Czech Paper Attacks 1968 Reform Effort : ‘Prague Spring’ Was Aimed at ‘Dismantling Socialism,’ It Says

The Communist Party newspaper of Czechoslovakia on Monday condemned the birth 20 years ago of the reformist “Prague Spring” under Alexander Dubcek, a movement it said was aimed at “dismantling socialism” in Czechoslovakia.

Dubcek, reached by telephone in Bratislava, said it would be inappropriate for him to comment on the anniversary of a reform program with features similar to those now advocated by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

In an article on the 20th anniversary of a Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee meeting that elected Dubcek its leader, the newspaper Rude Pravo also endorsed the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia on Aug. 21, 1968, that put an end to Dubcek’s program of economic and political reforms.

Dubcek, now 66, was elected Czechoslovakia’s Communist Party leader Jan. 5, 1968.

Fifteen months later, in April, 1969, his attempt at “socialism with a human face” was over. He was ousted by Gustav Husak, who oversaw the dismantling of his reforms and the expulsion of half a million party members--nearly one third of the membership.

Ambassador to Turkey

Dubcek served briefly as ambassador to Turkey and then returned to Bratislava, where he worked as a mid-level manager at a forestry institute until his retirement.

In a telephone conversation Monday, Dubcek said he was suffering from pneumonia and a fever. Asked to give his impressions on the situation in Czechoslovakia two decades after his leadership, he said, “I do not think the time is appropriate.”

Rude Pravo rejected all comparisons--particularly by dissidents who were involved in the reforms and subsequently lost their jobs--between Dubcek’s program and Gorbachev’s perestroika, or restructuring.

“This is an outrageous, shameless and thin lie,” the daily paper said of the comparisons in one of its strongest articles in recent years on the events of 1968.

“The leaders of the right wing in Czechoslovakia aimed at dismantling socialism,” the newspaper said. The similarity between the programs of Dubcek and Gorbachev “is an expression of a grossly deformed conception of reconstruction.”

The Czechoslovak Communist Party, which only had paid lip service to Gorbachev-style reforms for the last two years, elected a new party leader in December, Milos Jakes, to replace Husak.

Jakes is considered a pragmatist who is not expected to depart far from the ideological path Husak took for the past 19 years, even refusing to use the word “reform” when referring to economic changes because of its association with 1968.

Dubcek’s time in power was marked by an unrestrained press, open public criticism and other efforts at “democratization” as well as an “action program” of economic reforms.