Word: ek
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...unhappy Czechoslovaks have much to protest. Since stern Gustav Husák replaced Reformer Alexander Dubcek as party chief in April, the country has been gripped by an ever-tightening rule. In a swift series of purges, the liberals of the Dubček era have been removed from the Central Com mittee. Among those dropped was Ota Sik, who earned Moscow's ire as the architect of Dubček's economic reforms...
Despite his age, Grigorenko cedes nothing to his associates in his distaste for autarchy or disdain for government attempts to muzzle dissent. When his old army comrades were about to invade Czechoslovakia, Grigorenko paid a call at the Czechoslovak embassy to advertise his approval of the Dubček liberalization program. At the funeral of Writer Aleksei Kosterin (TIME, Nov. 22), a longtime friend, he turned his eulogy at Moscow's crematory hall into an eloquent attack on "totalitarianism that hides behind the master of so-called Soviet democracy...
...advice that Dubček [April 25] and his countrymen should have taken from Joseph Stalin: "It is not for nothing that the proverb says, 'An obliging bear is more dangerous than an enemy.' " Perhaps we should take Stalin's words a little more seriously in dealing with the Russians...
Even so, Dubček's ouster represented the culmination of a tragedy for Czechoslovakia. Dubcek had not sought to overthrow Communism; he wanted only, in his words, "to give it a human face" by removing needless abuses and brutalities. For a time, it seemed as if the tall, soft-spoken Slovak might succeed. Channeling a groundswell of discontent among both intellectuals and workers against the Stalinist regime of President and Party Boss Antonin Novotny, Dubček in early 1968 managed to overthrow the old order and institute the most far-ranging reforms and freedoms that had ever...
Under Dubček, Czechoslovaks experienced an exhilarating release from 20 years of police-state repression. New laws were enacted that granted rights ranging from freedom of the press and speech to the privilege of traveling abroad and emigrating. Artistic and political expression bloomed, and the country pulsed with hope and excitement. But Czechoslovakia's new ebullience frightened the Soviet and other East Bloc leaders, who feared that their own people would demand similar reforms. At a Warsaw Pact summit meeting in Dresden in March 1968, East German Boss Walter Ulbricht reportedly waved his arms ominously over the other...