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were imposed on the business community. The trade unions were gradually deprived of the meaningful voice on both local and top-level economic decisions that they had acquired during the Dubcek era and eventually were relegated to their traditional role as an instrument of control under the unenlightened leadership of hardliner Karel Hoffman.
Husak succeeded in containing inflation by the end of 1970. He then unveiled a new Five Year Plan (1971-75) which turned out to be the most cautious of any in Eastern Europe—and the most closely attuned to Moscow's desires. The plan's growth goals were, in fact, clearly understated in order to ensure that the economy would enjoy the appearance of health progress. In broad terms, the document called for a renewed stress on heavy industry, closer cooperation with the U.S.S.R. and other Communist countries, and increased attention to the immediate needs of the Czechoslovak consumer.
One thing which was conspicuously missing from the plan was any hint of new economic reforms. Indeed, while possible changes affecting prices, wages, and managerial techniques have subsequently become the subject of lively debate within the closed confines of top governmental and party organs, little movement toward overhauling the country's resurrected command economy had been recorded by late 1973. In Husak's defense, it must be said that neither the political balance in Czechoslovakia nor Moscow's renewed emphasis on conformity have favored innovation. Furthermore, there is no denying that Husak's efforts to improve consumer welfare have met with considerable success. At the same time, however, his dutifully orthodox approach to economic and political affairs and his marked reluctance to remove loyal party hacks from important jobs have aggravated old economic problems and created some new difficulties of their own.
In fact, while the economy continues to plod along (both national income and industrial production have been growing at about 6% a year), it is creaking audibly. The manpower squeeze has grown worse. Exhortation and threats have failed to yield planned gains in productivity. Thanks largely to poor worker discipline and unsound management, construction and production costs have been taking an average of 8 years from planning to completion—nearly twice the comparable period in other developed nations. Many industrial facilities are antiquated and lag far behind their Western counterparts. Alarmingly, in view of Husak's efforts to bind his country more closely to the Soviet bloc, even the comparative advantage which Czechoslovak products have traditionally enjoyed within the Council for Economic Mutual Assistance (CEMA) has evaporated.
Husak's principal problems in the field of foreign affairs—Soviet tutelage and troubling isolation—were a logical outgrowth of his normalization campaign. During his first 3 years in office, when he was largely preoccupied with internal matters, his foreign policy was characterized by total subservience to Moscow. Predictably, his regime's overall responsiveness to Soviet desires and, in particular, its action in officially endorsing Brezhnev's views on both the practical and ideological justification for the 1968 invasion, led to a marked deterioration of its relations with free-spirited Yugoslavia and Romania. Similarly, Prague's relations with the leading nations of the non-Communist world became strained as Husak moved to cut off the free travel of Czechoslovak citizens to the West and as his rigid domestic policies came under growing Western criticism.
Toward the end of 1972, increasing self-confidence and the opportunities created by Moscow's unfolding policy of detente prompted Husak to turn his hand to repairing some of this damage. With the Kremlin's blessing, he launched a broad diplomatic offensive designed to restore Czechoslovakia to its preinvasion standing in the international community. There were some setbacks, both of his own making and because of problems in the Middle East, but by early 1974 he could claim an impressive list of accomplishments. Among other things, he had buried the hatchet with Romania and Yugoslavia. At the cost of retreating from its original demand that Bonn declare the 1938 Munich Agreement invalid ab initio, Czechoslovakia had concluded a pair of bilateral treaties with West Germany which had paved the way for restoration of normal diplomatic relations between the two countries. Some progress had been made toward resolving longstanding differences with Austria and the Vatican. The U.S. Secretary of State had paid a much publicized visit to Prague, and working-level talks aimed at reaching a satisfactory settlement of opposing U.S. and Czechoslovak financial claims had been initiated.
Despite its more assertive posture, however, Prague's freedom of action in the foreign policy field in early 1974 was still clearly circumscribed by its loyalty to the Soviet Union. Indeed, Czechoslovakia remained the loudest proponent of a "coordinated socialist foreign policy" in Eastern Europe. And under those circumstances, Husak was still finding it hard to develop either domestic support or international respect.
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