NEW SOCIAL DEMOCRAT LEADER

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25428, 26 February 1948, Page 7

NEW SOCIAL DEMOCRAT LEADER

The Prague correspondent of the Associated Press says that Mr Fierlinger was returned as leader of the Social Democrat Pafty only after a physical clash in tne party headquarters, from which the former leader,, Mr Bohumil Lausman, emerged in a dishevelled condition.

“This development,” the correspondent adds, “gives Mr Gottwald the power he needed to complete the drive for Communist control. Police now guard all Social Democrat headquarters, public buildings, and foreign Embassies, and they are swarming in the streets of Prague. They occupy Bohemian and Slovakian postal ana telephone offices, and also guard the Prague and Bratislava radio stations. “They have occupied the printing works-of the National Socialist Party’s newspaper ‘Svonodnu Slovo.’ ” The Minister of National Defence (Mr Svoboda), in a broadcast, urged the army to stay out of the crisis and of “possible internal political conflicts-”

The Communists yesterday took over the administration of Slovakia, the partly self-governing province which makes up more than one-third of the Czechoslovak Republic. They dismissed the six non-Com-munist Ministers in the regional government and replaced them -with five Communists and one member of the Left Wing of the Democratic Party. They also installed a Communist al Mayor of the chief city, Bratislava. The Communists had been comparatively weak in Slovakia, where they polled very poorly in the 1946 election. Throughout the country the Com-munist-controlled police are continuing their political arrests. An Opposition spokesman told the correspondent of the British United Press in Prague: “The fight is lost. The Communists have discarded pretence and legality. They have received orders to go ahead. Not even the President is allowed to stand in their way.” Communications between Prague and Bratislava are cut