So Many Heroes by Alan Levy

Author:Alan Levy [Levy, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Eastern, Military, General
ISBN: 9781504023344
Google: b_SECgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2015-09-29T00:36:21+00:00

Chapter 10

Monday 5 August—Tuesday 20 August 1968

It had not been like any other “cucumber season” and, now that the whole nation could uncoil and vegetate, it was still not going to be like any other “cucumber season.” Workers in the Merina textile mill started working one extra “Dubček shift” a month to help Ota Šik rejuvenate the ailing economy. This spirit of sacrifice ballooned into Dubček Clubs with sixteen branches across the country and a Fund for the Republic, to which Czechs and Slovaks donated overtime pay, crowns, gold and silver they had hoarded for years.

Josef Smrkovský stayed on the job and worked harder than ever at assuring and exhorting the millions who loved him. He journeyed north to the industrial center of Ústí-nad-Labem (Aussig-on-the-Elbe) for three hours of unprogrammed questions and answers.

“Do you think you succeeded in convincing the other Communist delegations that our road is the right one?” Smrkovský was asked there.

“I don’t think we convinced them,” he replied, “but we went to Bratislava to explain to them in a comradely way that this is our business and we would appreciate their respecting our right.… I often hear the question: Was the result of the talks a victory or a compromise? I answer: We managed to maintain what we wanted to. Now, however, we must make up the lost time and prepare for the Extraordinary Congress of the Party.”

Around the 7th of August, Brezhnev, Kosygin, Podgorny, and most of the other Soviet leaders went on vacation to Black Sea resorts and government dachas along the Moscow River. Even though two of the more hawkish profiles among the faceless men of the Politburu, Kiril T. Mazurov and Andrei P. Kirilenko, were left in charge of the Kremlin, their functions and abilities were those of caretakers and nobody in Prague worried much about them. General Svoboda took a brief holiday in the High Tatras with his wife and granddaughter and, when they returned, it was reported that the seventy-two-year-old President had climbed the Gerlachovka, the highest peak in the land. Foreign Minister Jiří Hájek and Deputy Prime Minister Ota Šik took working vacations in Yugoslavia. Alexander Dubček stayed in Prague to prepare for the Party Congress on 9 September, but he managed to take a long hunting and swimming weekend in Slovakia.

(One Czech journal reported shortly after this trip: “On the stairway and in the drawing room of the Dubček home in Bratislava, the walls are decorated with hunting trophies, the stuffed heads of stags and roebucks. Above each trophy is a wooden plaque telling where and when this particular trophy was shot and by whom. It came as a surprise to find many heads bearing the name of Alexander Dubček.” The reporter didn’t need to stress the symbolism of the next revelation: “On the drawing-room floor lies the skin and stuffed head of a Russian black bear.”)

Back in the big city, Dubček, the Great White Hunter of the Tatras, was not without his troubles. At a Presidium meeting, the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.