Word: husak
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...face of Czechoslovakia's steadily sagging economy and its even limper national morale, Communist Party Boss Gustav Husak last week decided that the time was ripe for a good pep talk. Before 700 workers at the Skoda auto works in Pilsen, he admitted: "Quite a lot of people are falling into some sort of depression. They are spreading panicky moods, as if our state and all of our society were facing some sort of bankruptcy from which there is no way out." Husak thereupon assured his listeners that he would be better for them than either of his predecessors...
There is, of course, little likelihood that Moscow will allow Czechoslovakia to return to the liberalizing route charted by Dubcek before the Russian invasion of 1968. The oppressive days of Novotny, on the other hand, suddenly do not seem quite so distant. A nationalist at heart, Husak may very well try to steer a middle course, but for the time being the ultraconservatives, backed by the country's Soviet occupiers, are dominant. Late last month, they engineered the firing of 29 liberals and moderates from key posts in the government and party. Last week they claimed a host...
...five years. As part of the festivities, Gomulka invited only fellow leaders who share his tough orthodox beliefs in the need for discipline and Communist unity as well as common borders with Poland. Soviet Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev showed up; so did Czechoslovakia's Party First Secretary Gustav Husak, who last April replaced Reformer Alexander Dubcek. But absent was the most inflexible hard-liner of them all: East German Party Boss Walter Ulbricht. Pleading illness, Ulbricht stayed home and sent Premier Willi Stoph in his place...
Partly Line. Under severe pressure from the Soviet-supported conservatives, Husak has dismantled the last vestiges of Dubček's promising "Springtime of Freedom." The press, which was free and sassy for a few heady months in 1968, once again is tightly controlled. The journalists whose daring reporting helped fuel the Czechoslovaks' demands for reform have either been sacked or effectively muzzled. Radio and television now echo only the party line. The student union, the stronghold of the reformist youth, has been disbanded...
...measure of the Czechoslovak dilemma is that many liberals feel that Husak is their only hope of preventing the situation from becoming even worse. Despite his severe measures, Husák, a genuine Slovak nationalist, is not a Soviet puppet. Once jailed himself for political reasons, Husák has given his solemn word that there will be no return to the reign of police terror that characterized the days of deposed Stalinist Boss Antonin Novotny. So far, there have been no reported arrests. The fear is that Husák will be elbowed aside...