Word: czechoslovakia
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Political maneuvering will clearly go on for some time. A number of opposition leaders are already demanding the return of Adamec, whom they view as the key to bringing Czechoslovakia such reforms as interim power sharing with the opposition, creation of a multiparty system and curbs on police powers. By week's end Dubcek was calling for still more change. Addressing a vast throng on Saturday in Letna Plain, a parade area overlooking Prague, he said the Politburo shuffle alone "did not meet the demands of the people." The government, he added, is "telling us that the street...
...Czechoslovakia now joins the astonishing avalanche of change that is overtaking Eastern Europe. Poland was the first to move, electing a non- Communist government in August. In the past six weeks, upheavals have taken place in the Hungarian, East German and Bulgarian Communist parties. Nor were events in Prague the only remarkable developments that took place last week...
Referring to Moscow's evident relief at the dramatic turn in Prague, playwright Vaclav Havel, leader of Czechoslovakia's human rights movement, said wryly, "We cannot rule out the situation that all occupiers of this country will have renounced the occupation, and only the occupied will still stand behind it." Added Havel, who is known for his absurdist dramas: "It is like something out of my own plays...
...Czechoslovakia's seething frustrations were rooted partly in a faltering economy. By East bloc standards, the country is relatively prosperous, with ample supplies of basic foodstuffs and fewer housing woes than its neighbors. But Czechoslovakia 50 years ago boasted one of Europe's strongest economies, and many residents compare their living standards not with those of East bloc neighbors but with those of the West. By that measure, Czechoslovaks concluded that their economy was backward...
...more important than economic dissatisfaction, however, was political anger. Czechoslovakia has Eastern Europe's strongest democratic tradition, and its modern supporters argued that the country was being left behind by new experiments in Poland, Hungary and even East Germany. But if tradition served as a goad to some, it was lack of a historical memory that helped spur on others. The generation of Czechoslovaks now coming of age did not experience the trauma of the invasion -- and the fear of provoking a new crackdown. Said Martin Mejstrik, a leader of the university strike: "Our parents are still frightened...