Word: czechoslovaks
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Stalin murdered millions, but seldom assassinated to enforce foreign policy. It might be argued that the elimination of Leon Trotsky in his Mexican exile in 1940 was an act of policy, but he was a Russian. A better example was the death of Czechoslovak Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk in 1948, a defenestration that the official report described as suicide but was almost surely an act of the Kremlin...
...obvious since we learn later that his grandfather's real name was Bergmann! (The latter arrived poor from Galicia and within five years owned already all the pubs and breweries in town!) In a style reminiscent of the Nazi era or more recently of General Brown. Pludek presents the Czechoslovak reform movement of 1968 as only a part of a large. Zionist plot, which started with the 1967 six-day war in the Middle East and was to end with "the seizure of the government of the major world powers...
...spent a year and a half in cruel conditions of investigation custody, before being brought to trial. His conduct was exceptionally courageous and he failed to give in to the psychological blackmail or to the physical torments inflicted by the Czechoslovak secret police. Equally courageous was his behavior when facing the court in the summer of 1971. He refused to testify or to participate in its pre-arranged farcical proceedings. He was sentenced to two years in prison...
...This time around, he is charged with defamation of the Soviet Union and other friendly countries and of their leaders and with 'corrupting the morale and the military and political preparedness of soldiers (articles 100 and 288 of the Czechoslovak Penal Code). Each count carries the maximum penalty of three years in prison. Given the present conditions in Czechoslovakia, there is no doubt that Dejmal will be found guilty. The verdict, the sentence, and even the type of prison conditions are usually determined in advance; the authorities will easily find as many witnesses as necessary...
...Fear for the life of Ivan Dejmal is inspired not only by the pending sentence but also by the psychological pressure he is facing daily. It is unclear how long he will be able to resist, all by himself, the methods of the Czechoslovak secret police. He would not be the first Czechoslovak political prisoner of the seventies to surrender his life "voluntarily," either in investigation custody or upon returning from prison. Fear for his life is further enhanced by the tenacity with which Ivan Dejmal has been persecuted long after he was barred from any political or academic activity...