee in a realistic way. At the Dresden meeting in March 1968 the first strongly critical reaction to the Czechoslovakian development was expressed by the other members of the Warsaw Pact. The Western press published some articles about this. Those responsible for radio, television and the press were convened to meet Dubcek on his return from this meeting. He told us that economic relations and plans for development and cooperation were discussed, but he did not mention Soviet pressure. I asked Dubcek whether the Western newspaper reports were correct in saying that Czechoslovakia had been criticized at Dresden. He replied that they were not. Later, after the invasion, Dubcek was criticized by other members of the Czech delegation at Dresden who said that he had hidden from us the criticism by Ulbricht, Gomułka and the others. Dubcek then replied that it was true that he had concealed this from us, but that to do so had been the unanimous agreement of the Czech delegation. Novotny was still in the Praesidium and they did not want to encourage the forces he represented; furthermore it was Dubcek’s sincere opinion during this whole period that to reveal the extent of Soviet pressure would create anti-Soviet feeling, and this he wished to avoid. He did his best to stop rumours about the Soviet position circulating, for this reason. Even in those party circles which were somewhat more aware of the real situation, there was no thought of a military intervention, but rather of some economic pressure or blockade. Dubcek himself, and many other people including myself, were convinced that since Stalin had not dared to occupy Yugoslavia, then Brezhnev would not imagine he could do this to Czechoslovakia. After all Stalin at that time was militarily very strong and enjoyed much greater prestige in the international Communist movement than the present Soviet leaders. We thought that after the Twentieth Party Congress and after what happened in Hungary, a crudely military intervention was no longer possible. Dubcek personally was convinced that the Soviet Union would exert all kinds of pressure, but would not go this far.

However, there were people like General Prchlik, who was head of the Department for Defence and Security, who wished to submit to the leadership a paper outlining the alternatives in case of a Soviet invasion. The army and the security forces had discovered that the objective of the Soviet Army manoeuvres in Czechoslovakia in June and July had been to put itself in a position where it could control our communications systems. They had made maps of how this system worked, they had laid cables underground and they had established the location of all telephone and postal facilities, including those only used by state organizations. This was known to the security forces, though since some of the security officers were Soviet agents there were conflicting reports. Moreover, the existence of General Prchlik’s suggestion for a contingency plan was passed on to the Soviet Embassy through these people. This led to an immediate Soviet reaction. They asked how it was possible for a man capable of such a provocation to be head of the armed forces and a member of the Central Committee. There was an official diplomatic note from the Soviet Union directed against Prchlik, taking as a pretext the fact that he had called at a press conference for some reforms in the Warsaw Pact—very minor reforms which were later, in 1970, to be adopted. Dubcek decided to sacrifice Prchlik and dismissed him from his post. I think this was a decisive moment. From this point on the Soviet Union knew that Czechoslovakia would not attempt to defend itself in the case of a military intervention. Prchlik was sacrified as a symbol of our full confidence in the Soviet Union.

The question will be debated for many years whether any course of action could have been taken to avert the Soviet intervention. Some people in the party argued that it could have been avoided if Czechoslovakia had behaved in a more compliant manner. I do not believe this. The experience of Yugoslavia and Romania shows that the only possibility of deterring the Soviet Union would have been to tell the Soviet leaders clearly that although we were willing to continue any discussions and wished [Czechoslovakia] to remain a loyal member of the Warsaw Pact, yet in the case of any attempt at a military solution, Czechoslovakia would defend herself and would mobilize the people and army. The failure to do this was to some extent an expression of the absence of a clear attitude towards democratization which we have already discussed. Our leaders hesitated to mobilize the masses and to give a clear lead to the country, to distribute arms to the people and declare that we would not be moved by threats. I personally am convinced that if such a line of action had been taken by Dubcek, the Soviet Union would not have dared to launch the invasion. They would, of course, have continued to exert other types of pressure, but they would not have gone further than that. Some people said that any talk of resistance would simply goad the Soviet Union to extreme action and that Moscow was ready to destroy Prague. But if the Soviet representatives made threats of this sort, then it was just the application of psychological pressure. After all they did not want to create a Vietnam for themselves—it is not so easy for them to envisage massacring thousands of people in Central Europe. The course of action adopted by the Czechoslovak leaders was incapable of opposing the invasion. It showed a serious lack of revolutionary spirit.

What was the situation when the invasion took place? Presumably as soon as it happened it was necessary to decide how to react? At what level was that decision taken and what forms of resistance were discussed inside the party?

We learnt of the invasion only after it had happened, at 11.20 p.m. on 21 August, while a meeting of the Praesidium was still in progress. We know today that certain members of the Praesidium were aware of what was about to happen—Bil’ak, Indra and some others.17 It seems that there may have been some misunderstanding between them and the Soviet Union. The pro-Soviet elements in the leadership had hoped to impose a resolution on the Praesidium declaring that there was a danger of counterrevolution and that the party congress, which was imminent and would have consolidated the Dubcek leadership, would have to be postponed. However, this resolution had not been voted on at the time of the invasion. Some people say that the plan was not properly coordinated because while it was one o’clock in Moscow it was eleven o’clock in Prague. However, whether or not this played a part, the Praesidium, on learning of the invasion, adopted a resolution condemning it and making it clear that no intervention had been invited. The Praesidium asked the army not to resist and made arrangements for convening a meeting of the Central Committee next day.

Was the possibility of armed resistance discussed in the Praesidium?

No, not at all. The discussion turned on whether the invasion should be condemned. In fact the biggest discussion was about an amendment to the effect that the invasion was a violation of international law and of the norms governing the relations between socialist states. I think it is an illustration of the weakness of the leadership that they condemned the invasion, but without making any appeal to the people or letting them know what they should do. I was in the Central Committee building that night. They were saying that all was lost; the airport had been taken, tanks were moving forward everywhere and units from the airport were already beginning to surround the Central Committee building. The possibility of armed resistance had already been lost, though there were some in the army who were thinking that they should fight and some generals were removed from their posts because of this. But nothing could be done. When the president, who was chief of the armed forces, had given the order to put up no resistance, then the officers had to accept it. The time for contemplating armed resistance was earlier.

What was now possible was to confront the occupiers with a political resistance which they could not ignore and to deny them any political solution on their terms. This was the time for the party leadership to mobilize the masses, to convene the party congress and to study other forms of action such as a general strike. Instead the leaders merely declared that they were against the occupation and did nothing but wait in the Central Committee building to be captured by the Soviet Army. Until six or seven o’clock in the morning they had the opportunity to leave the building by a secret exit of which the Soviet units were unaware. We wanted Dubcek to leave, to go to the ckd factory in Prague 9 and to organize political action from there.18 But Dubcek thought that as they were the leaders of the party and the country they should stay at their posts and do their duty like the captain staying on the bridge of a sinking ship. Dubcek was a very honest man and he thought he should sacrifice himself for others. But he was thinking legalistically; a revolutionary leader would have acted in a quite different way, he would have gone to the factories and mobilized the workers. This was proved by what happened. On the initiative of the City Committee of the party in Prague the scheduled congress of the party was convened for an extraordinary meeting. All the delegates for this congress had, of course, been elected prior to the invasion. The congress was held on 23 August in a proletarian district of Prague and there was nothing the occupying forces could do about it. The Russians did not want to send armoured cars into that district to shoot the workers. But although the convening of the Congress was to be a great success, there was still no clear decision on the resistance. Over 1,200 delegates attended the Congress, which the occupation forces did not at all expect. At the Congress there was a long discussion as to whether to declare a general strike or only a one-hour strike. It is very interesting that many were afraid of declaring a general strike on the grounds that it was the workers’ ultimate weapon and should not be lightly used. In the event the Congress decided to call for a one-hour general strike. It was observed throughout the country and was a full success, but of course it could not have the same effect as a proper general strike. On the other hand, the Soviet Army did find itself in a political vacuum.

Their attempt to create a so-called workers’ and peasants’ government with a collaborator at its head did not succeed because of the universal opposition of the masses and because the Congress had made clear that the party was overwhelmingly against the invasion. At this point no potential collaborator had the courage to take on his shoulders the odious task of abetting the occupation. When the Soviet authorities realized that they had failed to secure the basis for a collaboration regime, they invited President Svoboda to go to Moscow. When news of this plan came through we were at the congress in Prague 9. We tried to convince Svoboda from the congress not to go to Moscow. He was still in his official residence in Prague Castle, and we spoke to him by phone. It was clear to us that the Soviet plan was in difficulties since they had no one through whom they could control the country politically. By this time Dubcek and other top party leaders had been kidnapped and taken by plane to the Ukraine, where they were held at a military airport. If the occupying powers had succeeded in establishing the so-called revolutionary government, then Dubcek and the others would have all been shot as counter-revolutionaries. But since they failed, the Soviet leaders were forced to bring them to Moscow after about five days. They needed to negotiate with someone and they needed to find some leadership which would accept the occupation. The solidity of the resistance in Czechoslovakia itself meant that they were forced to bargain with these people whom they had intended to destroy. We tried unsuccessfully to persuade Svoboda not to go to Moscow, pointing out to him that it was not us who were in difficulties but rather the occupying forces. The Soviet Union was being condemned by the whole world, especially by various sections of the communist and workers’ movement itself. Although they had invaded Czechoslovakia, they had no control over it. The occupying armies were in a mess; they had shortages of essential supplies, including food. The ordinary Soviet soldier was very confused and demoralized. Everywhere our people were asking them why they were invading a brother socialist country and the Russian soldiers did not know what to answer. There were a number of suicides of Soviet soldiers at this time. A very impressive mass response to the occupation had developed. But although party militants were very active in this, it was difficult for us to draw the full political advantage from it. The leaders in whom the masses had confidence were cut off from them and could not be fully aware of what was happening in Czechoslovakia. If Dubcek had been with us in the ckd factory at the Congress and if there had been a full general strike, then the situation would have been very different. I don’t say that the Soviet forces would have immediately withdrawn, but the relationship of forces would have been very different. Of course all these problems belong to the past, but they are also problems of general revolutionary strategy. The lesson of Czechoslovakia is that nothing can really be achieved without the action of the masses.

There was, of course, an explosion of popular resistance in the days following the invasion. To what extent did the party organize this?

Those who were most active in organizing the resistance were party members but, in fact, we had no instructions to do what we did. For example, we very quickly developed a series of underground radio stations and newspapers. These were able to report the real progress of the occupation and the difficulties the occupying authorities were running into, to report the worldwide reaction to what happened and to give orientation to our people. But this was all organized on their own account by those who worked in radio, television and the other media. For they found they could enlist the support of citizens in every quarter, in the army and in the state organizations. Of course there were some agents of the occupying power, mainly members of the old security forces, but we were quickly able to neutralize their activities. The numbers of the cars they were using were broadcast over the radio and they found it very difficult to operate. Editors were arranging things for themselves and making sure that they could continue to produce their papers. The fact that the party congress came out so clearly against the invasion and accepted responsibility for opposing it gave it great moral strength and popular support. The occupying forces had an enormous concentration of military firepower, but so long as we maintained a solid front against them they had no political presence in the situation. It is true that they could kill a lot of people, but this did not give them the control of the situation they wanted. At the same time I believe that the resistance could have become much better coordinated and the force that existed could have been organized. But instead this phase of popular resistance was brought to an end by the protocol signed in Moscow between our leaders and the Soviet leaders. For the Czechoslovak Communist Party this was the beginning of the end. The people had been ready for resistance, they were ready to oppose the occupation by all forms.

The leaders of the party in Moscow were cut off from this development. But even if they thought we were defeated, it would have been better not to sign this Protocol. It would have been better to remain as symbols of a new cause, which could arise again when circumstances permitted, than to sign this political death warrant. From this point Dubcek and the others who signed were being used by the Soviet Union to keep people quiet and to help them get control of the situation again. Yes, they were under intolerable pressure, but the course they adopted was to lead to their own destruction just as surely. At that time the Russians needed them because the people still had confidence in them. All those who were suspected of having collaborated with the invasion were completely discredited. The Moscow Protocol gave time for a thoroughly collaborationist element to establish itself under the protection of Dubcek and soon to displace him. Initially, Dubcek’s prestige was so great that nearly everyone was prepared to go along with what had been done. On 31 August, the day after his return from Moscow, a meeting of the Central Committee was called. This was the old Central Committee but enlarged by the presence of eighty of the delegates to the party congress. Under the terms of the Moscow agreement the party congress was held to have been illegal. By enlarging the old Central Committee, Dubcek tried to get round this by some compromise. At this meeting only one representative spoke out against the Moscow agreement. Others may have doubted the wisdom of signing the protocol, but they still had confidence in Dubcek. After all, he wanted the best for our people and they felt they should not complicate his task. So when this young man from Moravia said we must destroy the Moscow agreement, they did not allow discussion of this. We may conclude that there were three mistakes made in the course of this whole development. The first mistake was that the leadership did not mobilize against the possibility of an invasion before it took place, and make it clear to the Soviet Union that it would not just be a walkover. The second was that they waited in the Central Committee instead of going to the factories and organizing resistance. The third was that they signed the Moscow agreement.

What has happened to the Communist Party now, more than three years later, and what role will it play in the future?

Well, I would say that the whole process of normalization has made it into a quite different party now. Half a million of the most active members have been expelled or have left. There has been a return of the old Stalinist structure and methods of administration. It is not by chance that they are again glorifying Gottwald, who let his own friends be arrested and executed by Stalin. The Czechoslovak party is now really a branch of the Soviet party. Of course there were always remnants of Stalinism in our party. It cannot be said that this current development has just dropped from the heavens. In 1968 there were the elements for a split in the party. But at that time the new majority wanted to introduce a new statute whereby the minority could maintain its position and fight for it. The Stalinists were in a minority, but we didn’t want to expel them; we wanted them to fight for their ideas, but with arguments.

What implications do you think this transformation of the party has for the future?

It means, and I think this applies elsewhere as well as in Czechoslovakia, that basic changes will not come from inside the party. Since the defeat of the Prague Spring the development of the party is such that a socialist renewal could not come from inside this new Stalinist party. This does not mean that all who are in it are completely lost, but those who would like things to change are in a minority and they are passive. Of course, we should try to find allies within the party, within the trade unions and other official organizations. An opposition always develops inside the bureaucracy since it is not capable of solving the problems that confront it. Even when it knows how such a problem can be solved, it cannot implement its solution because it does not have the support of the masses on whom all solutions depend. Generally these parties are very isolated from the masses.

What then is your estimate of the significance of liberalizing trends within the governing bureaucracy?

The goal of revolutionary socialists and the goal of the liberalizers are quite different. But that does not mean that the path to an anti-bureaucratic revolution may not lie through some sort of period of liberalization in these countries. Such a liberalization at least allows the workers, the young people and the intellectuals the chance to organize themselves. In such a period they can find themselves; they can work out and express their aims before the confrontation. Otherwise there is a danger that a spontaneous explosion—for example between workers and police—will lead to bloodshed, but not to any political change. In fact such an explosion could even be used by reactionary and counter-revolutionary forces. This is a complicated problem because the political consciousness of the masses has been very much weakened and confused by the bureaucratic regimes. I think the people have first of all to clarify their ideas in a freer climate if they are to carry through a real revolution inside the revolution.

How do you conceive the revolution needed in Czechoslovakia and similar countries?

I think the countries that call themselves socialist are, in fact, some transitional form of society—it is a sort of state socialism dominated by a bureaucracy which is not controlled by the workers. The path of revolution in these countries will be different from its course in a capitalist country. In some ways the position of the ruling stratum is weaker since it is not built into the structure of production; the bourgeoisie has been eliminated and basic industry has already been nationalized. The problem is to defeat the bureaucracy and to destroy the bureaucratic structures. I would call this a revolution inside the revolution.

As to how we will organize for this new revolution, we have been asking ourselves recently whether the future belongs to the system of political parties or not. The result of the analysis made by my friends in Czechoslovakia is that the old conception of the revolutionary party is not appropriate any longer to our situation. Lenin’s theory of the party played a certain historical role, but we think that for us a much more suitable form of organization would be the movement. This would have a common ideological platform but not the rigid structure of the party. I am sure that the moving force in the renewal of socialism in our countries will be really democratic mass organizations; trade unions, workers’ councils, local soviets and other forms of direct democracy.

Surely there is no contradiction between, on the one hand, workers’ councils and soviets, as the form of organization of the revolutionary state, and, on the other, revolutionary parties which act as a force within these institutions? In the West we have had experience of amorphous, decentralized movements and they usually turn out to be both undemocratic and ineffective. In the context of a soviet or workers’ council, political parties could ensure the clarification of different policies and platforms: they would mean that such bodies could follow policies rather than personalities. In this sense political parties are surely complementary to institutions of popular power?

Well, I think a movement could develop political platforms in the same way. You know it is only a question of what we understand by the traditional political party. I agree with you that there is no contradiction between democratically organized parties and soviets or workers’ councils. But I had in mind first of all the existing socialist countries and the existing Communist Parties which monopolize all politics in a Stalinist fashion. I know that in Czechoslovakia the people will never willingly accept this system. All these parties are organized in more or less the same way and all of them impose themselves as the leading force in all state institutions and mass organizations. A democratically organized party would operate in a quite different way and could not assume that it would automatically be the leading force in society; if it wanted this position it would have to win it by gaining the confidence of the people. You have got to remember that revolutionaries in our countries are not confronted with a capitalist social structure. In our society there are no basic contradictions between social classes. This means that if we have several parties and movements they would not correspond to different class viewpoints; they would all operate within the framework of socialism, but they would have different conceptions of how socialism should be built.

It is a remarkable fact that oppositions do now exist in Eastern Europe in nearly every country. Even in the Soviet Union there are underground journals and a core of open oppositionists for the first time since the twenties. Do you think there are any parallels between the new opposition which is emerging today and the main oppositional currents in the twenties and thirties?

Well, the situation has completely changed so naturally there are many differences. The Soviet Union’s position in the world has altered greatly and the whole society is now much more developed. But there are perhaps some underlying similarities all the same. Firstly they were attacking the same system that we are attacking, the Stalinist system—but whereas they opposed it in its infancy we are now opposing it in its old age. This difference is already clear. The bureaucracy is no longer so effective as it was in the old days. It does not have such a clear conception of where it is going, it cannot accomplish the tasks it sets itself, and it has not been able simply to eliminate all its opponents. The second similarity is that our generation has again recovered the feeling that the situation can be changed. The old revolutionaries, the old Bolsheviks, had this feeling because they had made a revolution. This gave them the courage to struggle for what they believed in despite the ruthlessness of the bureaucracy. Today we again feel that there can and must be a change and that we can help to bring it about. But for us the revolution does not lie in the past—it lies in the future.