PRAGUE
must be hwnanistic; otherwise it is not socialism but an apron merely
hiding various types of dictatorship.
Many of the political freedoms which students - and not only
they - are demanding today existed during the First Republic, but the
effects of economic crisis and the social inequality existing at that time
necessarily lowered their value
in
the eyes of those who were affected.
The bourgeois liberal system also paralyses the social effectiveness of
political freedoms: for example, the freedom to criticise, so that it is
more the exercise of a freedom than an effective social weapon.
They saw the other extreme in the past twenty years. They saw the
introduction of social benefits accompanied by the restrictions of political
freedoms. And those who evoked Marx on all occasions got into conflict
with his doctrine, for Marx stated that "One form of freedom condi–
tions another. Whenever a certain freedom is called in doubt, freedom
altogether becomes doubtful."
The right of every citizen to have a say
in
decisions affecting his
life, that is,
in
the administration of public affairs, in the management
of society, is the second guarantee insisted upon by the students. Only
a system which makes this possible can be called democratic. The Party's
Action Programme at the very minimum created favorable conditions
for democratic participation.
It
stated:
Socialist State power cannot be monopolised either by a single
party or by a coalition of parties. It must be open to all political
organizations of the people. The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
will use every means to develop such forms of political life as will
insure the expression of the direct voice and will of the working
class and all working people
in
political decision-making in our
country....
Following the Party's declaration, political clubs and organizations sprang
up all over the country, particularly those founded by young people,
which were to have been legalized by a new law on assembly and
association this fall. These clubs formed the seed of a new political
system. For students, in particular, believe that "a well organized net–
work of interest and political clubs which act as pressure groups could
be a better guarantee of socialist democracy than, for example, a
plurality of political parties." The present policy, it seems to them, is
a game of power and a game for power: since political parties are its
instruments, a struggle between political parties inevitably turns into
a mere struggle for power.
Thanks to the general experience of the past twenty years and to
their own specific experience of disputes with the politically sterile
Czechoslovak Union of Youth, which they had struggled for years to
