Czech Leader Husak, Foe of Gorbachev-Style Reforms, Steps Down as Party Boss

Gustav Husak, who was given power by the Soviet Union after it crushed the liberal “Prague Spring” reforms of 1968, stepped down as Communist Party leader Thursday at a time when the Kremlin favors some of those same reforms.

A telegram from Mikhail S. Gorbachev indicated that the new Czechoslovak leadership will be expected to follow the economic and social changes the Soviet leader is promoting at home.

Husak is 74 and has suffered from failing sight for years. He was replaced by Milos Jakes, 65, who oversaw the purge of nearly 500,000 Communist Party members after the Soviet-led invasion of August, 1968, halted the liberalization begun by Alexander Dubcek, then party leader.

Husak retains the largely ceremonial office of president and membership in the 11-member Politburo that rules the party.

First Cast Change

The resignation represents the first change in the cast of mostly aged Eastern European party leaders who were in office when Gorbachev came to power in 1985 and who have often appeared resistant to both the content and style of his drive to revise the Communist system.

Husak, who suppressed some economic and political reforms in Czechoslovakia that have since been adopted by Gorbachev, has been seen as a principal obstacle to any move by the Czechoslovak party to reverse course and join Gorbachev’s reform drive.

The change was rumored in Prague for several days, and Jakes has been regarded as a potential successor to Husak.

Jakes has overseen party economic policy since 1981. He is a conservative bureaucrat but has approved some cautious reforms undertaken in the centrally planned economy this year.

Past experience with reform has made Czechoslovakia much more hesitant than some other East Bloc nations to follow the Gorbachev lead toward “openness” and “restructuring”-- glasnost and perestroika in Russian.

Gorbachev’s telegram congratulated Jakes and declared, in part:

“We are confident that the Central Committee under your leadership will ensure the fulfillment of wide-scale tasks facing the party in the field of the further development and renewal of socialism on Czechoslovak soil, the restructuring of the economic mechanism, the democratization of the public and political life of the country.”

In its report of the leadership change, the official news agency CTK did not say why Husak chose to resign as party leader and retire from the Central Committee Secretariat, which runs the party’s day-to-day operations.

It said the nearly 200 Central Committee members acted unanimously in accepting his resignation and electing Jakes.

Jakes said in his first speech as party leader that the proclamations of the last party congress, in March, 1986, would be the basis of his policy, according to the CTK report.

‘Uncompromising Struggle’

However, he also emphasized the need for “uncompromising struggle” against corruption, which is said to have reached high into the party during the Husak years.

An echo of Gorbachev sounded in his remark to the Central Committee that he wants the party to work in a “democratic, creative atmosphere, so that we can assess problems entirely openly, in time, and with critical exactitude.”

Gorbachev has long appeared impatient with Czechoslovakia’s stagnation and uneasy about the legacy of 1968. During a visit there earlier this year, he offered no explicit praise for Husak or his policies and instead said his talks had focused on “plans and designs for the future.”

Husak was installed as party chief after Dubcek was ousted in April, 1969.

Dubcek, who had recommended multi-candidate elections and less centralized economic control--both of which Gorbachev espouses--served briefly as ambassador to Turkey but then was sent into the obscurity of postal work in his native Bratislava.

Dubcek, still an official non-person in Czechoslovakia, gained rare public mention in Moscow last month. A Soviet Central Committee official confirmed that Dubcek cabled congratulations to Gorbachev on the 70th anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

The last time Husak was known to be in Moscow was during the celebrations, but he was the only leader from the Soviet Bloc who did not remain for the annual Nov. 7 parade in Red Square.

A Czechoslovak Central Committee resolution praised Husak, who joined the Communist Party in 1933, for his long commitment and said he “did not lose faith in the ideals of socialism even at a time when he became a victim of gross violations of socialist legality,” CTK said.

Husak was imprisoned in 1951-1960 after accusations that he supported nationalism in his native Slovakia.

As a choice for successor, Jakes represents neither of the two political tendencies--one strongly pro-reform and one ultraconservative--that seemed to coexist in the 11-member Presidium under Husak. Premier Lubomir Strougal, a strong supporter of Gorbachev in public speeches and the chief architect of Prague’s own restructuring package, was often cited as a candidate to replace Husak in the event of a decisive shift by the party toward reform.

In contrast, several senior leaders, notably Presidium member Vasil Bilak, appeared openly hostile to both reform and Gorbachev in public statements this year before they were silenced by a Husak speech last March, nominally committing the party to Moscow’s new agenda.

LEADERSHIP CHANGE IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Gustav Husak (GOOS-tahv HOO-Sahk)

Czechoslovakia’s hard-line leader since 1969, after Moscow crushed the “Prague Spring” reform movement and ousted Alexander Dubcek. . . . Now 74 years old, a member of the Communist Party since age 16. . . . Gruff and not given to compromise, widely regarded as a “lone wolf,” an orthodox politician respected but unloved. . . . Son of a worker in Dubravka, a Slovak village. . . . Educated as a lawyer. . . . Rose steadily in the party hierarchy during World War II. . . . Imprisoned repeatedly after Nazis outlawed the party. . . . In 1951 sentenced to life in prison by Stalinist hard-liners as a bourgeois Slovak nationalist. . . . Released in 1961, spent three years as a construction worker until his rehabilitation by the party. . . . Widowed, with two sons.

Milos Jakes (MEE-losh YA-Kesh)

Until Thursday, head of the Communist Party committee in charge of the economy . . . . Is expected to supervise an effort at economic restructuring in line with Moscow’s. . . . A native of Bohemia, 65 years old, trained as an electrician. . . . Before World War II, a designer at the Bata shoe factory in Zlin (now Gottwaldov), which was known for its efficiency. . . . Joined the party in 1945 and by 1948 was a member of the Youth Union presidium. . . . Studied in Moscow from 1955-58, went home as chief of the party Central Committee’s section for national committees. . . . Held Interior Ministry posts in the 1960s and supported the Soviet-led invasion that smashed the “Prague Spring.”. . . Known since then as an opportunist. . . . Only recently became committed to Moscow’s call for reform.