Independent for a Day

Five years after the Communists seized power in Czechoslovakia in the name of the working class, the Czech workers got caught in one of the great swindles of modern times. They listened dazedly on May 30 as their masters proclaimed "currency reforms" wiping out most of their savings, repudiating the state bonds they had been forced to buy, and cutting their wages almost 70% (TIME, June 8). The next day they acted without plan, without leadership or premeditation. What they did will be long remembered.

The most complete report of what happened came not from the usual "well-informed sources" but from the Reds' own Pravda of Pilsen, center of the giant Lenin (formerly Skoda) Works. It was written in Communist doubletalk, but remarkably candid for all that: "On June 1, some politically unaware workers let themselves be persuaded into believing that the currency reform was aimed at them, and that they would not be able to live on their new wages and would go hungry. They staged antistate demonstrations ... In the town hall rioters tore down pictures of Czech state leaders and hung up pictures of the imperialist agent Benes [the last non-Communist President]. The American gangsters stepped on pictures of Stalin and Gottwald and violated the Soviet flag. The archives in the town hall were burned.

"On the night of June 3-4, firing was heard. On June 4-5, armed militia marched through the streets and machine guns were placed before the Lenin factories and government buildings . . . Workers in the Lenin Works did not stop the reactionary elements in time, something that must never be allowed to happen again."

From Ostrava, in the Czech Ruhr, Nova Svoboda reported: "At Vaclav, Zone, Czechoslovak Pioneer Mines, Bohumin Iron Works and the Stalingrad Iron Works in Liskovec, some workers let themselves be misled by provocateurs in the service of the bourgeoisie . . . Considerable unrest and provocations took place . . . State and labor discipline was seriously disturbed . . . Loyal workers liquidated the subversive activities."

So much the Reds themselves acknowledged; how much more went on? Radio Free Europe, just across the Czech frontier, painstakingly analyzed reports by travelers and refugees and filled out the story.

P: A refugee: "Miners in the Ostrava pits went on strike for five days; the soldiers refused to fire on them. Convinced Communists tore party emblems from their lapels, spat on them. Plant militia killed three miners. One militiawoman who shot a miner was beaten to death."

P: A German mechanic sent to Prague to service machinery: "Prague was blocked by troops, the capital was in a state of siege, factory workers were in an uproar. One worker told me in German: 'We don't care what happens to us; we are tired of the propaganda, the swindle. If we don't get our salary, we will stop working.' "

P: A refugee: "At the Tatra Works in Koprivnice (10,000 workers), the workers stopped work as soon as they heard about the currency reform over the plant loudspeakers. The moment the strike started, militia armed with machine guns guarded all entrances. Leading plant functionaries tried to calm the workers but made not the slightest impression. The workers shouted: 'Keep your big mouth shut. You get paid for doing nothing anyhow. Get out of here!' A few convinced Communists tried to continue working."

By last week, however, the masters appeared to be once more in control. With six Vice Premiers beside him and the armed might of his police state behind him. President Antonin Zapotocky went before the workers at Prague's main arms firm, the Sokolovo plant, and proclaimed: "We shall have to draw a lesson from all these mistakes and put things straight again. It will be necessary to take measures. We will act ... There will be no change in the politics of the state."

Once more in line, the workers held "spontaneous meetings" in the factories and passed thunderous, old-style resolutions: "We ourselves shall purge counterrevolutionary elements and provocateurs from our plants" (NHKG works in Ostrava). Once more Czechoslovakia grew quiet. But for a few fleeting hours the Czech people had acted like free men, and would not soon forget how sweet it was.

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