FOURTH WORLD
41
youth; on the contrary, it helped
to
crystallize their political opmlOns
and attitudes. Significantly, there were no young people among the
groups of collaborators and pro-Soviet demonstrators on November 7,
1968, while the anti-Soviet demonstrators were nearly all young.
During their November strike the students sent to the Communist
Party's Central Committee a ten-point resolution, the key demands of
which are similar to those which were sent to Novotny's Government by
assemblies of thousands of students last November and December:
1.
The Action Programme adopted by the April plenary Central
Committee must remain the foundation of Party policy.
2. There must be no return to cabinet policy, and the two-way
flow of information between citizens and the leadership must be
renewed.
3. Censorship of mass media must be temporary and be abolished
within six months.
4. The right of assembly must be restored.
5. Freedom of scientific research and of literary and cultural ex–
pression must be guaranteed.
6. The personal security of every citizen must be ensured by law.
7. Those who have lost the confidence of the people and failed to
clarify their standpoint must not be allowed to remain in important
posts.
8. The establishment of self-managing workers' councils in fac–
tories must continue.
9. Freedom to leave the country must be guaranteed.
10. In foreign policy the country must take no action which violates
the feelings of Czechoslovak people, the United Nations' Charter
and the Declaration of Human Rights.
The differences between last year's and this year's resolutions are in
form rather than in content. Last year the students couldn't use words
like "renewed" or "restored" and so on. And that gives them hope.
Once all these things were possible. Today the students do not feel that
they have continually to emphasize that they are for socialism. One of
their resolutions of early spring began with the words:
Socialism in our country is a reality. For us a return to capitalism
is unthinkable, because all the positive achievements of the past
twenty years, in spite of the mistakes and shortcomings, stemmed
from the socialist character of our society. Socialism is a classless
society, therefore it means an end to irreconcilable class war. An–
swers to the question, what will our socialism be like, will obviously
differ. Let them: for our socialism must be really enlightened,
humanitarian and democratic. The basis of democracy is full recog–
nition of and respect for human rights and freedoms as proclaimed
in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, which should
be
implemented primarily under socialism....
