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regimes, it is primarily an outline guide for the transition of the nation to "mature socialism." Only secondarily is it a charter setting forth the structure and operations of the government apparatus and the rights and duties of citizens. The programmatic character of the document suggests that the Communist Party, then under First Secretary Antonin Novotny, planned to issue a new constitution when the leadership decided that the nation was prepared for the final transition to a Communist society. This temporary aspect of the 1960 constitution further distinguishes it—in common with other Soviet bloc constitutions—from most Western democratic basic laws with their seeming assurances of perpetuity.
Emphasis on the "socialist" character of the state is the salient characteristic of the 1960 constitution. It proclaims the affiliation of the nation to the bloc of socialist and Communist nations, a first for a Soviet bloc constitution. The Communist Party's monopoly of power is explicitly confirmed, as is the doctrine of "democratic centralism." The Czechoslovak Communist Party, which had shaped the lives of the population and the development of the country without any formal constitutional sanction since 1948, received constitutional status as the "vanguard of the working class" and the "leading force in the community and the state." The 1960 constitution, like that of 1948, makes no mention of the four existing puppet political parties, but it clearly spells out the influential role of the Communist-controlled mass organizations, particularly the trade unions.
Although the constitution of 1960 is patterned after the constitution of the U.S.S.R., especially with regard to the socioeconomic rights of citizens, the regime retained almost all aspects of the governmental structure of the 1948 constitution, which in turn had embodied certain features of the democratic Czechoslovak constitution of 1920. Both postwar constitutions retained a seemingly powerful office of President of the Republic, creating an impression of juridicial conformity with the form of the popular First Republic. The retention of a nominally powerful president as well as head of state distinguishes the Czechoslovak constitution from those of most other Eastern European Communist countries where the chairman of a multimember state council has the generally ceremonial role of head of state but virtually no executive functions. The Czechoslovak Communists thus sought to benefit from the strong attachment of the population to the democratic forms of the former republic by observing them in name, if not in substance.
The reincorporation of certain administrative mechanisms outlined in the earlier constitutions notwithstanding, the present document gives legality to an unabashedly totalitarian system. There are, indeed, clauses reaffirming the principles of popular sovereignty, democratic government, and civil liberties, but they have little significance because of the absence of meaningful implementing laws or decrees, and, most significantly, of adequate provisions for checks and balances. Unlike Western democratic constitutions, the Czechoslovak document places no limits on the arbitrary powers of the government. The classical concept of individual liberty was replaced by a new rubric of "collective freedom." Greater emphasis throughout is placed on the "equality" rather than on the "freedoms" of the individual. Furthermore, economic rights and duties are stressed more than those of a political nature.
Under the 1960 constitution, the concept of private property was eliminated and replaced by a more restrictive concept of "personal property," essentially limited to articles of private and domestic consumption, family houses, and savings acquired by "honest work." (It should be noted, however, that this provision has now inhibited the material acquisitiveness of the Czechoslovak people; the present Husak regime has in fact encouraged this tendency as a means of diverting popular energies from political to material goals.) The earlier constitution had allowed for small business enterprises and agricultural holdings but, because such prerogatives conflicted with party aims, they were progressively ignored. The extension of state control over virtually all business and the collectivization of farms were among the main features of the development toward "socialism" after 1948.
Like its predecessor, the 1960 charter proclaimed a "unitary state of two fraternal (Slavic) nations possessing equal rights, the Czechs and the Slovaks." Both documents provided for local administration to be under the authority of national committees "accountable to the people," although the 1960 constitution alone specifically provided for popular elections.
Touching on the basic relationship of the Czech and Slovak people, one important reform envisaged in the stillborn 1968 constitutional draft, the federalization of the country into two separate Czech and Slovak republics, did survive the invasion and was enacted into law on 28 October 1968, the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Czechoslovak Republic. This law of federalization went into effect on 1 January 1969 (Figures 2 and 3).
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