Visiting Prague

Summary: in 1968 the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops put an end to the liberal reforms of Alexander Dubček. A year later the Normalization period started with Gustav Husák.

Normalization is the name commonly given to the period 1969 to about 1987, sometimes referred only to the smaller period from 1969 to 1971. Dubček was in power until only April 1969, when Gustav Husák was named first secretary. The Normalization was meant to be the restoration of continuity with the pre-reform, a “temporary stationing”. Although this period was characterized by the political repression and the return to ideological conformity. All of the reformists in the Czechoslovak leadership were invited to leave the political activities and 54 of the 115 members of the KSC Central Committee were substituted. The reformists from regional, district, and local party branches were banned from the Czech and Slovak lands. The KSC party membership was significantly reduced to half size. The heads of the social organizations were demitted, as well as directors of publishing houses and film studios. Censorship was very strict living in alert and it was started a campaign of militant atheism.
Husák had defined very specifics objectives for the period of the normalization whish were the restoration of firm party rule and the reestablishment of Czechoslovakia’s status as a committed member of the socialist bloc. Therefore the plane demanded five stages: strength his own leadership (also by removing the reformers from important positions); adapt or replace the laws enacted by the reformists; restore centralized control over the economy; give back the power to police authorities; and develop Czechoslovakia’s bonds with other socialist nations.
In May 1971, the already party chief Husák was by then able to report to the Fourteenth Party Congress that the process of normalization had been completed satisfactorily and that Czechoslovakia was ready to proceed toward higher forms of socialism.
Therefore from 1971 to 1987 started the second period of Normalization whish already had a different goal, this time to keep the status quo of Czechoslovakia was the most important to Husák. During this second stage of the Normalization Husák had gain power in the social international scene and thus he had great freedom to rule Czechoslovakia. The repression of any kind of threat to Husák himself or to the regime was now worse then ever. Besides the arrestments and imprisonment of intellectuals, artistes and religious activists, the people opposing to the regime were punished by job loss demotion, denial of employment, denial of educational opportunities, housing restrictions and refusal to grant travel requests. The los of personal freedom was also a characteristic of the Husák’s regime, this measure was more to control the considerable consumers gains. Husák once again achieved his objective the status quo had been preserved. Although with the new leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev the changes on the political course was more then significant transforming the logical of the Normalization and its leader Husák.
This period showed to be a destruction of public property at high position. Alcoholism levels raised considerably to the point to alarmed officials, increased; absenteeism and declining worker discipline affected productivity. Emigration, one heavy expression of alienation, surpassed 100,000 throughout the 70s.

Summary: after Soviet Union and its Red Army came to liberate Czechoslovakia from the Nazis, Czech enjoyed their small period of freedom until 1948 when Czechoslovakia become a “people’s Democracy”.

In February 1948, Czechoslovakia’s destiny was abruptly changed a premature step was taken toward socialism and, ultimately, communism. The country was declared a “people’s republic”. The communism entered Czech people’s lives in all senses: bureaucratic centralism was introduced, members of Catholic Church were marginalized, people had to live after the Marxism-Leninism principals. Most hotels in Prague were used as government buildings. Being now a Satellite of the Soviet Union, their education system had to be submitted to state control, the economy was committed to comprehensive central planning and the private ownership was eliminated. Being forced to serve the national interests of Soviet Union and under the socialism of a Soviet-style, in 1949 Czechoslovakia was already a member of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and in 1955 a signer of the Warsaw Pact (whish gave total power to Soviet Union over the rest of the members).
From 1945 to 1948 was a period of preparation where Czechoslovakia lived the reality of communist and under the dictatorship of the proletariat ruled by the communist party. When the Soviet Union wanted the president Edvard Beneš to sign the Ninth-of-May Constitution he refused and that’s how Klement Gottwald got to the power. In 1953 Gottwald died and Antonín Zápotocký was the new president but Antonín Novotný was the head if the KSČ (Communist Czech Party)
Stalin paranoia made him extremely concerned about the Eastern Block treating the countries under his power like thru colonies making a sweeping political change. For theses reason the mistrust in the country was everywhere and politics accused themselves of conspiracy against the people’s democratic order, resulting in a number of arrestments (mostly those who had an international passed) and trials, many faced death sentences of forced labor in prison camps, others were executed.
The Ninth-of-May Constitution had the goal to enlarge the nationalization of industries, elimination of the privet sector or ownership if lands. Privet enterprise and independent farming were permitted to carry on only as a temporary concession to the petite bourgeoisie. As in the Soviet Union, in Czechoslovakia the Five-Year Plans was introduced. First the heavy industry was developed at a rapid rhythm, specially the metallurgy, heavy machinery, and coal mining sectors. The result was that Czechoslovakia’s industrial growth of 170 percent between 1948 and 1957. However what didn’t improve was definitely the living, people in general subjected to long hours and long workweeks to meet production quotas also part-time volunteer labor.
This constitution also wanted to collectivize agriculture adopting the Unified Agricultural Cooperatives Act, founded on a voluntary basis. The government policies were employed to bring about the ruin of recalcitrant kulaks and Collectivization was near completion by 1960. Most of privet lands were transformed into state farms. Although in 1959 the results were far from the desired and the causes of the decline were the diversion of labor from agriculture to industry.
In 1960 there was a new Constitution of Czechoslovakia that proclaimed the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, the victory was from the socialism. In the National Assembly the KSČ policies continued: all private enterprises were already abolished; the planning of the economy was reaffirmed; the Bill of Rights the right to work, leisure, health care, and education. Civil rights, however, were deemphasized. The justice system was committed to the protection of the socialist state.

The period of De-Stalinization started in 1963, wish was late in Czechoslovakia. Nikita Khrushchev was now in power and it was in the Congress of the Communist Party that he made his affirmation and the intention to keep going with the politics of the satellites. Writes in Czechoslovakia showed their dissatisfaction at the Second Writers’ Congress but they were quickly repressed. Students in Prague and Bratislava made a demonstration in 1956 demanding freedom of speech and access to the Western press. But they also were repressed. The era of Neo-Stalinism would had began.
The economy was stagnated, the balance of trade was not equilibrated, giving disadvantage to Czechoslovakia. The pressure form Moscow resulted in a precipitated reform of 1963. The KSČ organized committees to review economic policy with the help of young and more liberal communists who come to substitute those that faced trials in1949-54 and were purged, due to criticism of economic planning. In 1965 there was already architect the New Economic Model whish was approved. The new model had as principal objectives economic development, emphasizing technological and managerial improvements and was accompanied by number of measures. However the action of the KSČ was limited because democratic centralism was being redefined, placing a stronger emphasis on democracy. In an other hand the National Assembly was promised increased legislative responsibility.
In 1967 the plan was supposed to be completed but Novotný feared the central control at the same time suffering a great pressures form writers, economists, reformists. The answer to those protests and insistence was repression form Novotný once again.  In October of the same year Alexander Dubček challenged Novotný and was accused of nationalism. In the next January he had already managed to make Soviet Union make him rise to the power as first secretary of the KSČ. On 22nd of March, 1968, Novotný left the presidency and was succeeded by General Ludvík Svoboda.
With Dubček in the power another period came, the Prague Spring. The ending of the spring was not happy but the during was surely a moment of hope and a small piece of freedom.

Charles IV statue

At the point where Charles Bridge (Karluv Most) meets the east bank at Crusaders Square, the Knights of the Cross Square (Krizovnicke namesti), there’s the tall Neo-Gothic statue statue of Charles IV. This square near the Old Town Bridge Tower where statue of the king stands is one of the smallest and often said to be the most attractive part, architecturally, of Prague hotel. Charles IV is looking down the river, the tower at the start of the Charles Bridge and a view across the Vltava River is wonderful including the bridge itself and, in the distance, the castle overlooking the entire city.

Charles IV was Holy Roman emperor in 1355–78, German king in 1347–78 and king of Bohemia in 1346–78 and is remembered as the “father of the Czech nation” and the most beloved Czech king. Charles IV loved Prague and when the king was crowned the Holy Roman Emperor in 1355, Prague’s status increased to the capital of the Holy Roman Empire. He started numerous building projects, including the St. Vitus Cathedral, foundation of Prague’s New Town (Nové město) and the Charles University - the first university in Central Europe, the Karlštejn castle protecting royal treasures and of course construction of Charles Bridge.