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Jiri Pelikan 10 YEARS LATER JIRI PELIKAN The “Prague Spring” of Czechoslovakia, ideological crisis. It was important to see if 1968, is still discussed ten years after it was socialism would give the Czechoslovakian quelled by direct Soviet military people more liberty, democracy and intervention. Voices are still raised in participation in managing society in a Prague, despite repression and developed country — as preconceived by “normalisation” — like those of Dubcek, Marx and Engels — than in countries which Kriegel, Kahout, Vaculik and other had no history of parliamentary democracy protagonists of 1968 who remain faithful to or had come directly from feudal regimes or the ideals of the Prague Spring; the youth dictatorships as in Russia, China, Cuba, and political fringe; Christians; liberals and Portugal and Vietnam, without denying the forbidden underground cultural movements importance of respective changes. which reject the hypocrisy of the occupation This was why leading bureaucratic groups regime and demand respect for “ human in Moscow, Berlin and Warsaw had to stifle rights”. It is those disparate political and the Prague Spring on August 20, 1968. They cultural elements which form the “ Charter were frightened by the germ of a more 77” movement. “libertarian” socialism which could not only The Prague Spring was essentially an contaminate peoples of the Eastern attempt to “ reform” the Soviet socialist countries, but also those of the West. The model by moving towards a more democratic present leaders of the USSR have no interest and pluralist socialism. Accordingly, in a “ Western” socialism which is different democratic and socialist forces of East and from theirs and which may have West were made aware of a democratic, self­ repercussions for them in countries administrating, pluralistic socialism — dominated by them. Hence the type of socialism with a “human face” . “Kadarisation” imposed after August 20, 1968 and why Czechoslovakia is still The movement for “renewal of socialism” controlled by them 10 years later. It was to in Czechoslovakia in 1968 was not purely a discourage others from following the same national or “ accidental” occurrence. It was example. the climax of a long crisis in socialism from which Stalinism had grown, and at the same August 20, 1968 was a shattering time a tangible attempt to form a socialist experience which deprived hundreds of alternative in a developed country. This was thousands of citizens and 500,000 former the real feeling of “The Spring” and the main communists of a political and cultural life; it reason for Soviet intervention. has transformed Czechoslovakia into a “ Biafra of the Spirit” (Louis Aragon), and That attempt at “socialist renewal” was ensured that the Prague Spring cannot be certainly not the first by any Eastern bloc easily repeated. country. One recalls the Budapest revolt and the “ Polish October” of 1956, the refusal of However, traces of the former spirit still Tito and Mao Tse-tung to submit to the remain. It is in the development of a dictates of Moscow. But the uniqueness of “ Eurocommunism” which began with non- Czechoslovakia was that of an economically acceptance of Soviet intervention and has its developed country with traditions of roots in the Prague Spring. It is parliamentary democracy, where the characterised by a more critical attitude to economic basis of socialism had been laid the Soviet model in the awareness that after World War II, in 1945, and where the socialism cannot exist without democracy. imposition of the Soviet model, in 1948, had This new approach appeals to many in the resulted in an economic, political and international left movement which has no TEN YEARS LATER 19 clear ideology or central point of agrement, and cultural dissidence in Eastern European but represents the beginnings of a process countries existed well before the Prague which could overcome the divisions within Spring, but mainly as individual protest. In workers’ movements. In fact, “the universal Czechoslovakia, the expulsion of 500,000 value of democracy” (E. Berlinguer) and from the Communist Party created a huge political pluralism has largely healed the base for opposition to the occupation. For the division between “reformists” and majority of its participants, opposition has to “revolutionaries” . The line of demarcation be in secret because of the presence of the now exists between the partisans of the Soviet Army and genuine fears of reprisals. “Soviet model” and those of a “different The hopes engendered by the “Spring” for socialism” . Resolving this will take a long Eurocommunists and liberals of other time. The Prague Spring will be the point of Eastern European countries have aroused reference, like the Paris Commune has been the fear of leading groups that the same to marxist revolutionaries. phenomena occurring in their countries will lead to Soviet repression so that Some leftwing movements, certain discrimination has taken place against real Communist parties, different radical groups political opposition. and trade unions in Paris, Rome, Berlin, This atmosphere has produced “ghettos” etc. which were more attracted by the of the discriminated composed of actual and romantic visions of Che Guevara, the potential dissidents, which provide new Chinese Cultural Revolution, by Cuba, Viet voices in the struggle. It is because of this Nam, and later Portugal, are now that certain movements have come into discovering the virtues of the less being such as the “Charter 77” in spectacular revolution of Czechoslovakia, Czechoslovakia; the “ Committee for Self- 1968, which the numerous debates and Defence” in Poland; the “Watchdog discussions in many countries of the world Committees of Helsinki” in the USSR, etc. attest. These movements have expelled It could be that 1968 drew in China. Their communists, socialists, christians, liberals disagreements with the USSR up to this time and nationalists — all sharing a common had been mainly ideological. The Soviet platform which includes: the defence of free aggression against Czechoslovakia may speech and religion, the right to strike, have convinced them that they, too, may be freedom of access to information, respect for faced with the menace of Soviet militarism. liberty and the participation of the people in They mobilised their people and armed control of state power, all guaranteed in the forces. They set defensive safeguards by laws and constitutions of Eastern Europe, approaches to the USA, to Western Europe but to which their leaders pay only lip and non-aligned countries (such as service. Australia) whom they previously denounced Thus, one is witnessing the birth of a as “ the united objectives of American culture parallel to the official kind as one can imperialism” . One could say that the volte- see in the various editions of “ Samizdat” in face of Chinese politics which had its th e USSR, “ Edice Petlice” in theoretical expression in the “ theory of three Czechoslovakia, the literary reviews of worlds” (Mao Tse-tung) has its origins from Poland, Hungary, etc. None of that was conclusions made by the Chinese leaders possible before the Prague Spring which, from the aggression against even after its defeat, has shaken the myth Czechoslovakia, by the Soviet military. and stability of the Soviet model in Eastern It is paradoxical that the “ West” has not Europe. understood the true implications of the The essential question now exists for change in Chinese politics. They consider it Eastern Europe: what are the prospects for to be more “ideological” than it really is. The real change and will it be reform or West mistakenly believes that the Chinese revolution? Is an array of “gradual reform” take the Czech lesson lightly, like “ an definitely barred by the defeat of the Prague accident along the way”, when the opposite Spring, as the Polish philosopher Kolakorski is the case. insists? The answer is not easy. In the It is true that the phenomena of political present situation, the chances of another 20 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 67 Spring appear minimal particularly in rupture with Moscow. We do not ask this. We ‘‘normalised’’ Czechoslovakia. merely suggest that they be not taken by Consequently, one can see nothing different surprise as we were in 1968 by under­ developing — no radical tendencies to left or estimating the aggressive stalinist nature of right, no phenomena of anti-Soviet the present Soviet leadership, to understand nationalism, not even anti-socialism. But that the socialist opposition in Eastern there is pressure. Pressure on the European countries is its natural ally in the “Establishments” of Eastern Europe. struggle for a socialist alternative to Pressures especially for economic reform and capitalist society, while ruling bureaucratic the need to “ open” to the West. There is regimes are merely brakes on the ideological cynicism and pragmatism development of socialism throughout the confronting the ideological rigidity of the world. party apparatus and its police, with their The progress to democracy can only be solid ties to Moscow. achieved if it happens simultaneously in two The greatest fault in Dubcek’s leadership or three Eastern European countries like was to believe that one country alone could Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. This g o forward with a process of would prevent Moscow from punishing one democratisation, provided it did not interfere country by punitive intervention like August with foreign policy and provoke Moscow. 20, 1968, or by making “concessions”
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