Making Haste Slowly

While it has brought the euphoria of free expression and an undeniable sense of exciting evolution to Czechoslovakia liberalizing regime of Alexander Dubcek has been unable so far to deliver much in the way of tangible reforms. One reason is that since he took over last January, Party Boss Dubcek has had to move with caution while he measured Russian reactions. Another is the plain impossibility of dismantling overnight the barnacled apparatus of a hard-lining Communist state. Last week Dubcek finally acted against the conservative Communists remaining in both the government and the party who fear and resent the promised economic and political changes. At a meeting of the Czechoslovak Central Committee Dubcek ousted his predecessor, Antonin Novotny, from the committee--his last position of influence--and suspended the party membership not only of Novotny, but also of six former collaborators until their share in the political trials of the past is clarified."

Novotny's farewell performance was entirely in character. He reportedly tried to win votes by threatening to reveal stories about bribes taken by committee members in the past; then, when the committee debate went against him he broke into tears. Dubcek had come armed with a batch of petitions from workers, students and other Czechoslovaks who called for the dismissal from the committee of Novotny's entire faction. He warned the committee that the party's capacity for action was threatened by "those forces who by words recognize the correctness of the new policy, but have not yet overcome their old opinions." In the end, the vote of the 110 committeemen was unanimous; even the 40 or so conservatives dutifully raised their hands against Novotny.

Winners & Losers. The vote may herald the start of a tougher campaign to force the resignation of others who served under Novotny and who still hold most of the top jobs in the government and in local party cells across the country. Only about 100 people, most of them unrepentant Stalinists and top Cabinet ministers, have lost their jobs in recent months--and almost all have been allowed to resign with dignity. An exception was the hated former Chief of Security, Miroslav Mamula, who was fired. He then got a job at a factory workbench, but when his fellow workers recognized him, they hounded him until he quit. In fact, the lash of public opinion has been harsher than that of Dubcek. The suicides of 29 officials in recent weeks are attributed to TV and press exposes of their past roles in the Stalinist terror.

Thus no real purge has occurred so far, and that other Communist ritual that comes with every change of regime --rehabilitation--has also been slow to start. Dubcek released about 450 political prisoners soon after his takeover. But he has yet to review the trials, many of which were rigged, of some 40,000 former prisoners, or to restore to good grace by any official act about 100,000 people who lost their party membership, jobs, pensions and other privileges because of political acts or "unreliable opinions." Such redress as there has been has come from ordinary citizens trying to do something for the victims. Committees set up in factories, offices and clubs have got clerical jobs for lawyers who had been forced by Novotny to work in mines, have made taxi drivers out of students who, as punishment, had been condemned to do manual labor.

Russian Troops. The removal of Novotny from the Central Committee reflect's Dubcek's growing strength, and he plans to consolidate it at a special party congress in September. Dubcek, however, had to make certain concessions last month to visiting Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin. He promised, for one thing, to demonstrate his loyalty to the Warsaw Pact by permitting "staff exercises" in Czechoslovakia of troops from the Soviet bloc. The soldiers, most of them from the signal corps, were prompt to arrive. At week's end, the first of about 3,000 Soviet forces crossed the Russian border into eastern Slovakia even as the Central Committee was in session. Many Czechoslovaks were alarmed, seeing their coming as an unsubtle attempt to influence the committee while it was debating the fate of the pro-Soviet conservatives.

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