Word: novotn
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Dates: during 1968-1968
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...socialism. In a country where for 20 years civil and personal liberties had been mercilessly squashed, almost total freedom of expression now reigns, the police have been put in harness and demonstrations of every sort can take place. Dubček, who threw out the hardlining Antonín Novotný as party boss in January and as President in March, has transformed Czechoslovakia into the most liberal of Communist states. Hardly anything in Czechoslovakia is any longer so sacred that it cannot be questioned and, if necessary, changed. And the entire transformation has been worked without bloodshed or disorder...
Police will now be required to wear numbered badges for identification. The party Presidium has even decided to postpone the planned May elections for local, regional and municipal offices until the end of June to give the authorities more time to liberalize the election laws. Novotnýites are falling right and left, quickly to be replaced by younger, more pragmatic men. Last week three top secretaries of the central Trade Union Council were forced to quit, the Czechoslovak Women's Union bounced its boss, the director of the secretariat for church affairs was ousted, and the Minister...
Conciliatory Gesture. During the week, Russia denounced the West for speculating that it would ever move to hinder Czechoslovakia, proclaimed its undying "fraternal fidelity" for the Czechoslovak people. When it came time to pick a new President to replace Antonin Novotný, Dubček decided to make a conciliatory gesture to the Soviet Union. At his request, the Central Committee nominated General Ludvik Svoboda, a liberal who enjoys wide prestige among the people and is particularly acceptable to Moscow because he commanded troops that served with the Russian Army in World...
...swirling unrest, Alexander Dubček entered the fray, carrying the banner of Slovak nationalism. As party boss of Slovakia, he rose at a Central Committee meeting in October and launched a fiery polemic against Novotný for breaking his promises and neglecting the development of Slovakia. In a highly heated exchange, Novotný called Dubček a "bourgeois nationalist," one of the worst insults in the Communist lexicon. Dubček began working behind the scenes to oust Novotný from party leadership, gradually bringing together dissident Slovak leaders, university officials, economists and other liberals. When Novotn...
...would gather next week to discuss more "personnel changes." As for Novotny, he continued to tour factories, where he no doubt tried to win worker support by predicting unemployment, inflation and other hardships from Dubcek's reforms. It seemed clear, however, that the party was about to nudge Novotný off his last perch in the government. Already three men were mentioned to succeed him as President: Minister of Forestry Josef Smrkovsky, 61, General Ludvik Svoboda, 61, and Deputy Prime Minister Oldřich Černik, 46. fA are liberals of the Dubček stripe...