1968 - Mark Kurlansky [177]
Even while the Soviets were pushing from their side of the table, there was a wide range of viewpoints from the Czechoslovakian side, reflecting the nature of the Dubek regime. Svoboda was a dominant voice, rarely silenced, always urging resolution. Franti†ek Kriegel, the sixty-year-old doctor elected by the Central Committee to the presidium as one of three liberals in a compromise government, was more volatile. He was a Jew from the Galicia region of southern Poland. Kriegel had been arrested and imprisoned with Dubek, and when he arrived in Moscow with Dubek an angry Brezhnev said, “What is this Jew from Galicia doing here?” The Soviets banned him from the negotiating table, and the Czechoslovakians got him back only by refusing to negotiate without him. Kriegel had always been one of the radicals of the regime, pushing for relations with China as an alternative to the Soviet Union. Now the Soviets tried to keep Kriegel, a diabetic, reined in at negotiations by cutting back on his insulin supply. One of the few times Svoboda was silenced was when Kriegel turned to him and said, “What can they make me do? I have two choices, either they are going to send me to Siberia or they will shoot me.” Kriegel was the only member of the delegation who never signed the accord, saying in the end, “No! Kill me if you want.”
The Soviets made numerous anti-Semitic references to not only Kriegel but Deputy Prime Minister Ota Δik and Prague first secretary Bohumil Δimon. Actually Δimon was not Jewish, but his name sounded Jewish to Slavic ears.
When the meeting was opened by Brezhnev, Dubek seemed so depressed, so heavily sedated, that ›erník had to make the opening remarks for the Czechoslovakian side. He spoke very directly and frankly, not emphasizing the standard line about friendship with the Soviet Union, but instead defending the Prague Spring and the actions of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party and insisting that a military intervention by the Soviets was not a good thing for socialism. He was interrupted and contradicted several times by Brezhnev. When he had finished, Dubek asked for the floor. This was contrary to the rules of procedure, but he insisted, at first awkwardly, then after a few minutes in fluent Russian. Mlyná described his speech as “a moving and enthusiastic defense” of the Czechoslovakian reforms and a denunciation of the intervention. It was an improvised speech and Brezhnev gave an improvised response, insisting that the Prague Spring was damaging to Moscow and explaining his views on sovereignty and the Soviet bloc. Turning to Dubek, he said, “I tried to help you against Novotny´ in the beginning.” He seemed personally hurt that Dubek never took him into his confidence. “I believed in you and I defended you against others,” he told Dubek. “I said our Sacha is nevertheless a good comrade, but you let us down.”
Brezhnev made it clear that Dubek’s greatest sin was in not consulting Moscow—his failure to send his speeches to Moscow for approval, his failure to consult on personnel changes. “Here, even I myself give my speeches to all the members of the Politburo in advance for their comments. Isn’t that right, comrades?” He turned to the entire Politburo sitting in a row behind him, and they all eagerly and dutifully nodded agreement. But there were other sins: “Underlying antisocialist tendencies, letting the press write whatever they wanted, a constant pressure from counterrevolutionary organizations . . .” And, eventually, as always happened when conferring with Soviet officialdom at any level, Brezhnev brought up the Soviet Union’s “sacrifices of World War II.” Neither side ever forgot the 145,000 Soviet lives lost in the liberation of Czechoslovakia.
Dubek never hesitated to point out his disagreements with Brezhnev. Finally, Brezhnev’s face reddened