Love and Freedom

by Rosemary Kavan

  Churlish distrust had gone out, exit permits for all had come in. Mile-long queues of prospective holiday-makers formed outside Western embassies. Even bureaucracy wore a smile. It seemed to have changed its shape too: it was less square and intractable; it had grown taller and slimmer and had flexed its muscles.

  It had been a long road to the democratic socialism Pavel and I had envisaged in 1945. For me the Prague Spring was a justification for sticking out the years of disillusion. Our new leader was not alone in his naivety. I believed that once Dubček got rid of the hawks, he and his team would ensure that the reforms went through. True, neither the promised free general elections nor the Fourteenth Party Congress which was to elect a new Central Committee had been held, but I was convinced that popular pressure would bring these about in good time.

  Intoxicated with the new freedom, I attended every public meeting. I talked to people in pubs and restaurants; I joined groups that formed spontaneously in the squares and streets and discussed present and future policies. Faces were eager and open; no one threw a glance over their shoulder.

  In spite of shocking revelations about the Communist Party, non-Party friends assured me that it had never enjoyed such confidence. Even the newly-founded KAN, an association of non-party people, and the 231 Club, composed of ex-political prisoners, were willing to co-operate with the Party, provided it was on terms of equality. In the absence of censorship, I wrote freely about these organizations and their programmes and demands before they were officially registered.

  After work or a meeting, I would rush home to the telly. Jan and Zdeněk, who had also been activated and was helping to formulate statutes for the new student union, would join me. Sometimes Heda, now living round the corner in a newly allocated flat, would drop in. We would sit glued to the box drinking in every word of an astonishingly open political debate or address by a political leader. Heda and I spent exciting hours interpreting the news and filling in the background for foreign correspondents gathered in the foyer of the Alcron hotel or introducing them to the wine taverns of old Prague.

  The eyes of the world were on Czechoslovakia. John of Luxembourg’s4 belief in the Czechs’ special mission seemed to have been justified. If members of my generation — those who had suffered — needed to believe in Dubček and the new course, there were others who viewed developments with alarm. My chief editor (who must have been the only Jewish communist to have fought in the West and remained unpurged since 1945) complained that the Party reform programme had been turned into a mass movement which was recklessly heading for disaster. Unlike Dubček, he did not trust the Russians. Dubček, nevertheless, returned triumphant from discussions with Soviet leaders in Slovakia. I set off on holiday, confident that all would be well.

  1. A traditional Czech dish.

  2. This is a reference to the publication of the Piller Commission’s Report as ‘The Czechoslovak Political Trials 1950–1954’, Stanford University Press, 1971.

  3. The Czechoslovak government did not express any wish to leave either Comecon or the Warsaw Pact during 1968.

  4. John of Luxembourg became King of Bohemia in 1310. He died in 1346 at the Battle of Cresy. He was the father of Charles IV.

  Chapter 22

  I was staying in Paris with a friend of Jan’s when I heard the devastating news.

  François rushed into my room waving his shaving brush and shouting: ‘Rosemary, wake up! The Russians have invaded Czechoslovakia!’

  Stunned, I tottered after him into the bathroom to hear the radio blast: ‘Warsaw Pact armies … tanks … barricades in Prague … firing at the Radio building … Wenceslas Square … a blood-stained flag … the first dead and wounded …’

  We looked at each other in anguish. Tears were running down our faces. François had visited us in Prague several times and had fallen in love with it. To me, of course, it had been a beloved home for twenty years.

  I left for London immediately to find that Jan was in the States attending a U.S. National Student Association’s conference; Zdeněk was in bed with a London bug. After a few days I cut short my holiday and prepared to leave.

  ‘It’s madness to return,’ English friends told me. I had not heeded similar warnings in 1950; I did not heed them now. I returned to occupied Czechoslovakia.

  My heart cried out when I saw Prague, my beautiful Prague, desecrated. The Museum pitted, a block next to the Radio building gutted. On its broken wall the words ex Oriente lux could still be read. Street names had not yet been restored. Tanks had been withdrawn from the centre but were still stationed in a field near our house. I looked with loathing at the young crews. If I had had a gun I think I would have been capable of using it.

  Friends were eager to relate their experiences, to re-live that terrifying, yet wonderful, week of national solidarity.

  Her eyes shining, Eva cried: ‘You who have suffered so much with us, who have seen our nation on its knees, you missed our finest hour! The invasion brought out the best in us. No one panicked and bought up food stocks as they did during the Cuban crisis. People helped each other. Youngsters took food to old age pensioners; citizens provided meals for the radio and television broadcasters; car owners ran free taxi services. For the first time in many years I was proud to be Czech.

  ‘In some ways the invasion set us free,’ she went on. ‘Now we owe the Russians nothing. When I think how we looked up to them!’ Her voice shook. ‘We looked up to them. For years I cherished the memory of riding into Prague on a Russian tank in May 1945. But they’re barbarians. Their troops shot our people quite capriciously. Russian officers shot their own men for trifling offences. The soldiers stole everything they laid their hands on. They drank a bottle of perfume belonging to a girl in our office; the cups smelt of it. They left excreta on the floor. Elsewhere they wilfully destroyed expensive laboratory equipment; and they did two-million-crowns’ worth of damage to the Museum.

  ‘The Russians know nothing about socialism. They know only dogma. Yet they came to destroy our socialism.’ She sighed heavily. ‘Given the way things are, I suppose we were bound to fail. Yet we had to try.’

  It was the Czechs’ fate to introduce new designs for living far in advance of their time: the Taborites had founded a classless society; King George of Poděbrady had tried to form a league of nations, five centuries before it was actually created. How long would we have to wait for another, successful, Prague Spring?

  Karel Kovanda was still fired by the activities.

  ‘Boy, you missed something, Rosemary! Twentieth century Hussites sitting in the path of tanks. Žižka routed the crusaders with farm wagons and women’s petticoats. We confounded the invaders with paint and ink. We produced clandestine papers, printed leaflets in Russian describing developments here, and mixed with the troops explaining our political attitudes.’

  Yes, I thought, the parallel with the Hussites is appropriate: they tried to explain their faith and their programme to the invading Catholic crusaders.

  ‘New slogans appeared every day,’ Karel grinned: ‘“One step forward is enough to find him who was at our side behind our backs”, or “Go to blazes, or at least go home!” or “Soviet paralysis the most progressive paralysis in the world!” And the jokes! Have you heard this one? Brezhnev is standing outside a big gate. Brezhnev begs to be allowed in. Kosygin cries: “No, don’t come in!” “But this is heaven,” exclaims Brezhnev. “That’s what I thought,” says Kosygin, “But those bloody Czechs have changed the signposts!”’

  To Paula, the invasion was a tragedy. She had spent many summers working in the Russian virgin lands. She had wept to see a young man with whom she had tilled Russian soil driving a Russian tank. She mourned for the young Russians who committed suicide when they discovered their leaders had misled them: there was no counter-revolution in Czechoslovakia. Sadly she had written to wives, mothers and sweethearts at the request of soldiers who feared they would be sent to Siberia on their return and would never see their loved ones again
.

  I wandered through the old city, my thoughts in turmoil, consumed with a rage and hatred I had not thought myself capable of. I felt a personal betrayal. My hopes had been dashed; my dreams shattered. From a loyal friend I had been converted into an implacable enemy. I understood what millions of Czechs were suffering. And for what? The Czech reforms had not threatened socialism. Indeed a report of 20 August had shown that only 5 per cent of the population would welcome a return to capitalism. The Soviet Union could compromise with its enemy America, yet crush its ally Czechoslovakia. It had to crush Czechoslovakia because she was a direct threat to Soviet hegemony in the socialist bloc. Hussitism had overflowed into the neighbouring countries and the people had revolted against tyranny. Socialism with a human face would have proved equally contagious. Freedom of expression and genuine workers’ control were the last things the Soviet Union wanted in its satellites. They had to be erased at the source. Czechs characteristically fight with their wits. But what, I wondered, had become of the Hussite will to take up arms in defence of one’s beliefs?

  ‘The army was ready for action,’ Vladimír Laštůvka, fresh from his military service, told me when I ran into him in a wine tavern near the faculty of journalism. He had just completed his military service. ‘The lower ranking officers and men were wholeheartedly on the nation’s side.’ He added bitterly: ‘We’re about the only European country with two years ‘conscription, yet we are never allowed to defend ourselves.’

  The young Pavel’s voice echoed down the years.

  ‘The Russians have wanted to station their troops here for years,’ pronounced another youth at the table. ‘They negotiated with Novotný in the autumn but he fobbed them off. Having led the nation into conflict with the Soviet Union, Dubček should have acted consistently and fought.’

  After the euphoria of the week in which they prevented the Russians from taking full control of the country, people listened in a state of shock to Dubček who, tears in his eyes, explained on television that he and the other Presidium members kidnapped by the Red Army on 21st August signed in Moscow the so-called Protocols which will ensure a return to ‘normalization’. Although the precise content of the Protocols were not immediately known, the unmistakable impression was one of capitulation. The general gloom deepened as the government began making more and more concessions to the invaders. In our flat the atmosphere was less despondent. The students were planning resistance.

  Jan returned to Prague but left a month later to take up a year’s scholarship at Oxford offered to him before the invasion; Zdeněk had remained in London for a course in English. Jana had moved into Zdeněk’s room. Through her I shared the excitement of the first student action, of which she was the prime mover. This was a three-day sit-in to back the students’ petition to the government demanding fulfilment of its pre-invasion pledges.

  Jana was enthusiastic when she returned: ‘Most of the lecturers and some of the public supported us. Factories sent us funds, some held token strikes and scores endorsed our petition.’

  Now that the foundations had been laid, Jiří Müller quietly pressed for further co-operation. He travelled the country talking to workers.

  He was popular with the workers. He spoke their language and understood their problems, having worked in a factory for a year during his studies.

  The workers had been slow to get off the political mark during the Prague Spring, but the invasion had acted as a spur. Now they were receptive to new ideas and found common cause with the students. Jiří’s first achievement was a contract signed by the Czech students’ union and the metalworkers’ union. This supported Prague Spring policies, specifically workers’ councils, and demanded general elections and withdrawal of foreign troops. It also established forms of co-operation between the two unions.

  Jan turned up in Prague some six weeks before Christmas. His trip had been legal, so he was permitted to come home for the holiday. He and other students followed up Jiří’s success and the results were further student–worker solidarity pacts. I attended some of the meetings and came away immensely cheered. It seemed to me that something from those eight months of promise might still be salvaged.

  Jan’s colleagues stumped for a spokesman with both good English and guts, asked him to address the coming Budapest conference of national student unions on European security. I smelt a rat. Jan tried to reassure me in vain: ‘Don’t worry. It’s a perfectly sound speech, condemning imperialism, Portugal, Greece and all that.’

  When he got back from Budapest the secret police again began taking a solicitous interest in his welfare, and his passport. This strengthened my doubts.

  ‘I gather your speech referred to the invasion,’ I remarked.

  ‘Well, yes; one can hardly talk about European security and ignore what happened in the heart of Europe a few months ago. I condemned the invasion in the name of our union and I quoted National Assembly and Party documents to prove that there had been no counter-revolution, but admitted that some mistakes had been made.’

  ‘You could get into serious trouble for using the term “invasion” now that it has been explicitly banned,’ I observed. It was not a reproach, merely a statement of fact. Jan had been out of action for several months. It was inevitable he should pitch himself head first into the trickiest waters.

  In the light of Jan Palach’s supreme sacrifice shortly afterwards, this seemed little enough.

  The student who burnt himself to death as a protest against Czechoslovakia’s fate and growing public apathy became a national symbol. To dispel this aura certain officials imputed sinister political motives to his death, inferring that Holeček and Other ruthless fanatics’ had been the instigators. Palach asked to see Luboš just before he died. He did not know Luboš personally but trusted him as a student leader. He told Luboš he was convinced by public reaction that his sacrifice had not been in vain but he did not want others to follow his example. His dying message was: ‘Tell them to join you in a living fight!’

  The police interrogated Luboš several times. He had been living with us for nearly a year. I had grown very fond of him, respecting his integrity and enjoying his flashes of dry humour. Disquieted, I waited up every night until he came home, though it was well past midnight.

  Palach’s funeral, organised entirely by students including Jan, was attended by hundreds of thousands. It became a focal point around which the nation could rally in a fresh burst of solidarity.

  Unhappy the nation that needs heroes, said Brecht. This small nation, surrounded by enemies, did indeed need heroes to preserve its identity and its self-respect. It had needed Hus; it needed Jan Palach, as it would need Jiří Müller and Jan Tesař.

  Years later I was to see a re-run of the World in Action film of Palach’s funeral with a commentary by Jan, looking young and earnest. It brought tears to my eyes again. By then Palach’s grave had been removed by the authorities but his memory could not be erased.

  The Budapest affair was duly filed for the time being and Jan’s passport was returned. He postponed his departure by a few days so that he could help with the organization of the funeral and take part in the negotiations with the government over the wording of the student union’s appeal to Palach’s anonymous followers which Jan eventually read out on the radio. He was therefore still in Czechoslovakia when Ralph Schoenman arrived in Prague, looking for speakers to attend a preliminary meeting of Bertrand Russell’s tribunal on Czechoslovakia. I begged him not to go. Stockholm on top of Budapest would really be pushing his luck. The Kavans never know when to draw the line. Jan completed his article at midnight and left early in the morning.

  Returning from town in the afternoon, I opened Jan’s door. My heart gave a disbelieving thud. His luggage was there. He hadn’t flown! I dropped onto the divan. Jana looked in and gasped: ‘Oh God!’ She went out and returned with the vodka bottle and two glasses. (My nervous system was beginning to show signs of wear. I now kept a bottle of spirits handy for our not infrequent
emergencies.) ‘Here, you’d better drink this, Rosemary; it’ll pull you round.’

  Jan slunk in later. Too angry to speak without exploding, I cooked supper in silence. At last he could bear it no longer.

  ‘Don’t you want to hear what happened?’ Pavel’s voice and Pavel’s question. Genetics had done a good job.

  ‘Your passport was confiscated yet again. You may not get back to Oxford at all. Your thesis will not be finished. Shall I go on?’

  Jan sat with his head down, a picture of dejection. I relented.

  ‘Here you are, here’s your supper. Now tell me the whole story.’

  ‘The airport police searched our luggage and discovered my pounds and dollars —’

  ‘Pounds and dollars?’

  ‘The pounds were from my Oxford grant, the dollars were a fee for an article I wrote on the Prague Spring and the invasion in the States in the summer. I was as surprised as the police to see my wallet and a copy of the article at the bottom of the case. I thought I had left them in Oxford. The day I left for Prague I only had about ten minutes to get ready in. I’d been at the dentist all the morning and was feeling groggy. I just pushed a few things on top of the clean shirts that were still in the case from the summer. Of course the police didn’t believe I’d brought the money into the country unwittingly and was taking it out equally unwittingly.’

  ‘You can hardly blame them. After all, travellers usually know what they have packed, and they usually unpack when they reach their destination. So I suppose the customs officers impounded the money?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jan admitted miserably.

  ‘I see there is more.’

  ‘Weil, yes. I had about 300 political documents with me which I wanted to present at Stockholm.’