Conflict in Czechoslovakia

The fateful chain of events leading to the latest Czech drama did not start, as widely believed, in January 1968. The inflammatory sparks flying at the Congress of Slovak Writers in May 1967 led to an explosion at the Congress of Czechoslovak Writers the following month. This revolt of communist intellectuals opened a Pandora's box. For the following six months the Stalinist Novotnyites tried unsuccessfully to stave off the torrent of demands for political and economic reforms. In the fourteen-month period under review here the Czechs and Slovaks were ushered into a new era of national and political awakening after twenty years of darkness. The first half of this period reached a climax by the end of 1967, when it became clear that the new liberal wave was only the forerunner of a great tidal movement. The second, and main, part of the story opens with the ousting of Novotny as Party chief on 5 January 1968, and ends with the Soviet bloc invasion of the sleeping, and perhaps dreaming, Czechoslovakia, on the night of 20 and 21 August 1968. The following selection of representative speeches and documents is really only a modest sample of the prevailing mood in Czechoslovakia. An objective description of the brave, and perhaps quixotic, venture may be premature but if it is not done now, the tide of events may erase its real meaning

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