Ten Years of Twilight

The legacy of invasion is cynicism and stagnation

Ten years ago this week, in the biggest European invasion since World War II, about 200,000 Soviet and East bloc troops roared across Czechoslovakia's border and took over the country to prevent a "counterrevolution." Translation: Czechoslovakia was showing signs of growing democratization. So ended, tragically, the eight-month-long Prague Spring, an unprecedented and exhilarating period of cultural and political freedom that had been orchestrated by the Czechoslovak Communist Party of Alexander Dubcek. Under Dubcek, censorship had been lifted, police files aired and Communist Party officials--for the first time ever--subjected to open, popular criticism. Then, thanks to the Kremlin, the country was yanked back into the grim, gray twilight of East bloc conformity it had known since 1948.

Happily, the invasion did little damage to Prague, one of Europe's best-preserved and most charming capitals. Even the minor scars have largely disappeared, cabled TIME Correspondent David Aikman from that city last week. "Wenceslas Square, the city's kilometer-long main street, has seldom looked better. There is no sign of tension among Czechs lining up around street vendors to buy ice cream or to window-shop during their brief lunch hour. The large number of uniformed police could be accounted for --nominally at least--by a complicated new system of traffic flow in the city center. On the surface, the primary concern of most of Prague's citizens today seems to be their regular weekend escape to a country chata (cottage). The only apprehensive people around town seem to be the leaders of the regime itself."

The government of Czechoslovak President Gustav Husak, who succeeded Dubcek as party boss eight months after the invasion, was indeed a little nervous as the Aug. 20 anniversary approached. All police leaves were canceled. Trusted Communist cadres in the Workers' Militia were assigned weekend guard duty in factories across the country. As is the custom, the estimated 70,000 to 80,000 Soviet troops who remain bivouacked in Czechoslovakia continued to make themselves scarce, as they have since 1968.

Though they are out of sight, the mere presence of Soviet troops on Czechoslovak soil has created a palpable sense of oppression. Husak's nonstop propaganda mill, justifying the troops as well as the invasion itself, has virtually deadened Czechoslovak sensibilities. The result, reports Aikman, is that most of the country has settled into an apathetic limbo. After 1968, the new regime purged 326,817 members, from the Czechoslovak Communist Party; today, having re-expanded, it claims 1.9 million members, vs. 1.7 million in 1968. Former First Secretary Dubcek, now 56, is a watchman in a Bratislava public garden, under constant surveillance. Former Foreign Minister Jiri Hajek is now a pensioner in Prague and a persistent critic of the Husak regime. Former Premier Oldrich Cernik holds an obscure research job outside the capital.

Some 150,000 Czechs, including Film Directors Milos Forman, Ivan Passer and Jan Kadar, have fled to the West. In reprisal for supporting the attempted Dubcek liberalization, thousands of professionals and technicians who stayed behind were forced into menial jobs. What remains of the once flourishing Czechoslovak culture is a wasteland of agitprop that French Poet Louis Aragon has called a "Biafra of the spirit."

To buy off discontent in this straitened atmosphere, the government has hiked wages to a respectable level--on average, $271 monthly--and opened the borders to foreign consumer goods. But hardly anyone shows any interest in public affairs. Says one purge victim: "All the old questions remain unanswered. There are no illusions. The cynicism is astonishing."

The most politically active elements in the country are the ones the government does not want. They are the almost 1,000 signatories of the Charter 77 dissident movement. But Charter 77 protest has declined considerably from the pitch of a year ago, chiefly as a result of continuing government repression. By Charter 77's own account, as many as 30,000 people have been rounded up since 1969 by the police and held for varying lengths of time, often in solitary confinement and with little food. In a truly Kafkaesque touch,* the victims are even billed for the cost of their imprisonment.

At least 100 Charter 77 members have been forced to quit even the lowly jobs they were formerly allowed to hold. The movement's current leaders--Singer Marta Kubisova, Philosopher Ladislav Hejdanek, and former Regional Party Secretary Jaroslav Sabata--are under constant surveillance. Nonetheless, in a gesture commemorating the invasion anniversary, a small group of Charter 77 members managed to meet in secret this month with their Polish counterparts to discuss possible future cooperation.

Problems of morale aside, Czechoslovak leaders face nagging signs of economic stagnation. On the face of it, the economy is performing respectably, with an annual growth rate averaging 5.5%. But the country has been losing its share of Western hard-currency markets for its principal exports, which include glassware, engineering machinery and textiles. Capital investment has been minimal, and many factories are obsolete. Decentralized planning, economic incentives and worker participation were intended to be keystone policies of the Dubcek government. In a highly bastardized form, they have been revived by Finance Minister Leopold Ler. But Ler's plan in no way envisions the kind of widespread shop-floor democracy that had been the dream of Dubcek's Finance Minister, Ota Sik.

Though he is no great proponent of industrial reform, Husak has some good reasons for going along with the experiment. Late last year, when it became apparent that the nation's economy was in the doldrums, Husak was almost displaced as Communist Party chief by his main rival, Premier Lubomir Strougal. Indeed, according to some reports, for three days Husak was actually forced to step down from office. In near panic, his supporters tried a last-gasp tactic: they telephoned a warning to Soviet Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev. He was appalled by the news and ordered Husak's reinstatement.

Brezhnev followed that act with a four-day visit to Prague last May. It was the Soviet leader's first appearance there in three years. He ceremoniously pinned the Order of the October Revolution on Husak's chest and on nationwide television declared the 1968 invasion to be "a great hour for the Czechoslovak people." Brezhnev's public comments lasted just 15 minutes, after which a never explained TV blackout blipped him off the air waves. The general suspicion is that the blackout was caused by a dissident technician.

Brezhnev & Co. have remained solicitous of the Czechoslovak leadership in other ways. Last March a Czechoslovak, Air Force Captain Vladimir Remek, took part in a Soviet space linkup. A new Prague subway line was built with Soviet help. In an obsequious return gesture, Czechoslovak authorities have been pushing sales of Brezhnev's book, The Little Land, his personal reminiscence of a relatively unknown battle in the Novorossiisk area of Russia during World War II.

As it happens, another, more poignant memoir was published last week in Vienna. Titled Six Days in August, it is the tale of the 1968 invasion as seen by Emigre; Zdenek Mlynar, a secretary of the Communist Party Central Committee under Dubcek. Mlynar's book was a timely but melancholy testament to the fact that in Czechoslovakia, the twilight shows no sign of lifting from the land.

*Expressionist Writer Franz Kafka (1883-1924), who lived and wrote in Prague, is, needless to say, again a non-person under the Husak regime.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.