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Whatever his ultimate intentions, Husak is in a difficult position. He cannot chart an even modestly independent course unless he can develop a firm base of popular support similar to that enjoyed by Poland's Gierek or Hungary's Kadar. Ironically, the trend toward East-West detente has made it more difficult for Husak to court this support. For one thing, Moscow has been pressing for increased discipline and conformity in Eastern Europe in order to counter the potentially corrosive impact of detente. As might be expected, the Kremlin's call for an intensification of the struggle against all forms of ideological heresy has been enthusiastically echoed by Czechoslovakia's hardliners. Moreover, although Husak still favors a policy of moderation, even he recognizes that Czechoslovakia is particularly vulnerable to destabilizing Western influences. Not only do most of the popular grievances that combined to topple the Novotny regime still lie close to the surface, but the 1968 invasion created a strong—and for the Czechoslovaks, unprecedented—undercurrent of anti-Sovietism as well. All told, Husak must find the arguments against easing internal controls to be very strong.
In any event, the general trend of developments in Czechoslovakia suggests that Husak's course will continue to swing between suppressing the vestiges of resistance with a stick and luring the masses out of their apathy with a carrot. Unfortunately for the Czechoslovak populace, the stick seemed most in evidence as 1973 drew to a close. For example, about 50 former students and faculty members of the Communist Party's higher school were suddenly and belatedly stripped for their academic titles and degrees. The body of Jan Palach, a young student who immolated himself in January 1969 to protest the Warsaw Pact invasion and its consequences, was mysteriously removed from a cemetery in Prague, and his grave was replaced with that of a virtually unknown woman. In addition, there were reports that a new trial of prominent dissidents was being prepared.
In sum, it would appear that no general thaw is in the immediate offing. Without one, however, it seems almost certain that the economy—and Husak personally—will have to continue to bear the twin burdens of popular apathy and passive resistance. Indeed, even if Husak should introduce some modest economic reforms in the near future, he could find it increasingly difficult just to satisfy the newly whetted economic expectations of his countrymen.
More than 50,000 mourners attend services of Jan Palach, whose self-immolation was in protest of the Soviet-led invasion
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