Read Online 1968 by Mark Kurlansky - Free Book Online
Authors: Mark Kurlansky
Tags: Fiction
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Dubek and many of his colleagues in the new government were of a unique generation, people who grew up with Nazi occupation, who saw a world of good and evil in which the Soviet Union was the force for good, the hope for the future. Zdenk Mlyná, who became part of the Dubek government, wrote, “The Soviet Union was, in that sense, a land of hope for those who desired a radical departure from the past after the war and who also, of course, knew nothing of the real conditions in the Soviet Union.”
The real question of the time was not why the Soviets accepted Dubek, but why the Czechoslovakians did. After twenty years of Stalinism, the nation was hungry for change, and they decided that Dubek might deliver it. As Mlynápointed out, before 1968 the people of Czechoslovakia never learned very much about the character of their leaders, and so if this new one seemed difficult to read, they were accustomed to that. And by chance he was well suited for the youth of 1968. He was nonauthoritarian, a fact that seemed to be confirmed by his uneasiness in public and his dull speaking style. Young Czechoslovakians liked this awkwardness. In the end it would translate into a fatal tendency to make decisions too slowly, always the weak point of antiauthoritarianism. But in a small group he could be extremely persuasive. Most exciting of all, he was a leader with a habit of listening to others. Perhaps what had been true of Ludovit Stur, the officially outcast Slovak nationalist in whose house he was born, was also true of Dubek, as Dubek had said in an unorthodox speech three years earlier defending Stur: “He understood all the principal social and economic problems and the tendencies of his period, and he understood that everything must change.”
Dubek’s weeping family could see the spot he was in. He had to convince the energized people that he was a reformer, show the old-line figures in the Party and government, the Novotny´ men, that he could be trusted, and demonstrate to the satisfaction of Moscow that he was in control of this uncontrollable situation.
Dubek never mastered the situation. He simply tried to steer it, balancing the opposing forces, using the skills he had hewn as a Party man. He made no attempt to purge Novotny´ supporters. Years later he would speculate that this may have been his greatest mistake. There had been a 5 to 5 split in the presidium, what the Soviets had started calling a Politburo, that forced the vote to the Central Committee. And so these powerful bodies, normally packed with the chief’s men, were full of old-time communists who had been loyal to Novotny´ and did not really like Dubek. Even his chauffeur and the secretarial staff in his office were Novotny´ people.
Being a Slovak further complicated his position because Slovaks expected him to now strike a blow for Slovak nationalism, whereas the Czechs muttered about “a Slovak dictatorship.”
Meanwhile the country was full of factions with demands and expectations. The journalists wanted to know what to expect from censors under the new regime. Dubek offered no guidance on this or many other urgent issues. Later, historians spoke of the “January silence.” Dubek seemed to have come to power completely unprepared, with only a few vague notions: He wanted to help the Slovaks, improve the economy, respond to the demand for more freedom. But he had no programs, and he had the Novotny´ loyalists and the Kremlin to watch at his back.
He did not seem comfortable in Prague, a large and grandiose capital for a man who had fit in in Bratislava, with its few streets along the Danube, an occasional dilapidated ornate building from the old empire, filled in with blocks of low-ceilinged Stalinist housing for the people and a lone castle on a weedy hill. What few relics there were in Bratislava were crumbling, as were the new buildings. But now at age forty-six, Dubek suddenly was working in palaces, being driven by Novotny´’s man
The real question of the time was not why the Soviets accepted Dubek, but why the Czechoslovakians did. After twenty years of Stalinism, the nation was hungry for change, and they decided that Dubek might deliver it. As Mlynápointed out, before 1968 the people of Czechoslovakia never learned very much about the character of their leaders, and so if this new one seemed difficult to read, they were accustomed to that. And by chance he was well suited for the youth of 1968. He was nonauthoritarian, a fact that seemed to be confirmed by his uneasiness in public and his dull speaking style. Young Czechoslovakians liked this awkwardness. In the end it would translate into a fatal tendency to make decisions too slowly, always the weak point of antiauthoritarianism. But in a small group he could be extremely persuasive. Most exciting of all, he was a leader with a habit of listening to others. Perhaps what had been true of Ludovit Stur, the officially outcast Slovak nationalist in whose house he was born, was also true of Dubek, as Dubek had said in an unorthodox speech three years earlier defending Stur: “He understood all the principal social and economic problems and the tendencies of his period, and he understood that everything must change.”
Dubek’s weeping family could see the spot he was in. He had to convince the energized people that he was a reformer, show the old-line figures in the Party and government, the Novotny´ men, that he could be trusted, and demonstrate to the satisfaction of Moscow that he was in control of this uncontrollable situation.
Dubek never mastered the situation. He simply tried to steer it, balancing the opposing forces, using the skills he had hewn as a Party man. He made no attempt to purge Novotny´ supporters. Years later he would speculate that this may have been his greatest mistake. There had been a 5 to 5 split in the presidium, what the Soviets had started calling a Politburo, that forced the vote to the Central Committee. And so these powerful bodies, normally packed with the chief’s men, were full of old-time communists who had been loyal to Novotny´ and did not really like Dubek. Even his chauffeur and the secretarial staff in his office were Novotny´ people.
Being a Slovak further complicated his position because Slovaks expected him to now strike a blow for Slovak nationalism, whereas the Czechs muttered about “a Slovak dictatorship.”
Meanwhile the country was full of factions with demands and expectations. The journalists wanted to know what to expect from censors under the new regime. Dubek offered no guidance on this or many other urgent issues. Later, historians spoke of the “January silence.” Dubek seemed to have come to power completely unprepared, with only a few vague notions: He wanted to help the Slovaks, improve the economy, respond to the demand for more freedom. But he had no programs, and he had the Novotny´ loyalists and the Kremlin to watch at his back.
He did not seem comfortable in Prague, a large and grandiose capital for a man who had fit in in Bratislava, with its few streets along the Danube, an occasional dilapidated ornate building from the old empire, filled in with blocks of low-ceilinged Stalinist housing for the people and a lone castle on a weedy hill. What few relics there were in Bratislava were crumbling, as were the new buildings. But now at age forty-six, Dubek suddenly was working in palaces, being driven by Novotny´’s man
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