Why the Prague Spring threatened Stalinism

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10 SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 1988 Aug. 21, 1988, will mark the 20th anniversary of what has come to be known as the "Prague Spring." On this day the Kremlin, gripped with hate and panic, decided to send armored divisions into Czechoslovakia. The Soviet leaders wanted to combat a situation that they felt, if allowed to develop, could encourage the Czech workers to undertake a full political revolution.

The events which took place in Czechoslovakia 20 years ago still have worldwide importance today. There is no other way to establish a system of socialist democracy in the Soviet Union and the other Eastern European states than to destroy the bureaucratic social layer of those countries and dismantle the repressive apparatus through which it exercises power.

The Prague Spring, however limited in scope, pointed the way toward such a revolution. Following are excerpts from an article by Richard James, which first appeared in the British magazine Socialist Outlook of May/June 1988.

Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia on Aug. 21, 1968, as part of an invasion which included token units from other Warsaw Pact countries. It was a military valkover.

But the process of "normalization" of political and social life was to take place over months and years.

What the Soviet tanks were there to crush was a mass movement for reform and democratization, encompassing the broadest layers of society, which in the course of a few months had totally transformed the Czechoslovak political landscape. Spring in Prague had posed the possibility of an alternative to Stalinist bureaucratic despotism.

A wing developed in the bureaucracy which advocated far-reaching economic changes: blame was attached to the centralized nature of the system, and decentralization was advanced as a remedy. A key problem was seen as the inefficiency of the cumbersome bureaucratic planning apparatus.

In order for the economic reforms to work, it was necessary to change the "image" of the party—to try to overcome the unpopularity of the state authorities that had developed under party leader Antonin Novotny's hardline Stalinist approach.

bureaucratic project Novotny was removed from his position in January 1968 to be replaced by the reformer Alexandr Dubcek. The balance of power in the ruling elite had shifted decisively in favor of the reformers.

The project of the reformers was conceived entirely within the bounds of the social and political system established after 1948. It was neither an attempt to restore capitalism nor a challenge to the fundamental elements of the Stalinist system. In other words, it was a thoroughly bureaucratic project.

One effect of liberalization was to unleash powerful social forces whose dynamic was towards independent political expression, outside of the direct control of the bureaucracy. There was a mushrooming of open political debate, criticism, and activity spreading far beyond the official structures.

The slowness of the industrial working class to become involved deserves some explanation. An important reason was that the proposed economic measures (whose aim, after all, was increased productivity to enable economic growth) were viewed with apprehension and suspicion.

However, workers soon began to use the opportunity of the political thaw to make demands on local managers for increased wages and better conditions, backed up in some cases by strike action and the beginnings of independent trade-union activity.

For the Soviet bureaucracy, the dangers in the Czechoslovakian situation were not - 68-88 so much in the intentions or character of the Dubcek leadership: the Czechoslovak bureaucracy maintained its hold on the structures of the state throughout.

The danger was perceived as being the broader social forces and political tendencies unleashed in the course of the reform ... Gorbachev established, and where corporations formed by the government in Hong Kong have been given over to the sons and daughters of the Chinese bureaucracy.

From Eastern Europe to China, the workers' states have been allowing the penetration of capitalism. In so doing, they have introduced unemployment, inflation, and more anarchy in industrial planning.

Austerity in Poland, demanded by the capitalist banks, gave rise to Solidarnosc. The development of Solidarnosc, although not yet victorious, confirms the prediction by Trotsky of the working class rising up against the political and economic policies of the bureaucracy. The present course by Soviet Union.

A working-class alternative Contrary to Gorbachev's pronouncement, there is an alternative to perestroika. The alternative is a democratically planned economy that is controlled by the majority of the population—i.e., controlled by the working class.

This is a society where soviets (regional and factory committees), modelled after the soviets of Lenin's and Trotsky's time, will project and the possibility that developments in Czechoslovakia would spill over into the other East European countries and even into the Soviet Union itself.

That is to say, the Prague Spring, if allowed to continue according to its internal logic, could develop into a challenge to democratically determine the economic policies and democratically distribute what is produced.

Socialization of the distribution of goods is the greatest incentive for increasing productivity, as the working masses have a direct and immediate return from the investment of their labor. The original Soviet Union was also based on democratic Soviet republics, which recognized the right to self-determination of all nationalities. The current demands of the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh should be supported according to this principle.

The programmatic reply to perestroika was best put forward by Trotsky in the "Death Agony of Capitalism." He wrote:

"A fresh upsurge of the revolution in the USSR will undoubtedly begin under the banner of the struggle against social inequality and political oppression. Down with the privileges of the bureaucracy! Down with Stakhanovism [piece work]! Down with Soviet aristocracy and its rank and orders! Greater equality of wages and for all forms of labor!

"The struggle for the freedom of the trade unions and the factory committees, for the right of assembly and freedom of the press, will unfold for the regeneration and development of Soviet democracy.

"The bureaucracy replaced the soviets as class organs with the fiction of universal electoral rights—in the style of HitlerGoebbels. It is necessary to return to the bureaucratic rule and could spark movements for democratization and change internationally.

"One big poster"

Within hours of the invasion, Prague had become "one big poster." There were demonstrations everywhere. Clandestine newspapers, radio stations, and television sprang up.

The period after the invasion witnessed large demonstrations in October and November, a three-day student strike, the growth and development of workers' councils and further larger demonstrations in March 1969—eight months after the invasion.

But the mass movement continued to look towards Dubcek and his cohorts for leadership. The underground radio, for example, was at the same time both the main organizer of mass resistance and the medium through which the party leaders appealed for "calm."

The 14th party congress convened secretly on Aug. 22 in a Prague factory. It was both a symbol of resistance and a mechanism through which appeals for "normalization" were made. A proposal for a general strike was dropped in favor of calling a one-hour token stoppage for the next day.

In this way, and over a prolonged period, a solution acceptable to the Soviet bureaucracy was imposed. In April 1969, it was Dubcek himself who proposed that Gustav Husak replace him as first secretary of the party. The party was purged and reorganized, Dubcek expelled, and by the summer of 1970 relatively stable bureaucratic control had been restored.

Can bureaucracy reform itself?

There have been those on the anti-Stalinist left-of whom Trotsky's biographer Isaac Deutscher is probably the best known-who have propounded the view that the Soviet Communist Party and other Stalinist parties could become transformed into parties that defend the interests of the working class.

According to this view, Stalinist ruling bureaucracies are capable of self-reform, initiating a transformative process leading to genuine socialist democracy. As we have seen, there is absolutely nothing in the Czechoslovakian experience of 1968-69 to back up such a contention.

The main lesson of the Czechoslovakian experience is the need for an independent working-class perspective and leadership, politically outside of and opposed to all wings of the ruling bureaucracy.

A leadership is needed which understands that the struggle must be developed to the point where the entire bureaucratic apparatus can be overthrown and replaced with genuine socialist democracy.

soviets not only in their free democratic form but also their class content. As once the bourgeoisie and Kulaks were not permitted to enter the soviets, so now it is necessary to drive the bureaucracy and the new aristocracy out of the soviets. In the soviets there is room only for representatives of the workers, rank-and-file collective farmers, peasants, and Red Army men.

"Democratization of the soviets is impossible without legalization of soviet parties. The workers and peasants themselves by their own free vote will indicate what parties they recognize as soviet parties.

"A revision of the planned economy from top to bottom in the interests of producers and consumers! Factory committees should be returned the right to control production. A democratically organized consumers' cooperative should control the quality and price of products.

"Reorganization of the collective farms in accordance with the will and in the interests of workers there engaged!"

There is now talk in the Soviet Union of rehabilitating Leon Trotsky. The bureaucracy may finally acknowledge that Trotsky existed, but it will never rehabilitate the soviet form of 1917, which is the only true rehabilitation that can occur.

This will only occur when the soviet workers themselves remove the bureaucracy and regain control of the workers' state.

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Gorbachev and others will provoke "two, three, many Solidarnoscs"-even in the