APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110008-5
The Stalinist Interlude and the Dubcek Revival (c)
The advent of Communist rule brought a whole new series of traumatic experiences for the Czechoslovak people. Early hopes that local Communist leaders would prove to be less exacting overseers than their Soviet counterparts and that Moscow would allow them to chart their own domestic course were quickly dashed. Gottwald's forces embarked on a determined campaign to secure their victory and force the nation into an ideologically orthodox authoritarian mold. Efforts to liquidate non-Communist elements were stepped up, and in May 1948, the National Assembly, by then Communist-dominated, approved a new constitution redesigning Czechoslovakia a "people's republic" in consonance with the pattern the Soviets had established elsewhere in Eastern Europe. A problem developed when President Benes resigned rather than sign the new charter into law, but Gottwald, Benes' successor as President, made haste to remedy this situation. By mid-June, Czechoslovakia's initial postwar political system had been officially discarded.
With this event, the country entered a grim and lengthy Stalinist phase in its development. Fearful of lingering democratic values, the Gottwald regime employed all the techniques at the disposal of a modern totalitarian state—including intimidation, propaganda, and strict regulation of the political, economic, and cultural life of the people—to consolidate its position. Intensive programs of nationalization of remaining small private firms and of agricultural collectivization were launched. A highly centralized command economy was established in which, just as in its Soviet prototype, investment priority was accorded to heavy industry. Those non-Communist parties which were not disbanded outright were either merged with or made puppets of the Communist Party. Much to the dismay of the nominally autonomous regional Communist Party organization in Slovakia, effective political power was concentrated in the hands of a few top national party leaders in Prague. Ever tighter controls were imposed on educational institutions, the church, and the information media. The population was herded into a web of interlocking Communist-dominated mass organizations embracing almost every aspect of social activity and was subjected to a broad campaign of coercion and terror which reached its zenith during the ruthless Stalinist trials of the late 1940's and early 1950's.
In contrast to what happened in most of the other Communist countries of Eastern Europe, neither Stalin's death in 1953 nor Khrushchev's famous denunciation of his former 3 years alter resulted in any internal liberalization in Czechoslovakia. Gottwald quickly followed Stalin to the grave, but the heirs to his power—Antonin Zapatocky, which stepped up to the Presidency from his former post as prime minister, and Antonin Novotny, who took over leadership of the party—were men of the Stalinist mold. Despite their general unpopularity, however, they were spared the sort of internal unrest that erupted in neighboring Communist states by the tight grip that they maintained on all aspects of Czechoslovak life, the traditional caution of the population, and the steady increase in living standards generated by forced-draft industrial growth.
Zapatocky's death in 1957 brought no change in the ultraconservative orientation of the regime, for Novotny simply donned the hat of President in addition to that of party chief. Three years later, a new constitution was promulgated proclaiming Czechoslovakia to be a mature socialist state, one—indeed, the only one aside from the U.S.S.R.—nearly ready to begin the vaguely defined
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110008-5
