556
VITEZSLAV NADEJE
union leaders and workers were demoted or fired and hundreds of stu–
dents were expe lled. These people were not allowed to ,vork in fac–
tories lest they "contaminate" the other elllployees, and the last thing
Husak \\'anted \\'as a militant working class. Experience in
1968-69
had proved that in Czechoslovakia communication between workers
and intellectuals could develop into formidable cooperation. A few of
the dissidents landed badly paid jobs as minor clerks, warehousemen,
stokers, night watchmen, etc.; many were rejected for even the most
uncongenial tasks and are still \\'ithout work. Fear of dismissal is an
crfective deterrent, for the jobless are entirely without means- the dole
went out \\·ith capitalism. Money is contributed by well-wishers, but
this doesn' t begin to cover the need. As in the fifties, the sins of the
fathers are visited on their children: they are barred from secondary
r.nd higher education and have difficulty in obtaining work.
r\oll-Communists and even anti-Communists have been promoted
to responsible posts as the need for high ly qualified personnel in scien–
tific and technological fields outweighs other considerations.
In
fact,
apolitica l people who are interested only in their own well-being and
therefore put a premium on security are more easily manipulated by a
dogmatic system than Communists who compare reality with their
soc ialist values.
Pressure to conform has been accompa nied by a continuous blast
of demagogic propaganda. No attempts have been made to analyze
the causes and effects of the reform movement. No alternati\'e ideology
has been presented. Instead a smear campaign has been directed against
individual reformers, depicting them as foreign agents or Zionists, while
whitewashing the opportunists of the fifties, many of whom h ave been
reinstated - K arol Bacilek. Minister of National Security
1952-53,
Dr. Josef Urvalek, chief prosecutor at the Slansky trial , and others.
Tightened censorship is another of Husak's non-lethal weapons.
The mass media give only the barest of slanted "ne\vs." Hundreds of
books have been withdrawn from the libraries, including the Com–
munist party's best-selling Action Program of
1968.
Stark realisI1l is
again prescribed in all the arts, and the censors have gone berserk on
the stage and screen.
By
1970
the nation that h ad decided , albe it skeptically, to let
Husak show his mettle, realized that their leader would not, or could
not, keep his promises. The people were tasting the full bitterness of
betrayal. For the third time in a life span the Czechs had been writ–
ten off by the West; their destiny had been determined by the Great
Po\\·ers. Despair h as grown into apathy, accentuated by mental torpor
,
