Dubcek's "Czech Road to Socialism"

In January of 1968 when the Dubcek faction in the Czechoslovak Communist Party deposed the ruling Novotny faction Czechoslovakia was suffering under fascist rule by a bureaucratic elite. Far from offering "socialism with a human face" Dubcek and his followers only offered bourgeois democratic reforms.

Following a long period of fascist oppression these new democratic liberties were welcomed by Czech workers. They were also welcomed by large numbers of pro-Western bourgeois and former nazi elements who were allowed to openly organise as a result of the "Prague Spring" instituted by the Dubcek regime in early 1968.

At the same time as they instituted bourgeois democratic reforms in the political sphere the Ducekites moved to further entrench capitalism in the economic sphere: control of enterprises in the enterprise themselves, co-ordination by the market, material incentives, control of the means of production and their products in the hands of the privileged elite of managers and technocrats, and widening income differentials.

These internal changes in the economy were matched by a new desire to co-operate with Western imperialism in the form of taking loans and credits as well as the setting up of joint enterprises on Czech territory.

The effect of these changes was to open wide Czechoslovakia to growing Western imperialist political and economic influence. The Soviets saw these moves as leading to the loss of a key dependency. In these circumstances the doctrine of "limited sovereignty" was born and the invasion took place; the Soviets again demonstrating that their position in Eastern Europe was only maintained by military force.

The Dubcek grouping crumbled in the face of Soviet might. They advised Czechoslovakians to "remain calm" and not to oppose the invasion. Resistance was confined to symbolic acts while the Soviets imposed a new leadership and the bourgeois democratic reforms were withdrawn. Since then Czechoslovakia has remained firmly under Soviet domination.

The Czech people, betrayed by the Dubcek group, continue to oppose Soviet domination, but lack leadership and organisation. Opposition is still confined to symbolic acts such as the sabotaging of the TV broadcast of a major speech by Leonid Brezhnev during his visit to Czechoslovakia earlier this year.