Prague’s Ideology Chief Flies to Moscow : East Bloc: The unexpected trip fuels speculation that Gorbachev is pressuring the Czechs to liberalize.

Communist Party ideology chief Jan Fojtik departed unexpectedly for Moscow on Thursday amid reports that Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev has personally exerted pressure on Czechoslovak leaders for political reform.

Fojtik’s departure was reported by the official news agency CTK in a terse one-line announcement.

His trip followed government denials earlier in the day that the Soviet leadership had written to the ruling presidiums of Eastern Europe’s remaining hard-line Communist states, including Stalinist Czechoslovakia, urging them to drop their resistance to political change.

“We know nothing about this,” chief government spokesman Miroslav Pavel told a news conference Thursday.

“I can’t believe the present leadership of the Soviet Union would do such a thing,” he added. “I feel it’s contradictory.”

Political observers noted that Pavel’s words seemed to fall short of an outright denial, focusing instead on a personal lack of knowledge of such pressure.

According to a source close to the party, the letters, said to be addressed to the presidiums of the Communist parties of Bulgaria and Romania in addition to Czechoslovakia, were also signed by Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov.

This source speculated that it was such a letter to the Bulgarian leadership that triggered the sudden resignation of that country’s leader, Todor Zhivkov, earlier this month.

A series of developments in recent days have provided hints of possible movement within the Czechoslovak hierarchy, but these remain far short of the political liberalization under way in neighboring Hungary, Poland, and East Germany.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Ladislav Adamec announced that the Czechoslovak government plans to ease travel restrictions by abolishing the requirement for an exit permit.

Since Czechoslovak laws on travel to the West were first liberalized 18 months ago, the exit visa has for most people been more of an irritating delay than a serious constraint on leaving the country.

Only Czechoslovak political dissidents and those facing legal proceedings have been turned down for visas in the recent past.

This country’s acute shortage of hard currency is generally considered the biggest single barrier preventing more people from traveling to the West.

The end of the exit visa requirement was first discussed publicly several months ago, well before events in neighboring East Germany began their headlong rush.

However, some political observers here argue that the timing of Adamec’s remarks in such a major parliamentary address could be interpreted as an attempt by the Czechoslovak hierarchy to defuse pressures building for change.

In a separate speech Tuesday, Adamec also noted the need for political change to accompany economic reform.

“Economic reform cannot be successful without political reform,” he said. “Especially in our situation, political change should actually be somewhat in advance.”

Until recently, Stalinist Czechoslovak leaders have talked of implementing economic reforms while maintaining the political status quo.

While Adamec has mentioned the need for some political movement previously, diplomats said his comments Tuesday were the most outspoken on the subject.

These diplomats however noted that he provided no details of the political change.

Western observers also considered it significant that a group of about 500 demonstrators trying to march Wednesday on the Romanian Embassy to protest human rights violations there were not beaten by police in riot gear, but were simply blocked by unarmed officers in ordinary uniforms.

Still, diplomats remained skeptical of the leadership’s intentions.

“You can’t dismiss it as nothing at all,” a respected European diplomat commented about the moves of the past few days. “But I really wonder if they are ready to do what they say.”

Most of Czechoslovakia’s Communist leadership is closely tied to the repression that followed the toppling of Alexander Dubcek’s liberal experiment in 1968, and political observers believe real reform is impossible while they remain in power.

Despite a growing belief that the political change sweeping through much of Eastern Europe must soon overtake Czechoslovakia too, there are few substantive signs of liberalization here.

The easing of travel restrictions for Czechoslovak citizens is unlikely to affect political dissidents currently prevented from going to the West, government officials indicated Thursday.

The country’s best-known dissident, writer Vaclav Havel, will not be allowed to travel abroad under the new rules, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lumobiv Marsik said. “This person has been placed on probation and so cannot be given a passport,” Marsik said.