spiritual-genocide
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FLORENCE, Italy—Tourists, visitors or observers of Czechoslovakia all agree in one respect: of all Eastern European countries, the deepest de pression, frustration and feeling of hopelessness prevails in Czechoslo vakia.
Since Soviet pressure is the common fate of those countries, the mere fact of occupation cannot be the only cause of the specific state of affairs in Czechoslovakia. In my judgment, the cause lies with the leadership of the country, particularly with Dr. Gus tav Husak, First Secretary of the Com munist party and the most powerful and influential personality of the Czechoslovak leadership.
I often try to trace the roots of Dr. Husak's role in his past.
Some forty years back, when, as a freshman at the University of Bratis lava, he attended my seminars and became the most active contributor to the university's students' paper. He be came very soon an outstanding and most influential person in the student movement, an excellent organizer as signing to his followers the most suit able functions.
Despite the preoccupation with po litical organizational and publicistic activities, he continued to be an ex cellent student, finishing all exams in time and with the best results. But these qualities alone would not explain his extraordinary career.
He was most interested in ideologi cal, theoretical, philosophical and even literary problems, but foremost was his ability to channel all knowledge, views and ideas into action. Every thing became a weapon in his political fight. Absolute pragmatism and action became the most characteristic feature of his personality.
At that time our political fight was oriented against the fatal danger of German fascism, including its Czech and Slovak followers. It seemed to most of us that a fight against anti human fascism was by this very fact humane. We did not realize that fight ing against a particular form of fas cism could evolve another form of it— Stalinism.
Both Dr. Husak and I had to pay the price for this grave mistake. We were sentenced to life imprisonment, some of our best friends were exe cuted and thousands and thousands were imprisoned and persecuted.
After our rehabilitation Husak seemed to have learned this lesson. We lec tured together and were instrumental in eliminating Stalinism. We fought for a humane society and on one occa sion he told me that although in politi cal life compromises are inevitable, no compromises should be acceptable in the sphere of humane values.
This proved to be only lip service on his part.
In the spring of 1968 I asked him to read the manuscript of my book on the Slansky trial in which I proved that the trial was run by the Soviet in order to crush any effort toward Czechoslovak sovereignty. I said fur ther that the Czechoslovak party lead ership as a whole acted as traitors, handing over its country to the Soviets.
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He agreed with my conclusions but opposed very strongly the publication of my book arguing that it could do harm to the interests of the party and the Soviets. I told him that pragma tism had again become his religion and human values again an object of com promise. I published the book and our friendship ended.
After this I was not at all surprised to learn that Husak offered his serv ices to Brezhnev, although he con demned the Warsaw Pact occupation of Czechoslovakia as much as the overwhelming majority of our people.
One lesson of the past he obviously learned very well, that the primitive Stalinist terror is counterproductive, while a more sophisticated form of oppression was necessary in order to make Czechoslovakia a powerless col ony of the Soviets.
Husak found it necessary to break the spirit of the nation, to deprive the nation of its soul. In order to achieve this he destroyed the impact and influ ence of the intelligentsia, the backbone of the nation in its fight for a humane society in the spring of 1968. Husak forced artists, teachers, students, pub licists, managers, designers, et al., to sign a declaration welcoming the So viet military occupation of Czechoslo vakia.
He was clever enough not to con centrate on individuals who opposed the regime but to crush the soul and pride of the nation as a whole. This is spiritual genocide.
Husak claims that thanks to his in fluence there are no more show trials and only few and relatively mild sen tences against the active opposition. While it is debatable what is “rela tively few and mild,” the spiritual genocide he introduced is the greatest danger and the greatest crime against the Czech and Slovak nations.
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