CZECHOSLOVAKIA

On 25 September, the first Czechoslovak nuclear reactor was put into operation in Řež, near Prague. The test facility, built with Soviet technical assistance, became the basis for a domestic nuclear programme focused mainly on nuclear power. An important factor for the development of the country’s own nuclear technology was the rich Czechoslovak reserves of quality uranium. In addition to the long-established uranium deposits in the Příbram and Jáchymov areas, where political prisoners were forced to work en masse in the 1950s, mining operations were also launched in the vicinity of Stráže pod Ralskem and Mimoň in the 1960s. Hydrochemical uranium mining, which entailed the leaching of uranium ore with a concentrated sulphuric acid solution, subsequently caused untold local environmental damage. A notification published on 10 August by the Ministry of Agriculture, detailing the 9,132 agricultural cooperatives, was also considered a significant success for the Czechoslovak economy. These cooperatives cultivated over 50% of the country’s farmland and, after violent collectivization methods were abandoned (at least in part), agricultural cooperatives achieved relatively economic stabilization. A continuing concern, however, remained the unprofitable and inflexible state farms. By 1959 the share of the “socialist sector” in agricultural production increased to 83%. The President of the Republic, Antonín Zápotocký, died on 13 November, and was replaced by the Party’s highest representative, Antonín Novotný, six days later. Thus the supreme Party and State offices were once again held by a single person.

POLAND

Elections to the Sejm on 20 January, drawing 94% turnout of eligible voters, were interpreted as support for the political leadership. The electoral list of the National Unity Front included the group of Catholic activists who had formed the Znak parliamentary club, which – with difficulty – they managed to maintain in Parliament until 1976. The Znak Club published a monthly periodical. The revisionist and liberal intelligentsia sought to prevent the regime from becoming more rigid. This was reflected, for example, in the tension within the Union of Polish Writers, the public statements of certain intellectuals (e.g. an article by the philosopher Leszek Kołakowski called "Trends, prospects and challenges" in the daily newspaper Życie Warszawy on 4 February, which was regarded as the revisionist manifesto) and the October student protests against the halting of the periodical Po prostu, banned for "disseminating disbelief in the building of socialism". The leadership’s policy was summed up by Gomułka at a meeting of Party journalists on 5 October: "Now is the time of choice. Be either for the Party or against it. This discussion is over."

HUNGARY

Kádár’s repression was in full swing and accurately targeted specific groups. Those regarded as exceptionally dangerous were the uprising’s commanders who had fought the Soviet tanks with guns in their hands, members of revolutionary committees who had mobilized the people to resist, and members of workers’ councils. Between 1956 and 1959, 20,000 people were convicted and 35,000 were investigated. Another 13,000 were interned. Three hundred and fifty people were executed, 229 of whom in purely political trials, such as István Angyal, László Iván Kovács, János Szabó, János Bárány, Miklós Gyöngyösi, Árpád Brusznyai and Gábor Földes. On 27 May 1957, a treaty was signed between Hungary and the Soviet Union that formally regulated the presence of Soviet troops on Hungarian territory. Forty Soviet garrisons housing 65,000 men were created here. For the Kremlin, the troops were important in case an attack was launched on the West, while for János Kádár they were a guarantee of the stability of his regime.

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

The atmosphere of gradual relaxation and the relative rise in living standards meant that lingering economic difficulties could be openly acknowledged (at least at the professional and highest Party and State levels). The abject failure of the First Five-Year Plan resulted in an attempt at partial economic reform. Half-hearted, opaque reform was discussed by the KSČ on 25 February, at a meeting of its Central Committee, as a basis for the forthcoming Second Five-Year Plan. The reform was meant to ensure the successful establishment of the "material base of socialist society" and, if possible, to placate society with an increased standard of living. The core of the reform was an attempt to decentralize the economy, which required the transformation of the State Planning Office into the State Planning Commission and other cosmetic changes. And yet this was perhaps the most successful year for the People’s Democratic Czechoslovakia at any time during its existence. This could be attributed to the unexpected success of the Czechoslovak national exhibition at Expo 58, held from April to October in Brussels, Belgium. Numerous products that had remarkable designs or were technically interesting in other ways surprised not only Europe, but essentially the whole world. The same could be said of the architecture of the Czechoslovak Pavilion – the “Brussels Style” was to become synonymous with an original style of contemporary design for a long time to come. Unfortunately, in the everyday reality of post-Stalinist Czechoslovakia most of the exhibits could not be used on a broad scale...

POLAND

Renewed open conflict between the state and the Church was triggered by a Sejm resolution of 25 February on the preparation of celebrations to mark the thousandth anniversary of the Polish state, planned for 1966. The emphasis on the secular character and educational nature of the celebrations ("One thousand schools for one thousand years!") contrasted with the concept of the millennium celebrations which the Catholic Church had been preparing since 1956 as part of its “decade of spiritual revival”. The Church stressed the link between the emergence of Polish statehood and Christianization, referring to the fact that in 966 Mieszko I was baptized. The regime’s growing self-confidence was also apparent in its April decision to dissolve the Workers' Councils and quash the judgment against Hanna Skarżyńska-Rewska, who in July had been sentenced to three years for distributing the Parisian Culture (the Court of Appeal freed her).

HUNGARY

The secret trial of the former Prime Minister Imre Nagy was an epilogue to the insurgency. Immediately after the military defeat of the insurgency, Nagy and his colleagues were arrested and deported to Snagov in Romania. At the end of 1957, the leadership of the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party (MSDS) decided that Nagy would be made the key figure of a show trial, and that he would be accused of being a counter-revolutionary and an agent of the Western imperialists. Kádár demanded strict, exemplary sentences for the accused. The trial began in February 1958, but was adjourned for a while at the Soviets’ request in view of the international situation. Nagy refused to confess, and denied any treason; therefore, he was sentenced to death and executed on 16 June 1958. Pál Malétér, the Defence Minister in Nagy’s government, and Miklós Gimes, a journalist and adviser to Nagy, were executed with Nagy. Other members of the “Nagy Group”, Sándor Kopácsi, Ferenc Donáth, Zoltán Tildy, Ferenc Jánosi and Miklós Vasárhelyi, were sentenced to many years of punishment. József Szilágyi and Géza Losonczy died in prison.

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

On 9 July, Jaroslav Heyrovský won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his discoveries in the field of polarography. An important phenomenon affecting the entire region was the essentially highly inefficient Czechoslovak economy’s emerging insatiability for raw materials. The building of large power complexes (mainly in the north of Bohemia) required the constant expansion of the surface mining of brown coal. The propagandistic building of the "Electric North" consumed not only enormous financial resources, but also led to the unprecedented destruction of cultural capital. One of the first striking cases was the precipitous and thoughtless demolition of a unique early 18th century Baroque hospital in Duchcov, North Bohemia. All that was saved from the hospital was part of the sculptured decoration and a very rare ceiling fresco by Václav V. Reiner. The Czechoslovak state even arranged for the rare fresco to "travel" around the world in order to document how it cared for its cultural heritage. In the end, opencast mining never even reached the site of the demolished hospital, and the fresco, after fulfilling its propagandistic purpose, virtually disappeared from sight in a monstrous concrete pavilion built for it in the castle gardens in Duchcov.

POLAND

One of the consequences of 1956 October was a boom in a typically Polish phenomenon – organized hitchhiking. This method of passenger transport, related to the development of tourism, started to be encouraged by the state as financially efficient and relatively safe (according to statistics more hitchhikers drowned than were killed in traffic accidents). To this end, a separate authority was set up which, in 1959, began to issue the first hitchhiker cards with insurance coverage. Drivers, who often thought hitchhikers holding an official card were the secret police, were rewarded with vouchers that could be entered in draws. It is estimated that a million people had a hitchhiker card. The authority was closed in 1994 due to dwindling interest.

HUNGARY

Immediately after usurping power, the Communist regime began to follow the Soviet model of forced collectivization. However, this was met with great resistance in the traditionally agricultural, conservative and religious countryside. During the repressions from 1949 to 1953, the peasants were among those hit hardest, usually for economic offences or resistance to collectivization. After Imre Nagy came to office in 1953, collectivization was suspended, and peasants were even permitted to leave the cooperatives. The number of cooperative members and the area of cooperative farmland shrank by a third in the space of a single year. Furthermore, farmers had their mandatory contributions reduced. 1959 saw the restoration of collectivization under the pretext of the need for the rationalization of land use and the social security of the land. The regime was very benevolent – peasants who joined cooperatives received substantial social guarantees, higher pay and social security and health insurance. The regime also recognized the importance of crofts, where peasants could grow their own crops and supplement the market with essential foodstuffs. Hungarian agriculture recovered, amply supplied the domestic market and become an important export sector.

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

At the beginning of April the provincial structure was reorganized. Only 10 provinces and 108 districts remained, and the City of Prague was also made into a separate province. This ill-considered administrative reform introduced new, often very unnatural territorial units formed by a process where the only factors were economic aspects with an emphasis on the greatest possible centralization. The plan was for the provinces to become the organizational basis for individual industrial or industrial-agricultural areas, and everything else was of secondary importance. During the political thaw prescribed by the Soviet Union, there was further political relaxation. On 9 May, President Novotný granted a wide-ranging amnesty and 5,600 political prisoners were released. However, in this year Czechoslovakia became a genuinely "socialist" state. On 11 July, the National Assembly approved a new constitution and new name for the state: the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. The new constitution removed all trace of Slovak autonomous bodies and established rigid centralism. A new, very bizarre, national emblem was designed that was contrary to almost all heraldic rules. The Czech lion (now bereft of his crown, which was replaced with a red star) was placed on a stylized Hussite shield. Slovakia lost its historical patriarchal Cross of Lorraine, which was replaced by an ugly "partisan" balefire in front of a silhouette of mountains. Despite the heralded political easing, there was still time for one last execution on political grounds (on 17 November 1960). The last victim was 27-year-old Vladivoj Tomek. With several accomplices he formed an illegal group and, back in 1952, ambushed a military patrol in Strašnice, Prague (during the incident one of the soldiers, Rudolf Šmatlava, was mortally wounded) in order to obtain weapons. At the turn of 1959 and 1960 the majority of the group’s members were arrested and in Tomek’s case it was decided to set an example by capital punishment.

POLAND

In Nowa Huta, there were ongoing disputes concerning the construction of a new church, which the regime was trying to block through a combination of administrative channels and intimidation. The removal of a cross from the site of the planned sanctuary sparked a mass demonstration by Christians on 17 April. The fight to construct the church, supported by the Krakow suffragan bishop and archbishop Karol Wojtyła, was finally successful and became a symbol for similar efforts in other Polish parishes and dioceses. Its international fame was fanned by the director Krzysztof Zanussi in the film From a Far Country (1981).

HUNGARY

At the Rome Olympic Games in 1960, the Hungarians won in their traditionally strong disciplines – Rudolf Kárpáti won a gold medal in fencing, Ferenc Németh in the modern pentathlon, János Parti in one-kilometre kayaking and Gyula Török in boxing. The Hungarians, however, missed out on perhaps their strongest discipline – water polo. This was hardly surprising considering that, at the Melbourne Olympic Games four years previously, their "Blood in the Water" game with the Soviet Union, which took place just after the suppression of the uprising in November 1956, had entered the history books. Bitterness stemming from the occupation and hatred for the Russians spilled over into the sports tournament. In addition, the Hungarians chose provocative tactics to force their opponent into as many errors as possible. The greatest commotion was caused when a tackle by Soviet polo player Valentin Prokopov (1929) on the Hungarian Ervin Zádor (1935) dyed the Olympic pool red with blood. Despite this, the Hungarians still won 4:0 and went on to take the gold. After the Olympic Games, half the team chose not to return to Hungary, which adversely affected the Hungarian water polo team’s future performance on the world stage.

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

To prove how successful the building of the socialist state had been, in January 1961 (19-21 January) a national meeting of the Brigades of Socialist Labour was held in Prague. There were 34,414 such brigades, including those with their own standard and honorary title. Despite the proclamations lauding the dedication of the workers, in reality there was nothing to celebrate. The Third Five-Year Plan (for the years 1961 to 1965) disintegrated in its first year due to the unsuccessful reform attempts of 1958. The Congress of Agricultural Cooperatives, with the ambitious intention of fulfilling the agricultural tasks under the Five-Year Plan within four years, could do nothing to alter this. Only a visit by the first astronaut, Yuri Gagarin, in July could help Czechoslovak citizens forget their bleak prospects for a while. The Soviet-Chinese rupture, leading eventually to armed conflict, also ultimately affected Czechoslovakia. Albania took sides with China and on 12 December the government recalled the Czechoslovak ambassador from Tirana, Albania. This was further evidence that, even under Khrushchev, Soviet decisions would be binding for the whole of Moscow’s sphere of influence. The conflict with China and Albania also played into Novotný’s hands, as the increasing criticism of dogmatism could be deflected towards China and Albania. According to Novotný, if anything bad had happened in Czechoslovakia it was because of Rudolf Slánský ...

POLAND

The Party’s revisionist members in particular were alarmed by the death of the journalist and scientist of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Henryk Holland, who was arrested on 19 December for contact with a foreign journalist; during a search of his apartment on 25 December, he jumped out the window. The suspicion he had been murdered by the secret police was not confirmed. However, attendance at Holland’s funeral, which took the form of a demonstration, was branded an “anti-Party offence” by Gomułka. An extensive Party investigation was launched. The response by the journalist Paweł Beylin to a question from the Commission of Inquiry as to why he had attended Holland’s funeral became legendary among the Warsaw intelligentsia: “Because he died”.

HUNGARY

Twentieth-century Hungary suffered from the “Trianon Syndrome”, caused by the dismemberment of the Great Hungary, the loss of large parts of its territory and the establishment of Hungarian minorities in neighbouring states: Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Ukraine (or the Soviet Union). After 1948, these countries became official Hungarian socialist allies, and hence it was difficult, if not impossible, for the Hungarian political representation to speak openly in support of its minorities. Immediately after the war, the Hungarian minority in Czechoslovakia found itself without any rights and at risk of collective displacement. In the end, this plan of forcible removal was not followed through. In March 1949, the Cultural Association of Hungarian Workers in Czechoslovakia (Csehszlovákiai Magyar Dolgozók Kultúregyesülete, CSEMADOK) was formed, and in 1952 the Hungarian minority was emancipated. The re-Slovakization process was also suspended. Primary and secondary education was renewed. In 1950, 354,000 inhabitants were registered as having Hungarian nationality; in 1961, the figure was 518,000, rising to 566,000 in 1990. Starting in 1958, Irodalmi Szemle became the main periodical of Hungarian writing writers in Slovakia, and in the same year the publisher Tatran expanded its Hungarian editorial team. In 1978, a Committee on the Protection of the Rights of the Hungarian Minority in Czechoslovakia was established.

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

On 4 February 1962, there was a new economic phenomenon, when oil started flowing to Czechoslovakia through the Druzhba pipeline. This new method for the transportation of oil and natural gas was to become an important political tool, especially in subsequent years, when the prospect of supplying Western Europe started to be considered. On 9 May, President Antonín Novotný granted another sweeping amnesty. This time, a further 2,520 political prisoners were released. At the end of the year (4-8 December) the Twelfth Communist Party Congress was held in Prague. The congress once again elected Antonín Novotný as the head of the Party, but in all other respects resulted in nothing new. De-Stalinization was to continue, but at the same slow and cautious pace. While 1958 was marked by the success of EXPO 58, the beginning of the 1960s was successful for Czechoslovak archaeology and history. Spectacular archaeological digs in South Moravia, proving the existence of advanced early Slavonic settlement (Great Moravia or the Great Moravian Empire) captured the interest of many European experts in the field. In March 1962, the Slavonic settlement of Mikulčice-Valy was named a National Cultural Monument and the archaeological site was ranked among the most important European archaeological localities of the time. This undeniable success in the field of history was tainted by a misleading ideological perspective, which all too often highlighted and emphasized the Great Moravian Empire as the first common state of Czechs and Slovaks.

POLAND

On 3 February, the Crooked Wheel Club, which since 1955 had been a meeting point for Warsaw’s opposition-inclined intelligentsia, was closed during a police inspection under the pretext of disorderly conduct . The Club had hosted debates on political, philosophical and cultural issues, and organized theatre performances and exhibitions. Its founders included the independent socialist Jan Józef Lipski, subsequently leader of the Committee for the Defence of Workers (KOR), and numerous future opposition activists had met here (Władysław Bartoszewski, Leszek Kołakowski, Jacek Kuroń, Adam Michnik, and others). The Club had been under constant police surveillance and its closure was seen as another step confirming the departure from the Poland of October 1956.

HUNGARY

Writers were one of the driving forces of the revolution, and this was reflected in the extent of repression against the Union of Writers after the suppression of the revolution. In April 1957, the Union was banned, only to be rehabilitated in 1959. Those writers sentenced to long spells in prison along with Déry for participating in the uprising were Gyula Háy (1900-1975), Tibor Tardos (1918), Domokos Varga (1922), István Lakatos (1927), István Eörsi (1938), József Gáli (1930-1981) and Gyula Obersovszky (1927). István Örkény (1912-1979) and Péter Kuczka were interned and subsequently lost their jobs. The peripeties of the cultural sphere’s hobnobbing and wrestling with the Communist regime were best reflected in the fate of the prominent writer Tibor Déry (1894-1977). A former Communist of many years’ standing, editor of the periodical Csillag (1947) and winner of the highest state artistic honour, the Kossuth Prize (1948), he drew criticism from hardliners in 1952 for the poor depiction of the working class and the lingering bourgeois elements in his works. After 1953, he supported Prime Minister Imre Nagy, openly spoke out against cultural Stalinists, debated in the Petöfi Club, and was consequently expelled from the Party. During the 1956 uprising, he was a member of the Revolutionary Committee of the Union of Writers. In 1957, he was arrested and sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment. After his release in 1963, he was banned from publishing, but was so prominent an artist that the Kádár regime was keen to be seen to be acknowledged by Déry, and eventually the writer acquiesced. After that, his works could then be published again.

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

On 9 May 1963, the former leader of the Social Democrats, Bohumil Laušman, died in Pankrác Prison. At the end of 1953, he had been kidnapped by the State Security and brought back to Czechoslovakia. Laušman’s "voluntary" return from exile was often exploited for propaganda, even though the KSČ had no qualms about permanently incarcerating a former prominent politician. Just a few months later (on 22 August), perhaps paradoxically, a report was published reviewing the political trials between 1949 and 1954. Although many people unfairly persecuted and convicted were rehabilitated, the KSČ failed to admit any guilt for the political trials and initially again chose not to release the Slovak nationalists. A wave of criticism within the KSČ, however, prompted a review, on 18 December 1963, of this political show trial too. The atmosphere of rehabilitation also required personnel changes: the former Minister for National Security Karol Bacílek, was removed from the higher political echelons, and on 20 September 1963 Prime Minister Viliam Široký, one of the leading exponents of the Stalinist wing of the Communist Party, resigned. The new Prime Minister was another Slovak Communist: Jozef Lenárt. At almost the same time, the reformist economist Ota Šik was appointed head of the Governmental Commission on Planning System Improvements.

POLAND

In the first half of the 1960s, within the PSDS a “national Communist” group of “partisans”, represented by Deputy Minister of the Interior and later (1964-1968) Minister Mieczysław Moczar (born Mikołaj Demko), was set up in opposition to the liberals and revisionists. Its nationalist ideology with elements of authoritarianism opened the way for the rehabilitation of the national rebel traditions from the 18th and 19th century and, to a limited extent, the non-Communist resistance of the Second World War. Like the liberals and revisionists, they carefully fostered relations with "leftist" Catholics from Tygodnik Powszechny and Znak. The fundamental values of Partisans were close to those of the pro-government Catholic association PAX, led by Bolesław Piasecki, known for his extreme right-wing past in the 1930s. The PAX association also encompassed a publishing house of the same name and published the daily newspaper Słowo Powszechne. The opinions of the Party’s partisan fraction were well reflected in the books Seven Major Polish Sins by Zbigniew Załuski and Colours of Struggle from the pen of Moczar himself in 1963, made into a film a year later by Jerzy Passendorfer. The Partisans tried unsuccessfully to exploit the anti-Zionist campaign of 1967-1968 to strengthen their own position, but by then they had de facto already come to the end of the road.

HUNGARY

Kádár’s regime found itself under great international pressure on account of its repressive tactics. An acute problem was the presence of the "Hungarian issue" in the UN, whereby the Western powers made Kádár’s life difficult. In 1960, secret negotiations were initiated between the US and Hungary, after which the US agreed to withdraw the Hungarian issue from the UN agenda (1962). In return, in 1963 the Hungarian regime announced a general amnesty. This did not mean, however, that all those convicted in connection with the insurrection in 1956 were released. Members of insurgent groups that had fought with the weapons remained in prison. The Kádár regime got away with this because most of these prisoners had been found guilty of trumped-up robbery or murder charges as ordinary criminals. Nor did the amnesty apply to acts of "treason" committed after May 1957, such as appeals to international organizations to challenge Hungary’s irregularities. Some of those convicted in connection with 1956 were released as late as 1974. In contrast, the amnesty released war criminals who had served two thirds of their sentence and apparatchiks who had been convicted of infringing the "socialist" rule of law in 1948-1953.

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Against the background of the quiet, or perhaps stagnant, atmosphere of internal policy, there was a long-term acute power struggle between the ambitious Interior Minister Rudolf Barák and the party bureaucrats around Antonín Novotný. Barák, controlling the powerful Ministry of the Interior and playing daring intelligence and spy games, started to become too much for the KSČ leadership to handle. Barák coveted the highest government and party positions, and under different circumstances could even have replaced Novotný himself. Novotný, absolutely acquiescent to all Moscow’s instructions and mindful of the fact that he would have Soviet backing, decided to put a stop to Barák’s aspirations. A trial was held on 17-20 April and Barák was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment for alleged criminal offences. The change of atmosphere at this time was characterized by the fact that there was no need to execute the incommodious Minister – a spell in prison was enough. In 1968 Rudolf Barák was released and rehabilitated; much as he tried, his path to high politics was barred, and he ended up working in self-employment for the rest of his days. In June, there were further rigged elections to the National Assembly – the result was again hugely one-sided, with candidates on the National Front’s ticket winning 99.99% of the vote. In July (14 July), Czechoslovakia experienced its own spy scandal when the Czechoslovak Press Agency (ČTK) announced the discovery of chests of Nazi documents by sports divers in Černé jezero (Black Lake), Šumava. It was not until after 1989, however, that it became definitively clear that this was a set-up by the State Security; the aim of this mission, Operation "Neptune", was to compromise selected public officials in the West who were suspected of concealing a Nazi past. The presidential elections also served to confirm the tranquil domestic front: on 12 November Antonín Novotný was re-elected to the presidential office, and around the same time he won a United Nations poll as the handsomest head of state.

POLAND

The “meat scandal” in Warsaw culminated in a trial which opened on 20 November and ended up handing down three death sentences and four life sentences; several other defendants were sentenced to between 9 and 12 years and confiscation of their property. In the end, only the former director of the meat factories in Warsaw, Stanisław Wawrzecki, was executed (19 March 1965). It was the only death penalty for an economic crime in Poland after 1956. The essence of the scandal, in which 400 persons were arrested, was bribes from shop managers to ensure their stores were supplied. The political powers, whose influence on the trial has been proven, thus tried to calm down public opinion, which had flared on account of the economic difficulties and problems with supply. In July 2004, the Polish Supreme Court quashed the judgments on the grounds that they were issued in violation of the law.

HUNGARY

Another foreign minority lived in Vojvodina, Yugoslavia. As in Romania and Czechoslovakia, this minority was subject to post-war recriminations of collaboration with the Germans and was exposed to repression. The situation of the Vojvodina Hungarians improved significantly after 1963 thanks to a new Yugoslav constitution that granted them minority rights in the Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. For example, they could use their native language as the language of their children’s instruction. In 1953, 435,000 people in Vojvodina had claimed Hungarian nationality; in 1971, the figure was 477,000. Cultural life here was relatively free, and some periodicals, such as Híd (Bridge) and Új Symposium (New Symposium), which was established in 1964, occasionally served as a platform for authors who were unable to publish in Hungary. Among the best-known Vojvodina writers were Ervin Sinkó (1898-1967), Imre Bori (1930) and János Sziveri (1954-1990).

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Almost symbolically, on 25 February 1965 Pope Paul VI appointed Prague Archbishop Josef Beran a cardinal. The Prague Archbishop enjoyed huge popularity and authority (during the war the Nazis had imprisoned him in Terezín and Dachau) and had long been one of the most dangerous enemies of the totalitarian KSČ. The Communist regime kept him constantly under house arrest from 1949 to 1963, and exploited his appointment as a cardinal in Rome to prevent him from returning to Czechoslovakia. Beran’s place in the administration of the diocese was quickly occupied (on 18 February) by the apostolic administrator, Bishop František Tomášek, who respected the authority of the Vatican and from the outset was in conflict with the state authorities. Cardinal Beran died in Rome in 1969, and is the only Czech to be buried in St Peter’s Basilica. The cardinal earned the wrath of the KSČ mainly because he excommunicated Josef Plojhar, priest, politician and collaborator. Despite enormous pressure, he never lifted this excommunication. After years of slurs that he supported fascism and Western imperialism, followed by years of obstinate estrangement, the Yugoslav dictator Josip Broz-Tito visited Czechoslovakia in July (2-8 July). The earlier defamations and campaign of hatred orchestrated by Moscow were forgotten, at least for a time, but the distrust of Yugoslavia, considered a state that acted too independently, remained.

POLAND

The relatively liberal cultural conditions in Poland, which was referred to as “the merriest hut in the camp”, were also reflected in the achievements of Polish theatre. Teatr Laboratorium was celebrated for its experimental innovation; initially it operated from Opole, and in the mid-1960s, with the new name under which it became famous, it relocated to the Silesian capital of Wrocław. The theatre is associated with the director, drama theorist, teacher and reformer of acting, Jerzy Grotowski (1933-1999), who in 1965 published one of the most important theatre manifestoes of the 20th century, On Poor Theatre, in which he theoretically justified his efforts to transform the theatre into a study laboratory of acting. Grotowski demonstrated the search for new means of dramatic expression, which entailed abandoning the scenery and focusing on the acting, in a number of famous productions, the most famous of which were Stanisław Wyspiański’s Akropolis (1962), Juliusz Słowacki’s Constant Prince (1965) and Apocalypsis cum figuris (1968). Grotowski’s closest collaborator was the dramaturge and drama critic Ludwik Flaszen (1930). The theatre earned international fame, performing in the US, Mexico, Australia, Lebanon and many countries in Europe. UNESCO declared 2009, the 10th anniversary of the artist’s death, the Year of Jerzy Grotowski.

HUNGARY

The fate of the economic reforms approved by the MSDS Central Committee in November 1965 and the Party congress in the following year eloquently illustrates the internal problems of the Hungarian State and its unique position in the entire Eastern Bloc. Despite the repression following the defeat of the insurgency in 1956, Kádár’s regime did not return to a Stalinist model of economic governance. In around the mid-1960s, the food shortages were resolved, the range and quality of household goods and commodities improved, and residential development projects were built at a fast pace. Abandoning the feverish industrialization typical for Communist regimes in the early 1950s and permitting a combination of cooperative farming and private allotments transformed Hungary into a world leader in the production of grain and meat per capita. The keystones of economic reform were the provision of greater autonomy to enterprises, whose output was now encouraged by a variety of incentives, the introduction of partial price liberalization, and pronounced wage differentiation. The central figure behind the economic reforms, coined the "new economic mechanism" (új gazdasági mechanizmus) in 1968, was Party Secretary for the Economy Rezső Nyers (1923). Recognizing that Kádár’s version of the "social contract" was preventing social unrest, the new Kremlin leadership – headed by Leonid Brezhnev since 1964 – expressed respect for this policy and, at a time when military costs were spiralling, even allowed Hungarians to reduce their military budget.

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

The ability of Antonín Novotný, aided by his closest Party colleagues, to maintain authority as the head of state was clearly beginning to wane. Sensing that his position was in danger from the effective opposition that was being formed, Novotný made his way to Moscow in January (19-20 January) to consult this matter. However, the Soviets had no intention of interfering in the KSČ’s disputes, which in the long run sealed Novotný’s fate. At this stage, the Soviet leadership was not averse to fresh, more effective leadership of the KSČ: even Moscow needed an administrative apparatus capable of ensuring the smooth running of the state. Having ousted Khrushchev in a coup, it was essential for the new Soviet Party leader, Leonid Brezhnev, that the internal situation in Czechoslovakia remained peaceful. Given the political situation in Europe and the need to maintain a strategic balance, he was calculating on the military occupation of the whole of this region. Antonín Novotný’s chaotic management of state affairs could easily threaten these plans. Moreover, experience of the GDR and Hungary in previous years was more than compelling evidence of the dangers. Therefore, Moscow chose not to interfere in the Czechoslovak Communists’ discussions on the need for economic reforms, reforms combining a command and market model of the economy, and did not even demand intervention against occasional manifestations of disagreement with official KSČ policy. Changes were anticipated at the Thirteenth KSČ Congress between 31 May and 4 June. As expected, Antonín Novotný was re-elected to the head of the Party, but the general atmosphere was very different now. The 23rd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had just gone some way to rehabilitating Stalin’s policy, so the time had come for a test of strength between the conservative and reformist forces.

POLAND

Sharp propagandistic confrontations and a power struggle with the Catholic Church, combined with the continuing hard line against Party malcontents, revealed the limits of Gomułka’s programme of “small-scale stabilization”. The prelude to the confrontation was a letter from the Polish bishops, gathered at the Second Vatican Council, to their colleagues from the Federal Republic of Germany. In the letter, the Polish episcopate announced that it was in favour of dialogue and mutual forgiveness, which the government understood as an attempt to disrupt the Iron Curtain and as an attack on its monopoly in foreign policy. The Church millennium celebrations, which took place in April in the towns of Gniezno and Poznań, faced competition from state ceremonies attended by Gomułka and Defence Minister Marian Spychalski. State power nipped in the bud the first ever attempt to invite Pope Paul VI to Poland. In Warsaw, where ZOMO units (the People’s Militia) took action against the participants in the religious celebrations, the situation at the university became acute in October when several students from a group calling themselves “Komandosi” (Adam Michnik, Seweryn Blumsztajn, and others) were expelled for attempting to protest against the imprisonment of their fellow students Jack Kuroń and Karol Modzelewski. These two had been convicted in 1965 for their Open Letter to the Party, written from the position of the radical left. The philosopher Leszek Kołakowski was expelled from the PSDS for his critical speech on the anniversary of October 1956.

HUNGARY

Kádár’s regime developed a relatively sophisticated system of graded definitions setting the boundaries between what was possible and what the official regime considered unacceptable. Self-censorship and clear definitions of taboo subjects (1956, the alliance with the Soviet Union or the leading role of the Party) worked well. For everything else, there was a game of “three Ts” (tilt – prohibited; tür – tolerated; támogat – encouraged). The famous slogan "Whoever is not against us, is with us", unofficially declared at the Ninth Congress in 1966, was associated with György Aczél, Deputy Minister of Culture and later Central Committee Secretary for Cultural Affairs. He employed a refined system of bonuses, material sweeteners and threats to win over to Kádár’s Party those prominent and recognized writers and artists who were the driving force behind the reform process in 1956 and who had long refused to publish in pro-regime periodicals. In many cases, he succeeded.

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

The cautious but undying debate on political developments after February 1948, associated with constant economic problems that had essentially never been resolved, forced Novotný’s regime into situations that were very difficult to address. Slow, hesitant de-Stalinization had reached a point where society expected radical reforms and the overall democratization of public life. This was reflected, for example, at the Fourth Congress of the Union of Czechoslovak Writers (27-29 June), where some delegates openly called for the autonomy of culture and severely criticized the KSČ’s violent methods of wielding power. One of the consequences of these outbursts was the expulsion of Ludvík Vaculík, Ivan Klíma and Antonín Liehm from the Communist Party. Nevertheless, the ice was thawing and, on the day the Writers’ Congress ended, the National Assembly passed a new law on people’s committees which incorporated unprecedented provisions permitting voters to elect MPs from among several candidates. Another problem of the now officially socialist Czechoslovakia was the emerging "Slovak" issue. This problem escalated thanks in no small part to Antonín Novotný’s invective against Slovak political leaders and his outright indiscretions. Novotný caused a scandal in August 1967 when, instead of attending a ceremony to lay wreaths at the Slovak National Cemetery in Martin, he chose to visit a local agricultural cooperative. In October 1967, the "Strahov Events" took place in Prague. These were student riots where university students, under the ambiguous slogan "More Light", spoke out against grim living conditions in halls of residence and criticized reactionary and conservative KSČ policy. The police intervention was brutal, but by now society was losing its fear. The KSČ Central Committee’s December session (19-21 December 1967) triggered Novotný’s rapid fall. After receiving severe criticism from the as yet not particularly well-known Slovak Communist Alexander Dubček, Novotny once again sought assistance from the Soviet Party leader Brezhnev, but his pleas were left unheard. After this, the only logical course of action was Novotný’s resignation as leader of the KSČ.

POLAND

Public life in Poland was hit by an "anti-Zionist" campaign, which combined a power struggle within the leadership with traditional prejudices; it provided propagandistic legitimacy for action against the dissatisfied youth and intelligentsia. It was triggered by the severance of diplomatic relations with Israel on 10 June in response to the Six-Day War. On 19 June Gomułka, in a speech to the trade union congress that was broadcast on the radio, pointed to the dangers of the "Zionist fifth column". Moczar’s Ministry of the Interior initiated a purge to “cleanse” state authorities, the army, security and the media of workers of Jewish origin. The campaign, combined with an attack against the revisionists, continued the following year. By September 1968, 774 people, including 5 ministers and 22 deputies, were removed from senior positions in the state apparatus; 2,000 officers had to leave the army, and other areas of public and cultural life were also affected. In 1968-1970, 20,000 of the remaining 25,000 Polish Jews emigrated. One of the paradoxes of the time is the fact that Ida Kaminska, from the Jewish Theatre in Warsaw in 1967, was the first actress from a socialist country to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role after starring in The Shop on Main Street (Obchod na korze), directed by the Czechoslovaks Jan Kadár and Elmar Klos, which dealt with the persecution of Jews in the First Slovak Republic.

HUNGARY

In 1967, there was a change in the leadership of the state, when Jenő Fock (1916-2001) replaced Gyula Kállai (1910-1996) as Prime Minister. Fock, until then Deputy Prime Minister, was a moderate who supported the economic reforms. Installing him at the head of the executive was correctly viewed as a sign of change which, in terms of its methods and goals, was reminiscent less of the technocratic course followed by the East German leadership and more of the Czechoslovak economic reform prepared by Professor Ota Šik’s team. Military intervention by the Warsaw Pact in Czechoslovakia in the following year, however, undermined the moderate reformist steps, which came to an end when Fock was removed from office in 1975. Nonetheless, Fock remained a member of the Politburo over the next five years and, until 1989, was a member of the Central Committee. He used his position to level cautious criticism at János Kádár and to promote the liberalization of the system in the 1980s.

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

From the very beginning of the year, it was clear that the long-awaited changes were finally on the agenda. The KSČ Central Committee’s meeting adjourned from December elected the reformist Alexander Dubček as First Secretary, leaving Antonín Novotný the consolation of the presidential office. However, he soon resigned from this post too (on 22 March) when he publicly lost face due to the criminal and corruption scandal surrounding General Jan Šejna. The seat vacated by Novotný was then occupied on 30 March 1968 by General Ludvík Svoboda. His election was calculated, inter alia, to set Moscow and domestic conservative Communists at ease. The KSČ Action Programme adopted on 5 April subsequently became the (albeit very moderate) political programme of the Prague Spring. This programme anticipated democratization, but not the introduction of a multiparty political system. For the conservative forces, the programme was nothing less than an overt counter-revolution. One of the responses to the programme was the manifesto 2000 Words, drawn up by Ludvík Vaculík, which demanded not only democratization, but the restoration of democratic political and social life. Talks between Soviet and Czechoslovak representatives in Čierna nad Tisou had already clearly exposed Brezhnev’s fears about how the situation could develop and the risk that Prague would break free from Moscow’s grip. The invasion by five Warsaw Pact armies soon after, on 21 August 1968, meant that the darkest fears about the direction the Prague Spring would take had come to pass. Demonstrations, shooting by disoriented Soviet troops into unarmed crowds, and huge collateral damage abruptly ended traditional Czech Russophilism. In the longer term, the KSČ also lost all credibility. Events quickly gathered momentum: first the Czechoslovak Party and state leadership (a delegation led by President Ludvík Svoboda) was forced to sign the Moscow Protocol, guaranteeing a return to the old situation before the Prague Spring (including the restoration of censorship, which had been repealed in March 1968, and the ban on political opposition), and on 18 October the National Assembly approved, without any major resistance, a treaty setting out the conditions for the temporary presence of Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia. This gave the occupation its "legal" framework. As a result, the Act on the Formation of the Czechoslovak Federation, which had been so long in preparation and which had been so eagerly awaited (the National Assembly passed this law on 27 October), was enacted in completely changed political conditions.

POLAND

The ongoing anti-Zionist campaign was joined by another two problems: the March revolt by the country’s youth and the "revivalist process" in neighbouring Czechoslovakia, the latter occupying the Polish leadership for the whole year. Gomułka formed strong views of the new Czechoslovak leader Alexander Dubček during their first meeting on 7 February. He quickly assessed the Prague Spring as "a new type of counter-revolution", the essence of which was an alleged "peaceful transition from socialism to neo-capitalism". Along with Bulgaria and East Germany, he began to insist on active intervention, and this was the stance he held in meetings in Dresden and Warsaw. The precariousness of relations was revealed by Polish diplomatic protests against the freedom of the press in Czechoslovakia. The Warsaw leadership regarded the expressions of solidarity with persecuted Poles by some Czech writers and journalists (Jiří Lederer, Karel Kosík, and others) as meddling and the "export of a counter-revolution". The sense of threat posed by the "Czechoslovak disease" was heightened by the popular slogan "Poland is waiting for its Dubček!" and other expressions pleading for Spring north of the Vltava. The climax of the campaign against Czechoslovakia was the Polish participation in military intervention as part of Operation Danube on 20-22 August. Polish troops, whose staff was based in Hradec Králové, remained on Czechoslovak territory until 12 November. The most tragic “extraordinary” event was the death of two civilians, Jaroslav Veselý and Zdenka Klimešová, shot by the drunk Polish soldier Stefan Dorn on 7 September in Jičín. The writers Jerzy Andrzejewski and Sławomir Mrozek and the music critic Zygmunt Mycielski protested against the incursion into a neighbouring country in open letters. An extreme form of opposition was chosen by 59-year-old Ryszard Siwiec, an accountant from Lublin, who doused himself in petrol and set himself ablaze during the national harvest festival at Dziesięciolecia Stadium in Warsaw on 8 September. His act, kept secret for many years, was acknowledged in 2001 by President Václav Havel, who awarded him the Order of Tomas Garrigue Masaryk.

The ruling party, however, was not just dealing with an international-policy crisis. The ban (as of 30 January) on further performances of Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz’s Dziady, directed by Kazimierz Dejmek and performed at the National Theatre in Warsaw, sparked a response among young people, whose demonstration on 8 March was crushed by the police. The play was ostensibly withdrawn due to spontaneous anti-Russian outbursts during performances; however, concerns about how the Soviet Embassy would react also played a role. Further action against students from "Generation 68" was not long in coming – expulsion from courses, conscription, and trials. Several professors had to leave the University of Warsaw, among them Kołakowski and the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. Protests against the repression, such as questions tabled by the Znak parliamentary club on 11 March and a letter from the Polish Bishops’ Conference of 21 March ("A baton is no argument"), were ignored by the government. The events in Poland in March 1968 were a major life experience for a generation of Poles born around 1945, who, having lived under socialism all their lives, stood on the threshold of adulthood deprived of their illusions about the system.

HUNGARY

Hungary entered 1968 with its “New Economic Mechanism” (új gazdasági mechanizmus), a programme which was adopted in May 1966 but did not come into force until two years later. By combining a planned economy with market elements such as pricing and exchange rates, the Party leadership wanted to improve the economic situation and strengthen the social position of citizens. Real incomes increased by an average of 50% and GNP grew by 5% per annum. This reform, however, was overshadowed by the Prague Spring. The removal of Antonín Novotný’s "conservative certainty" and the ascent of Alexander Dubček’s "reformer against his will" as First Secretary of the KSČ Central Committee elicited conflicting reactions in the Eastern Bloc. For Kádár, the way the Kremlin and, by extension, the entire Eastern Bloc responded to Czechoslovakia’s attempt at would be instrumental in probing how economic reform might develop in Hungary. Kádár played a significant role in the crisis – in view of their good personal relations, he worked on Dubček and tried to influence his views. He served as Brezhnev’s "messenger", conveying to Dubček the disagreeable opinions of the Kremlin. Personally, he was also annoyed and offended by an article published in Literární listy in June 1968 that was devoted to the tenth anniversary of the execution of Imre Nagy. Despite the fact that Kádár, based on his own experience of 1956, feared the consequences of mobilizing the army, he loyally agreed that Hungary would participate in the “intervention”. As personally testified by the deployed Hungarian soldiers, the whole event was conducted in the strictest secrecy, and many feared that they would be fighting demonstrators in Budapest. In the end, however, the Hungarian army’s intervention in southern Slovakia passed off without gory incidents. All the greater, however, was the moral shock of the Hungarian intelligentsia, which regarded the intervention as a national disgrace. On the day of the invasion, several members of staff from the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences held a protest. On 31 August 1968, the Yugoslav newspaper Knizevne Novine published a protest by than 70 delegates of a scientific symposium in Korčula condemning the occupation of Czechoslovakia. In a special letter to the Hungarian government and the Party, the Hungarian philosophers and sociologists Ágnes Heller, Mária Markus, György Markus, Vilmos Sos and Zádor Tordai protested against the participation of Hungarian units.