Word: ek
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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When the demand for reform became overwhelming in 1966, the rigid regime of Antonin Novotný hesitantly began decentralizing the economy while trying to maintain tight political control. After Alexander Dubček rose to power in 1968, he added the vital ingredient of political freedom and adopted a series of reforms proposed by Economist Ota Sik. As Deputy Prime Minister under Dubček, Sik initiated far-reaching decentralization and began rapidly to modernize the economy, particularly in consumer industries that had suffered from decades of neglect. Sik also hoped to get $400 million in credits from the West...
...Soviet invasion killed that hope. Dubček's successor, Gustav Husák, justly complains that he took over an economy in chaos-but unjustly blames the Dubcek regime and specifically Sik, who is on indefinite official leave in Switzerland. The chaos is really the result of the repeal of the Dubček and Sik reforms, and of the fact that Czechs today commonly proclaim: "We are not going to work for the Russians." The Soviets, for their part, are doing nothing to help. They are withholding sorely needed credits until political "normalization" is complete...
...euphemism for force. The government has brought in Yugoslav construction crews, Polish textile workers and Hungarian railroad men, and called on Czech workers to work "voluntary" weekend shifts to commemorate Lenin's 100th birthday next year. The notion ironically harks back to the freely given "Dubček shifts" that workers put in during their brief springtime of freedom. Otherwise, the occupation regime's tinkering with the economy has made the situation worse. A 16% wage increase in the first half of 1969 only increased the rate of inflation. Now the regime is trying to freeze wages...
...Stalinist Label. The first signs were anything but optimistic. At week's end Premier Oldfich Cernik's entire 29-man Cabinet was dissolved. Cernik, one of the first of Dubćek's allies to make amends with pro-Moscow conservatives after the invasion, was ordered by the Central Committee to form a new government. Its membership, announced this week, reflected the hardliners' virtually total control. The purge extended to the local political level; the Prague city party committee was stripped of every remaining Dubćek loyalist. Five more liberals "resigned" from the Czech National...
...fate of the topmost liberal leaders, including Dubćek, hung at least partially on a debate between two factions of the ultraconservative majority on the eleven-man Presidium that runs the country. One group, reportedly led by Deputy First Secretary Lubomir Strougal, a ruthless pro-Moscow loyalist, urged that Dubćek and other liberals be placed on trial, perhaps even on charges of treason. The second group, headed by Party Secretary Alois Indra, apparently objected that such kangaroo-court sessions would saddle the regime with a neo-Stalinist label. Ludvik Svoboda, the popular President and elder statesman...