Tremors of Change

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Thus ended the career of one of Communism's most guileful and skillful leaders. One of Novotny's first projects after he maneuvered to succeed the late Klement Gottwald in 1953 as party boss was to build a giant statue of Stalin overlooking the Vltava River in Prague. Though he eventually came around to recognizing the need for a reorganization of the country's decrepit economy and for granting wider freedom of expression to writers, he did so only reluctantly. He ran a severe police state, yoked the economy and foreign policy of Czechoslovakia to the needs of the Soviet Union and mercilessly purged "revisionists." Ill suited by training and temperament for any sort of liberalization, he later stalled on economic reforms and took back some of -the privileges that he had granted the writers—thus setting off the intraparty fight that brought in Dubcek.

Jeers & Whistles. Though Novotny is gone, much of his handiwork remains behind. Last week the demands for specific reforms continued to multiply. More than 10,000 students crowded into the massive Prague Congress Hall, where they questioned party leaders and demanded everything from a neutral foreign policy to removal of the red star from the nation's coat of arms. When Forestry Minister Josef Smrkovsky rose to ask the students why they had omitted a pledge of friendship to the Soviet Union from one of their resolutions, the hall echoed with jeers and whistles.

Sensing the country's mood, the Roman Catholic Church demanded wider religious freedom. In a letter to Dubcek, Bishop Frantisek Tomasek of Prague called for the return to Czechoslovakia of Primate Josef Cardinal Beran, 79. Cardinal Beran, whom the Communists kept under house arrest for 14 years, agreed to leave the country in 1965 in exchange for party concessions to the church; he is now living in the Vatican. Without fully suppressing it, the party has harassed the church for 19 years, even appoints the priests for some dioceses. Bishop Tomasek's letter also asked Dubcek to begin talks between the government and the bishops, to reopen religious orders and remove restrictions on seminaries.

Greater Voice. At week's end, Prime Minister Jozef Lenart took over the duties of the presidency until the Czechoslovak National Assembly can meet to elect a successor to Novotny. The party Presidium made plans to restore the reputations of as many as 30,000 people disgraced in Novotny's purges. This week the Central Committee is due to get Dubcek's reform program, which is likely to remove some controls on the economy and give the people a greater voice in their affairs. While the other top Communists in the Soviet bloc are clearly worried about the program's impact in their countries, Dubcek must deliver something to his own people, who have been clamoring for specific reforms to go with their wider freedom of speech.