Word: ek
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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WHEN the curtain first went up on the drama of Czechoslovakia, TIME'S cover story (April 5) on Alexander Dubček observed that, more than any other man, he had "planned, pleaded for and nurtured the sweeping changes that promise to alter the temper and quality of Czechoslovak life, and perhaps the nature of Communism in the rest of Eastern Europe as well." As that drama began to climax with a confrontation between Dubček and a phalanx of irritated Russian leaders, TIME'S correspondents concerned themselves last week not only with the central characters...
...Retreat. Besieged all week by harsh notes, threats and warnings from the Soviet Union and its followers-and pressured further by the continued presence of the Russian troops-Dubček took to national TV to rally his people around him. He talked as no Communist leader had ever dared to do before. Czechoslovakia, he pledged, would "not make the slightest retreat from the path that we took up in January." He called upon all Czechoslovaks to press forward to "develop socialism into a free, modern and profoundly humane society. Since the party cannot change the people, it must itself...
...Russians had set up radio transmitters within Czechoslovakia with which they could either jam all Czechoslovak broadcasts or beam their own propaganda into the country's homes. They had also, reported Prchlík, invited ex-Party Boss Novotny to Moscow to broadcast a plea for Dubček's overthrow via their network. (Last week Novotny was waiting things out at a country villa at Rokycany, about nine miles from Pilsen, where he was under close surveillance.) The Russian embassy in Prague contains a printing plant that has been turning out a stream of antireform leaflets...
...Union ultimately takes in handling the Czechoslovak crisis - from inaction to armed intervention-it will have to pay dearly. If Moscow chooses muscle, it will not only antagonize most of the non-Communist world but will also alienate many Communist countries and national parties. If it permits Dubček to proceed, his sweeping reforms are bound to spread elsewhere and further weaken Russia's hold over its Communist neighbors. The Kremlin is caught in an enormous dilemma and. no matter what it does, the shape and strength of what used to be called the Communist bloc are bound...
Moscow has watched the other Communist governments of Eastern Europe split badly on the Czechoslovak issue. Communist parties throughout Western Europe, moreover, reared back in almost unanimous disapproval of Russian pressure on Prague. In campaigns to win support from respectable liberals, their leaders had advertised Dubček's "renewal," as Italian Party Boss Luigi Longo called it, to be the party's exciting new image. Now Moscow has damaged and perhaps destroyed that image. The resulting bitterness in the Communist camp has raised serious doubt that the Kremlin will really be able to hold the summit meeting...