Husák Normalization

Term and origins

The policy known as Normalization (Czech: normalizace, Slovak: normalizácia) was originally defined as restoring control of the Communist party over political, economic and cultural life. The term appears in the text of the Moscow Protocol, signed by the Soviet and Czechoslovak leadership on 26 August 1968, where it is stated that the plenum of the Central Committee would consider "questions of the normalization of the situation in the country" within the following six to ten days. The cliché "normalization" and "to normalize" subsequently spread widely through the Czechoslovak and Soviet press and gave its name to the whole era. Gustáv Husák, the author of the policy, preferred the word "consolidation". In Western scholarship the term Husakism is also used, and the period is often described as the longest-lasting post-Stalinist regime in Eastern Europe with roots in 1945.

Dating and periodization

Historians differ on when the period begins. Some date it from the signing of the Moscow Protocol by Dubček and the other jailed Czechoslovak leaders on 26 August 1968, while others date it from the replacement of Dubček by Husák on 17 April 1969. They also differ on its end: either Husák's removal as party leader on 17 December 1987, or the beginning of the Velvet Revolution on 17 November 1989. It is commonly treated as the years 1969 to 1989 and divided into the removal of the reforms and reformers in 1969 to 1971 and the preservation of the status quo from 1971 to 1987.

1969–1971: Removing the reforms and reformers

When Husák replaced Dubček in April 1969, the regime acted quickly to normalize the country's political situation. Its chief objectives were the restoration of firm party rule and the reestablishment of Czechoslovakia as a committed member of the socialist bloc. The process involved five interrelated steps: consolidating Husák's leadership and removing reformers from leadership positions; revoking or modifying the laws enacted by the reform movement; reestablishing centralized control over the economy; reinstating the power of police authorities; and expanding ties with other socialist nations. Within a week of assuming power Husák ordered extensive purges of reformists still occupying key positions in the mass media, the judiciary, social and mass organizations, lower party organs and finally the highest levels of the KSČ. In the fall of 1969 twenty-nine liberals on the Central Committee were replaced by conservatives; Dubček was dropped from the Presidium, expelled from the party the following year, and subsequently became a minor functionary in Slovakia. In the two years following the invasion the new leadership revoked some reformist laws, such as the National Front Act and the Press Act, and simply did not enforce others. Economic enterprises that had been given substantial independence during the Prague Spring were returned to centralized control through contracts based on central planning and production quotas, and extreme police control was reinstated, reflected in the harsh treatment of demonstrators marking the first anniversary of the August intervention. By May 1971 Husák could report to the Fourteenth Party Congress that normalization had been completed satisfactorily.

Purges and censorship

Several show trials took place in 1969 and 1970. Critical articles in Rudé právo and Pravda in June and July 1970 signaled a campaign of wholesale purges of internal party opponents. The screening of party members was driven by the conservative leadership around Husák, Vasil Biľak and Alois Indra, and was conducted by special commissions formed of trusted party members. The verification procedure consisted mainly of an interview, in which the person was expected to show a "correct" attitude to the line of development set by the party leadership. In 1970–1971, 1,508,326 Czech and Slovak members of the party went through the procedure, and 326,817 of them, or 22 percent, were expelled. Those who refused to sign the official doctrine were ostracized, and those who did not pass screening were forced to leave their jobs, usually receiving severance pay and finding work far below their qualifications; often they could not even change their profession, and the possibility of their children attending university was greatly limited. The programme of purging society and of normalization was set out in the document "Lessons from the Crisis" (Poučení z krizového vývoje), adopted in December 1970. The democratic legislation of the Prague Spring, approved by citizens in Prague and other cities in April and May 1968, was revoked or modified, and although the Constitutional Law of Federation passed by the National Assembly on 27 October 1968 established a lasting federation, real power was centralized. The 1968 Press Act, which had abolished prior censorship and restricted the activities of censorship organs, was not repealed, but addenda to it authorized penalties for violating the new media policy. The party first banned all civic associations that had appeared during the Prague Spring, closed every publication whose editorial policy diverged from the new leadership's "general line", and halved the membership of the Czechoslovak Union of Journalists; Rudé právo, the party daily, lost forty-five of the eighty members of its editorial staff, dismissed for insufficient loyalty. Writers were also targeted: at the start of normalization the Writers' Union was purged on a large scale, with three quarters of its members expelled, and 117 representatives of its Czech section lost their licence to work in Czechoslovakia. Their books were withdrawn from sale and from libraries, and the 830-page reference work Czech Writers of the 20th Century (1985) omitted Milan Kundera, Josef Škvorecký (both émigrés), Ivan Klíma, Pavel Kohout, Ludvík Vaculík and Václav Havel. Only "ideologically vetted" works that passed censorship were allowed to be printed. Well-known university teachers were purged, including the Marxist theoretician Karel Kosík, the politician Zdeněk Mlynář and the diplomat Jiří Hájek, who were expelled from the party and banned from academic work. Forced cancellation of travel by ordinary people was common.

1971–1987: 'Reluctant terror' and preserving the status quo

The method by which the KSČ under Husák ruled was commonly summed up as "reluctant terror": careful adherence to Soviet policy objectives plus the minimum amount of domestic repression deemed necessary to fulfill them and prevent a return to Dubček-style reformism. The result was a regime that, while not a complete return to Stalinism, was far from liberal. Personnel changed very little. After 1971 the Presidium was largely unchanged through the Sixteenth Party Congress in 1981 and the Seventeenth in 1986, and in December 1987 Husák was forced to retire and Miloš Jakeš became general secretary. The opposition in the 1970s and 1980s was subjected to brutal persecution. Early post-invasion efforts to keep alive the spirit of the Prague Spring were quashed through a series of subversion trials in 1972, and in 1976 a trial over the rock band the Plastic People of the Universe took place.

Repression and surveillance

Opposition to the regime was suppressed in various ways. Torture, forced exile, discrimination at work and exclusion from media, education and culture were official tactics. Clergy who refused to join the state-controlled association of priests, Pacem in terris, were watched or expelled, and the surveillance of Roman Catholic believers and clergy reached the highest level since the Stalin era. In 1977 and the early 1980s films such as The Apple Game, A Very Dangerous Game and The Time of Light and Darkness ("Cas svetla") were banned or censored. Charter 77, signed in 1977, gave rise to the largest petition campaign in Czechoslovak history, including religious, economic and labor-oriented petitions, until 1985. In 1979 six people including Václav Havel were convicted of "illegal organization", and the repressive practices continued through the 1980s, drawing criticism from international human rights groups. The government conducted surveillance of the population through the State Security (StB), which established the Administration for Special Measures (Administration 14). The leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was funded by taxpayers and its members enjoyed perquisites at work and in leading positions. The stationing of Soviet troops was part of the Cold War policy, was designed to suppress resistance and prevent the struggle of reformist forces within the society from developing, and contributed decisively to the regime's preservation. It is hard to say that the normalization regime succeeded in restoring widespread party confidence. Stalinist era rhetoric continued in reduced forms but did not generate mass anger again, and the regime depended on a situation where the majority of citizens were accepting of dominance and pursuing individual interests.

Economy and society

Another means of maintaining control was to offer considerable consumer gains as a substitute for the loss of personal freedom. Government policies in the first half of the 1970s resulted in high economic growth and large increases in personal consumption, and the widespread availability of material goods placated the population and promoted overall acceptance of stringent political controls. In the late 1970s, however, the economy entered prolonged stagnation. In the 1980s poor economic performance hindered the government's ability to produce goods needed to satisfy consumer demand, and the regime's ability to appease the population by providing material benefits diminished. Standards in society gradually rose as well. Czechoslovaks sometimes remember "normalization" as a successful period of state-led modernization, which has to do with the rise of the standard of living at the time.

1987–1989: End and legacy

In the 1980s there were internal and external pressures to reform. Domestically, poor economic performance combined with continued pressure for political change from activists representing the Roman Catholic Church and the Charter 77 movement. Externally, Czechoslovakia struggled to find a response to the changes introduced by the new leadership in Moscow under Mikhail Gorbachev. Its initial (1985–1987) response focused on voicing public support for Gorbachev's new programs while steadfastly avoiding introducing similar programs at home. In April 1987 Husák finally announced a half-hearted program of reform starting in 1991, but it was too late. On 17 December 1987 Husák stepped down as party leader and Jakeš replaced him. In 1989 the Velvet Revolution ended communist rule. The communist parties of the Czech Republic and Slovakia acknowledged in September 1990 that their activities had been illegal, and on 1 July 1993 Czechoslovakia was dissolved into two states. Interest in how the general public remembers the normalization period has been growing.