Background Exposition

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[ Backgrouns Introduction | Background Summary ]

Prehistory

2000 years ago, the people who later would become the people of Europe wandered the plains of Central Asia. They were rather peaceful tribes who lived on hard work and farming. Their peacefulness made them easy targets for other, not so peaceful, tribes. By 500 A.D. they were driven westward by hostile Mongolian tribes. They wandered until they came to the plains of Central and Eastern Europe where other unfriendly people imprisoned them and forced them to work as slaves. Around the year of 620 A.D. the Slavic people got a leader called Samo. Under his leadership they rose and defeated their enemies. Determined to never again be imprisoned they built stone- and wood-fortifications for protection. Two centuries later, two missionaries named Cyrril and Methodius visited the Slavs and brought Christianity to this pagan people.

The Premysl Dynasti

By the 9th century, after approximately 300 years of peace and prosperity, the Czech and Slovak people joined other Slavic tribes from the Great Moravian Empire. The Moravian empire controlled, before the defeat of the Magyars, almost the entire Central Europe. In the peace-negotiations following the war, the Magyars took control of Slovakia and its people. The Czechs that had managed to escape the Magyars formed their own kingdom and deserted their brothers.

The same century Queen Libussa and her Prince Consort Premysl founded the first royal dynasty in this part of the world. The mighty Romans, who had controlled her lands centuries before, called the land Boiohaemia after a Celtic tribe, the Boii, who had been defeated on these grounds. For centuries to come the heirs to Premysl and Libussa reined the land.

The first great king of the Premysl dynasty was king Wenceslas. He considered his main task to be introducing Christianity to his people. Another achievement of his was that he signed an allegiance with his former enemy, the King of Germany. He managed to unite both Bohemia and Moravia under the same crown, but his allegiance to Christianity earned him the hatred of the noble.
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The Bohemian Empire

One of the most significant royalties was Charles IV. He succeeded his father who died in the year of 1346. Charles was the kind of leader the Bohemian Empire needed. During the 30 years he was in power he managed to make the Bohemian kingdom one of the largest and wealthiest in Europe. Three of the most famous buildings in Prague, the Cathedral of St. Vitus, Charles Bridge and Charles University were built under Charles IV's reign.

But the golden age of prosperity did not last. As all great kingdoms, it fell into darkness and corruption. The single and most important reason was the church that with its increasing power became depraved.
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Jan Hus

The turning point came when the priest Jan Hus commented upon the corruption amongst the church officials. He preached that the church should live in poverty as the lord did.

The noble and the other churchmen considered him a threat, not only because of his outspokenness, but also because he had chosen to preach in Czech while the official language was German. Jan Hus was excommunicated by the current Pope in Rome in the year of 1411 because he did not want to repent his acts against the church. He was lured back by the Germans into coming to the Counsel of Constance. There he would get the chance of explaining himself but instead he was arrested, trailed and condemned as a heretic. In July one year later, 1415, he was burned on the stake with the accusation of defying the power of the church. The implementation of the stake burning made him a martyr in the eyes of many. His followers became to be known as the Hussites.
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The Hussites and the Habsburgs

A short time after Jan Hus's death, his followers declared war on the church. The war ended in 1436 and the result was a compromise, which allowed the Hussites some degree of freedom. Many of the Hussites fled the country and wandered through Europe. The Hussites became the Bohemians, the word means a person that is living a unconventional lifestyle.

In the year of 1526 the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand I became king of Bohemia. At the same time the German priest, Martin Luther, nailed his opinions on Christianity on the church door in the City of Wittenburg. A large part of Bohemia's population longing to be freed from the Habsburg's imposed Catholicism converted to Protestantism.

When Ferdinand I immediately sent Catholic missionaries from the Jesuit-order to Bohemia to restore order and Christianity. The Czechs did not want to listen to these missionaries or Ferdinand and they demanded religious freedom. This freedom was not granted either by Ferdinand I or his descendant Emperor Matthias.
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Industrialization

As the Czechs had been ruthlessly repressed they found other ways to express their discontent. The Czech industrialization began in the early 19th century. The movement became very popular in Bohemia and it swept as a wave throughout the whole country. Cities as Prague, Brno, Karlovy Vary became quickly large industrial cities. The people from the country moved into the cities and many factories were born. While neighbors in the East still were basically agricultural society the Bohemia and Moravia developed once again to the intellectual and economical center it had been a couple of hundred years earlier.

With the industrialization, nationalism arouse. One of the greatest nationalists was Frantisek Palacky who wrote the book History of the Czech Nation. He foresaw that the struggles and disliking between the tow people of Bohemia and Moravia. He thought that the Czechs should create a Republic of their own. Palacky died in 1876 and unfortunately he never experienced the free Czechoslovak Republic he had dreamed of. But he inspired other young men and women to work for an independent Republic. Two of those men were Tomas Masaryk and Edvard Benes.
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World War I

In the year of 1867 the Austrian Empire of the Habsburgs merged with Hungary and formed the Astro-Hungarian Empire. The two peoples of Czechoslovakia were once again joined after being centuries apart. On the 25th July 1914 the World War I broke out. The Czech and the Slavic people were enlisted in the Astro-Hungarian army that was allied with the German one. But the majority of Czech young men enlisted as soldiers deserted because of the hatred they had against the Habsburg dynasty. One of the young men that fled was Tomas Masaryk who went to France There he established together with one other deserter, Edvard Benes, the first Czechoslovak National Council. It was an organization that fought for a free Czechoslovak Republic by seeking the support of the Allies.

When the World War ended in 1918 and Germany and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire was divided, freedom was granted to Bohemia and Slovakia. At the Versailles-talks in the year of 1919 the Republic of Czechoslovakia was born with the approval of United States and its allies. Tomas Masaryk became the first man to hold the presidency.
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Tomas Masaryk

The elected President of the Czechoslovak Republic Tomas Masaryk faced serious problems when he entered the presidency. The ethnic unrest was high throughout the Republic, the Slovaks in the East were less urbanized and poorer than their neighbours in the west and at the borders to Germany and Austria there were German-speaking people in the Sudetenland that demanded their own rights.

Masaryk tried to implement a western style democracy and market economy but he could not succeed because of the ethnic unrest. After 16 years as President he decided to retire in the year of 1935. The man who was chosen to succeed him was his long time friend and colleague from the days in France, Edvard Benes. Benes tried as Masaryk's predecessor to implement full democracy and market economic system. He faced the same problems as Masaryk and yet another problem occurred, namely Adolf Hitler. Hitler had made himself Fuhrer of Germany and he listened to the Germans in Czechoslovakia. In the year of 1938 he wrote Benes a letter where he stated that he would invade Czechoslovakia and its capital Prague if the Sudetenland was not incorporated with Germany by the end of September.

The Leaders of the Western European countries were now invited to Munich to discuss the matter of Czechoslovakia further, the only two exceptions were the two leaders Josef Stalin and Edvard Benes that not received an invitation.
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The Munich Agreement

"We have been betrayed by our allies, our false friends and the traitors on our own side. Down with our cowardice government! No capitulation! We will, defend our Republic and our borders!" Unknown speaker on Wenceslas Square on the September 21, 1938

On the 29th of September 1938, the four European leaders:Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier met in Hitler's Munich. The Czechoslovak President Benes was not invited and neither was the Soviet leader Stalin.

The decision of not inviting Stalin and Benes would be of great importance seven years later in Czechoslovakia, when the free elections in Czechoslovakia were held the communists got the majority of the votes. They got approximately 45% percent of the votes. The main reason to this outcome was that the Czechoslovak people felt betrayed by the Western countries. The quotation above is from an unfortunately unknown speaker and it shows the people's reaction to the decision.

As a matter of fact Benes was allowed to come to the meeting but merely as an observer and he was not allowed to actively participate. One could say that Hitler only wanted him there if they had some practical questions about the actual splitting of his country. Benes received the papers after the negotiation, but only to sign them. The Czechoslovak people still refer to this meeting as the meeting that decided their future without them.
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The meeting

During the conference Hitler presented his ideas of incorporating the Czechoslovak Sudetenland with Germany. They decided that the Czech government would be given until the 10th of October to evacuate all Czech-speaking citizens from Sudetenland, but all material remain intact. If some material were to be destroyed or missing the government would be liable to pay the damages.

It all started when Hitler the 20th of September sent Benes a letter that declaimed that Germany demanded the incorporation of the Sudetenland with Germany within a certain amount of time. The alternative was an invasion. The 23rd of September, Hitler and Chamberlain met in Godesberg to discuss the matter. Already at this stage the Czechoslovak leadership were left out. Hitler gave Chamberlain his memorandum that he then turned over to Benes and the Czechoslovak government.

At this time the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs mentioned in a speech to the UN that Czechoslovakia should be defended at any cost. The same day Benes ordered the army to mobilize. The next day, the Soviet government declared that they would send a part of their army to Czechoslovakia. That included everything from airplanes to tanks. But Czechoslovakia's army was not a bad or small one. When the Czechoslovak army command got the invasion threat they started to mobilize and make preparations for war. The Czechoslovak government had a large support among the population that also started to prepare for war.
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Peace in our time!

When Western Europe saw that Czechoslovakia would not surrender without resistance and that a Second World War was on the verge of breaking out Daladier and Chamberlain met in London to once again discuss the matter. They wanted to resolve the matter and avoid a Second World War and also to calm Hitler down. Furthermore had the American President Theodore Roosevelt let Chamberlain know that he was counting on that the European leaders would resolve the matter in such way that a new war would not break out.

Chamberlain let Roosevelt know that the crisis soon would be resolved. Hitler now invited the four leaders to a new meeting the 29th September in Munich. Beneath threats of a new World War the Western Europe accepted Hitler's territorial demands. During these negotiations Chamberlain made Hitler to sign a document that would guarantee the peace in Europe - the "Peace in our time!"-document.
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Why appeasement?

After World War I Europe was laid in ruins, a complete male generation in the European countries was missing and everybody had the war on their mind. Nobody was interested in a Second World War. A lot of people called World War I "The war to end all wars". Pacifistic poems, plays, books and movies grew enormously popular and the politicians had to adapt themselves to the will of the people.

People thought: "Give the dictators what they want, so that we can keep our peace". The reasons for the appeasement policy were many and we cannot today establish what was right and what was not. Below are some of the main reasons for the appeasement policy divided into a numbered list.

- WW1 created as many problems as it solved. It solved some of the problems, which were important before the year 1914, e.g. colonies, large armies and so forth. After the Versailles-Agreement the Western Europe leaders realized that Germany had been badly treated. As a consequence, when Germany moved troops into the Ruhr-area, they did not react even if the action violated the Versailles-treaty. People tended to argue that that it was wrong to force Germany to obey every single word of the treaty and to prevent the Germans from having soldiers on their own grounds.

Why should we care about Czechoslovakia when we do not have any interest in that part of Europe? (That happened in Bosnia 1914). All of the Western Countries had experienced the war and they did not want to have another one.

- The Western countries (except USA) were not ready for another war. After World War I Europe was disarmed. In 1938, the Germans had 81 divisions assigned for European warfare compared to England's 2 and France's 63. Britain had to be prepared for armed conflicts in the Far East, India and in the Palestine. Europe was not her main interest.

- The fear of the red fever - communism - was enormous. In the choice between Hitler and Nazism or Stalin and Communism many people's choices fell on Hitler. "Better Hitlerism than Stalinism"!

- The people in Britain did not want to have a second war. All English newspapers but one supported the Munich Agreement.

- The economy was another important factor. After the Wall Street crash in 1929 every penny was needed, so why spend money on armament?

- The people believed in the League of Nations, a collective security.
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Tables

World War II

Czechoslovakia was invaded by Hitler's troops in the early 1939. This was the start of a six years long invasion of Czechoslovakia. Hitler made Czechoslovakia a protectorate of GermanyDays before the invasion the Czechoslovak government left for London, Great Britain. There did the current president Edvard Benes form the Czechoslovak exile government. The government proclaimed their full support for the allies and the Soviet Union.

The Czechoslovak Republic was liberated by American and Soviet Troops in the year if 1945. After the liberation Benes returned to Czechoslovakia to form his government. But this time he had to take into considerations a new part - namely the communists. The communists were popular among the people as they stood by the underground resistance movement. Several leading communists had also been executed during the Second World War. They had also policies that the people liked as they wanted to distribute the land the three million Sudetenland Germans had left to the farmers of Czechoslovakia.

In the election 1948 the CPCz, Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, got approximately 38% percent of the total votes. Edvard Benes was forced to form a government together with communists. This was one of the biggest differences in the destinies of the Eastern Europe countries after the Second World War. The Soviet Union did not make "claims" on Czechoslovakia as they did on the other states as GDR and Poland. Czechoslovakia had free elections and was not in the primary phase, directly after the war, a satellite state of the Soviet Union.
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The February Coup 1948

When the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Benes government, Jan Masaryk, met the leader of the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin, he got the advice of not accepting the western countries aid, the Marshal Plan, but to rely on the Soviet Union's help instead. Masaryk mentioned later that he went to Moscow as a Minister of Foreign Affairs of a sovereign state and I came back as a stooge of Stalin.

All eleven ministers that were not communists decided to resign in order to force through a re-election as a protest against the Soviet Union's intervention in the Czechoslovak internal affairs. But what they had not counted with was that the communists just filled out their vacant posts with members of their own ranks.

On March 10, 1948, the former Minister Jan Masaryk was found deceased outside his apartment. The official explanation was that he had committed suicide by jumping out of his window, but the non-official explanation on which the majority of the people believed in was that he had been murdered by the Communists. It is still today uncertain whether he actually committed suicide or if the second revised explanation by the CPCz government in 1968 was more truthful. It was as follows: "Former Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk had accidentally fell from the window while sitting in a yoga position to combat insomnia".

The main reason the communists had to eliminate Jan Masaryk was that he was suspected to leave the country soon as many of his followers and others who were afraid of the times to come had done. In his post of former Minister of Foreign Affairs and the respect he enjoyed by the reputation of his father, Tomas Masaryk, his words would be listened to abroad. Most likely would Jan Masaryk denounce the communists and the communistic Party if he was allowed to leave the country.
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The Communist Take-Over

Without the opposition in the government, the Communist Party started to recruit members. By the end of 1948 the CPCz had almost 2.5 million registered members. This corresponded to 18% of the entire population. No other country except the Soviet Union had such a high number of members.

The communists were in majority in the government and they decided to rewrite the constitution. At that point Edvard Benes decided to resign. The ongoing market economy rapidly changed to a planned economy. Its consequences were collectivised farms, overtaking of the industries and what was before called private property became collective property. All liberties and privileges were suppressed; Czechoslovakia had become an absolute state.
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The Purges 1948-1953

Approximately at the same time the happenings in Yugoslavia went in the opposite direction. The leader Josip Broz Tito decided that he and his country did not want to have anything to do with Stalin and the Soviet Union. Stalin did not know what to do with the situation in Yugoslavia, it was too clear that Tito had the people's support, he could not easily be replaced with an civil servant loyal to the Soviet Union. Instead he decided that this would not happen again in a Soviet satellite state.

Stalin wanted to statute an example and he chose Czechoslovakia, indirectly he gave the orders on the purges in the year of 1951. In late 1951 the purges began, several thousand members of the CPCz were arrested, the total number of arrested between 1948 and 1953 was approximately 130,000 persons. Among the most famous ones were Rudolf Slansky, he was arrested under the charges of conspiracy with the Jews and attempts to over-throw the Republic. He and his followers were forced to do ridiculous confessions on television and in the show-trials that a committee in 1968 found unlawful, he was sentenced to death together with 180 top CPCz members. Of the 130,000 a majority were sent to labour-camps or executed.

Stalin wanted to statute an example and he chose Czechoslovakia, indirectly he gave the orders on the purges in the year of 1951. In late 1951 the purges began, several thousand members of the CPCz were arrested, the total number of arrested between 1948 and 1953 was approximately 130,000 persons. Among the most famous ones were Rudolf Slansky, he was arrested under the charges of conspiracy with the Jews and attempts to over-throw the Republic. He and his followers were forced to do ridiculous confessions on television and in the show-trials that a committee in 1968 found unlawful, he was sentenced to death together with 180 top CPCz members. Of the 130,000 a majority were sent to labour-camps or executed.

Nikita Khruschev
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When Stalin died of cerebral haemorrhage in the year of 1953 he was succeeded by Nikita Khruschev. Khruschev started the first wave of de-Stalinization in the Soviet Union. In a Secret Speech he held in 1956 he denounced Stalin and condemned his crimes against the human rights.

His aims with the de-Stalinization was to end the Stalin hero-worship and to try to liberate and reform the communism. Unfortunately he was only successful to do so in the Soviet Union, Hungary and Poland. In Czechoslovakia it had lesser effect as the leaders were Stalinists who had put an iron-curtain around their borders to avoid information from abroad.

When Antonin Zapotocky was succeeded by the First Party Secretary Antonin Novotny the Iron Curtain was sealed entirely.
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De-Stalinization

"Sometimes, reading all these speeches, I am really, I tell you, surprised by many things, by the way people look at a situation. I say one thing and someone else says something different. I criticize something and someone else praises it. Damn it, who is right? Is he right or am I right? I look at it again and then I see: yes indeed, I am right."
Antonin Novotny, 1967 Renner, H. "A History of Czechoslovakia". London;Routledege,1989, pp.34.

In October 1961, Khrushchev made a surprising move. At the 22:nd Congress of the Communistic Party of the Soviet Union he once again attacked the former leader Stalin and the cult that had been surrounding him. By obeying the forces of de-Stalinization within the CPSU he could stay on the post of First Party Secretary and President.

This put the current Czechoslovak president Antonin Novotny in a peculiar situation, not only because he was a convinced Stalinist, but also because he had to react appropriately to the second wave of de-Stalinization in the USSR. It was more official than than the first wave of de-Stalinization 5 years earlier. He had to react, but not only because some high-ranking Soviet officials demanded it but also because he could not hide the developments in front of his fellow Party-men.

He hesitated, being afraid of an uprising. He wondered if Stalin could be "taken" away from the people of Czechoslovakia. He was venturing his own position as President. The situation he found himself in was not an easy one. Furthermore, he had contributed to the economical set-down in Czechoslovakia by concentrating on the industry Soviet required and ignoring his own people's needs. The people were turning against him and demanding political changes.
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Rudolf Barak

This delicate situation provided Novotny with yet another problem - a dangerous rival - Rudolf Barak. He was the young and striving minister of Internal Affairs and a member of the CPCz CC's Politburo. Rudolf Barak was very appreciated and entrusted in some Party circles and had his own followers. He had during the past years been able to collect a considerable sum of documents and facts against the sitting president. He was now waiting for the right moment.

Novotny heard of Barak's activities and acted at once - in February 1962 Barak was arrested and sentenced to 15 years in prison - in agreement with the order from the Politburo - but surely not for suppression of archive documents nor for preparing a take-over, but for embezzlement of public funds.
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Blaming someone else..

When dealing with the prisoners from the Stalinist trials and eliminations during the 50s Novotny acted very carefully.

180 politicians had been executed; some in show-trials where they had been forced to confess their "crimes", the rest were murdered in cold blood. One of these was Rudolf Slansky. Slansky and some other high-ranking officials were more than anyone else responsible for the terror at the time. Novotny insisted on their guilt but even if he was right he could not hide the fact that these people had been subjected to false trials.

Novotny released the still-living political prisoners but could make no difference in the case of those executed. One of the last prisoners that were released was Gustav Husak. He was released in the large amnesty in the year of 1960.

Many former Stalinist politicians were now subjected to criticism, even the former president Klement Gottwald. Before the 12th Party Congress, in December 1962, his body was removed from the Prague Mausoleum as a sign of the Czechoslovak de-Stalinization. His body was later cremated.

Furthermore, was there another large change in the Prague City view. The large Stalin statue over-looking the river Vltava, was suddenly covered with a giant wooden structure and within days destroyed.
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Trials found unlawful

With the liquidation of the Stalin monument the Czechoslovak de-Stalinization process was just beginning. Communist victims demanded rehabilitation. A large number of Party officials criticized the current developments. Making desperate attempts to compromise, Novotny ordered a commission, of which Alexander Dubcek was a member, to look into the trials that took their place in the 1950s. Officially the investigation stranded, but it has been revealed later on that it found the trials completely unlawful and could therefore not publish their result.

Novotny managed to blame the trials on a few people in the Old Guard under Gottwald, among others Viliam Siroky, the Prime Minister and Presidium Member, Karol Bacilek, the ex-Minister of State-Security and Presidium Member, were expelled from the Party and their posts in September 1963. A fair number of others, both in the government and in the Party Secretariat were expelled.Siroky's post went to Josef Lenart, while Dubcek became the First Party Secretary in Slovakia.

Now at least Novotny's position as President was safe. He remained politically alive and in control of his Party. He had also managed to get rid of a group of Stalinists that had started to make his life miserable.
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Party members desert Novotny

During the autumn 1967 a group was secretly formed in the highest ranks of the CPCz. The Communist Party of Slovakia and some persons from the leadership in the CPCz formed groups, which primary objective became to get rid off Novotny as First Party Secretary.

Besides the politicians whose views were decidedly reformist (Josef Smrkovsky, Frantisek Kriegel, Ota Sik, Josef Spacek) this ever growing opposition group included members of the mighty "Ostrava-group" like Oldrich Cernik and Drahomir Kolder.

Even Party secretary Lubomir Strougal and an extensive political spectrum in Slovakia, including the moderate Alexander Dubcek, Vasil Bilak and the fierce but not yet powerful Gustav Husak took part in these actions. .Husak certainly gave the impression of being progressive by his repeated outbursts against Novotny. Some prominent Party officials, who until recenlty had been seen as belonging to the Party leader's camp, deserted him. The most prominent among them was the ideologist Jiri Hendrych.
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Party Presidium divided

The Party Presidium became divided into two groups: pro- and anti-Novotny. Novotny could no longer ignore or prevent the formation of these two groups. It was common knowledge that Novotny regularly handed out brown envelopes containing money to the members of the Presidium. It was the reward for their loyalty, and all of them, including Alexander Dubcek, eagerly accepted them.

Novotny's influence in the CPCz Central Committee grew weaker. The anti-Novotny group was in majority there. In the lower echelons of the Party confusion preaviled.

At the end of October 1967 a meeting took place in the Prague Castle Hradcany. It was an ordinary meeting behind closed doors. According to official statements this meeting would be devoted to "the position and role of the Party in the present stage of development of our socialistic society".

The meeting was of great importance. The consequence of the meeting was the developement ofa rebellion against the Party leader. This was a phenomenon that was unheard of in the post-war history of Communism. Slovakia's Party Secretary Alexander Dubcek was the first to raise the issue. When this came to Novotny's knowledge he became furious. He accused Dubcek of being "narrow and national interests". The latter however, met support from many of the functionaries. One of Dubcek's closest friends and supporter were Vasil Bilak, who later on he became one of Dubcek's fiercest enemy's.
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Student demonstrations

The lower ranks of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the general public did not know what was going on in the upper ranks of the Party. One reason to this was that the people's attention was drawn to another event - namely a student demonstration in central Prague at the same time as the Central Committee meeting. Although the demonstration was of peaceful character the police ruthlessly dispersed the crowd of students.

Also the Charles University was in a state of commotion. The critical attitude of the mass media and the flood of protests from the academic community had been unthinkable just a few months earlier.

The Prague cinemas even ran short documentaries dedicated to the consequences of the police action, in which the viewers could hear some injured students talk about their experiences with the police.
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Moscow dislikes Novotny's policy

This was only the beginning to what later on would be called the Prague Spring. For the first time in two decades people had more freedom.

The division in the top of the Party paralyzed the apparatus. Some politicians found the public situation very convenient for their purposes. It helped to undermine Novotny and his position even more. Novotny was unable to convince the public and the Party that he still was a force to be counted with. He did not convince the public nor the politicians and most important of all the Kremlin.

Kremlin clearly showed Czechoslovakia discontent with Novotny and his regime. When Novotny was in Moscow at the 50th anniversary of the October revolution they told him what they thought of him.
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Opposition on the way

The first severe criticism came from the communist intellectuals. They belonged to the disappointed generation who after the war had welcomed the communism and were now totally disillusioned.

"This was the generation of, for instance, the future economists Ota Sik (1919) and Radoslav Selucky (1930), the writers Ladislav Mnacko (1919) and Pavel Kohout (1928), the journalists Jiri Lederer (1922) and Jiri Hochman (1926), the chess grandmaster and publicist Ludek Pachman (1924), the philosophers Karel Kosik (1926), Radovan Richta (1924 and Ivan Svitak (1926), the party functionaries Jiri Pelikan (1923) and Zdenek Mlynar (1930) and thousands of others."
Renner, H. "A History of Czechoslovakia".London;Routledege,1989, pp.37.

In the name of true Marxism and the socialistic revolution they first destroyed all democratic values and called for dictatorship of the proletarians. They destroyed the private sector and called people who disagreed for lackeys of imperialism and praised everything connected to the Soviet Union.

But times changed and 20 years later, in the mid-60s, the dictatorship of proletarians had achieved nothing. The disillusion was complete. The frustration created by the Stalinist era and the slow process of de-Stalinization had contributed to the disillusion.

The communists had according to novelist Milan Kundera, "an urge to slash the canvas of their youths to shreds". People had lost their faith in the Soviet Union but they still hoped that new ideas of reformed communism would change the situation in Czechoslovakia. The old system had failed their expectations and proved to be unable to solve any social problems whatsoever; whether it concerned the deep economic depression, the question of the incompetent bureaucracy, the low work ethic, the growing discontent among the Slovaks with Prague centralism, the strong rejection of and even enmity of the Czech youth towards the CPCz or the case of the gypsies. Worse still, the Prague regime was unable to master such simple problems as constructing a freeway from Prague to Bratislava, or solving the chronic shortage of table vinegar during the summer months. These small problems also ultimately led to the fall of communism.
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Novotny's policy is criticized

The reformist movement within the CPCZ grew to strong for Novotny in the mid-60s. Now even anti-reformists joined the rank, they joined not because they liked or wanted reforms but only because they were discontent with Novotny's current policy. The reformist economists, among them Ota Sik, criticized the centralized economic management. The criticism increased rapidly in 1963 as lingering crises went through the roof. Now even more people joined the reformists because many of them saw how Novotny and his followers were hindering the economy. The only way to save the economy now was to get rid of this obstacle. Even the writers joined in the criticism of Novotny and the anti-Novotny spirit. Many of them hoped for a complete democratization of Czechoslovakia.

June 1967 was the date for the fourth Congress of the Union of writers. At this congress a large protest against Novotny was about to take room. Several writers among them Pavel Kohout, Ludvik Vaculik and the President-to-be Vaclav Havel.They spoke about the current system and condemned it as dysfunctional. The delegation sent to the congress of the Party had no other choice than leave the congress. Novotny had no other choice than answer with harsh methods - methods many of the members of the Central Committee did not approve of. This led to that the division in the Central Committee and the strengthening of the Party.It was not only the writers that criticized Novotny and his government. The Slovak Communistic Party did not approve of the President either, as he had an anti-Slovak attitude and he had offended many of the Slovak politicians personally. Furthermore he constantly ignored Slovak problems that led to a division between the two peoples of Czechoslovakia.

Outside the Party it was manly students that protested against Novotny and his regime. Within days the Charles University in Prague became an oasis of anti-communism. The main reason that hindered the President to deal with this discontent as he had before, with the help of StB and the military, was that he had not the support for these actions in the top of the Party. One other reason was that the protest had gone to far, there was no possibility at all to silence all the protesters.

When it became clearer that the majority supported the protests against Novotny, even more people joined. Even in the higher ranks of the Party many joined the side of the reformists as they saw some advantage for themselves. They did not necessary join the ideas of reforms. Some famous politicians who did this were i.e. Alois Indra, Vasil Bilak and Drahomir Kolder.
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December 1967

People usually state July 1914 as the most studied month in the world history. In Czechoslovak history this would correspond to August in the year of 1968, when the Soviet Union and its allies decided to make a military intervention that would end the Prague Spring. They felt that their negotiations with Dubcek and the Czechoslovak leaders did not result in any changes.

Yet the month before the Prague Spring draws a great deal less attention. This, even though the events in December 1967 - Novotny's last month of reign - had the same effects on the Prague Spring as the assassination of the Habsburg heir to the throne in Sarajevo and its repercussion had on the outbreak of World War I.
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Brezhnev visits Prague

On the 8th December 1967 Prague received an unexpected visitor. It was Brezhnev that had flown to Prague on an emergency visit. The official version was that the CPCz CC's Presidium and the Czechoslovak government had invited him to discuss urgent matters. Many of the Presidium members did not have the faintest knowledge of Brezhnev's short visit to Czechoslovakia. In reality it had been Novotny himself who had invited Brezhnev without informing the Central Committee. He invited Brezhnev because he was hoping on that his comrade leader from the East would help him to resolve the current situation.

Novotny's optimistic views on the future development of the country could not convince Brezhnev to intervene. Brezhnev did not under any circumstances want to be involved in the internal affairs of Czechoslovakia at the present time. He told him as many times before and even afterwards: "Eto vasche delo", which in Russian means "it's your own matter".

Novotny made desperate tries to convince Brezhnev that his own position as the First Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communistic Party and President of the Czechoslovak Socialistic Republic was not at stake. But what Novotny did not know was that Brezhnev also had a meeting with Alexander Dubcek who had explained the current situation. It was far more complex then Novotny wanted to admit to himself.
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Ota Sik demands Novotny's resignation

When Brezhnev left for Moscow his stay in Czechoslovakia had not accomplish any miracles. The confusion, one could say, was even bigger now. Novotny's enemies found Brezhnev's neutrality encouraging. They now considered themselves having Moscow's blessing and support to get rid of Novotny.

Novotny himself interpreted it as he had Moscow's support and he could from now on ignore the criticism delivered to him. But he had not counted with professor Ota Sik, who during the Communist meeting in December delivered a massive blow against Novotny. He demanded Novotny's resignation in terms so clear that all the earlier criticism seemed to be insignificant.

Ota Sik who had a Ph.D. in economy condemned Novotny's last five-year production plan from an economic point of view. Sik demanded reforms leading to a market economy. An example on a reform Sik wanted to introduce was; the agriculture collectives should be separated into small private farms. The farmers should furthermore own their own soil, as it according to Sik would improve the productivity. Sik meant that Novotny's and the CPCz CC's latest production plans did not follow the basic economic concept of supply and demand.
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Novotny's two options

The situation that occurred left Novotny with two possibilities. He could either resign as First Party Secretary or use force against the reformists. If he resigned he would still be able to play a quite large role behind the political scenes. His successor would most probably be the Slovak Prime Minister Jozef Lenart. Novotny had confidence in him and most important of all he seemed to be accepted by the reformist group. Furthermore was he most likely to keep his presidency if he chose this option. Even if the post of presidency was not as politically important as the post of First Party Secretary it was still the second highest position in the Republic.

The other choice implied Novotny to not only stay in power but also to strengthen his position, and all this by using force and destroying his enemies. He still enjoyed the StB's (Security Service) loyalty, he thought that he controlled the army and he had friends in key positions in the government. His friends tried to convince him of this option - lists with names of over a thousand prominent regime opponents, that would have to be arrested, had already been prepared.

Furthermore were the untrustworthiest members of the Presidium and the Central Committee surveilled around the clock. The StB were bugging their phones and keeping records of their activities. Since August 1967 this included amongst other Alexander Dubcek and Josef Smrkovsky.
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"Night of Novotny"

The Party members were now in a mood of nervousness and apprehension. They feared that Novotny would initiate a military coup. Yet the "Night of Novotny " which should have taken place in the late December did not happen. The reason was that the military had become divided into pro and anti fractions. Novotny brought it on himself - his familiarity with the military went so far as to seeing them march on the parades. He was not a man who could initiate and lead a military coup.

The main reason for not starting an intervention was probably that he did not know how Moscow would react to a military intervention. One could be certain that Kremlin had been informed about what was going on in their satellite-state, Czechoslovakia. Rumors said that Brehnev ordered Novotny not to initiate a military action, as they would not support it.

What on the other hand is sure is that they did not give the go-ahead as they did in the year of 1981 when they ordered Wojciech Jaruzeski to arrest all rebels and to start a large-scaled military coup to avoid the alternative - a large-scaled intervention from the Red Army. This was the lesson Brehnev had learned from the events in the year of 1967 and 1968.

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