Czechoslovak Party Disputes Dismissal

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31753, 9 August 1968, Page 11

Czechoslovak Party Disputes Dismissal

(N.Z.P A Reuter—Copyright) PRAGUE, August 8. Dismissal of an outspoken political general from a key party post last month—a move seen as a concession to the Kremlin—has apparently started a row within the Czechoslovak Communist Party.

General Vaclav Prchlik was returned to Army work last month after bitter Soviet press attacks over his criticism of the Warsaw Pact command structure.

His department—State Administration of the Party Central Committee, responsible for security and defence—was dissolved as part of a major reorganisation of the! Czechoslovak Army's political leadership. But Communist sources said yesterday that they expected General Prchlik to return to the political scene. The general, whose re. marks on the Warsaw Pact included a call for a greater say for smaller nations in policy-making, was later publicly rebuked in an official statement.

But yesterday, the Defence Minister, Mr Martin Dzur, was quoted by Prague Radio as saying that he did not disagree with the general’s remarks.

Communist sources said General Prchlik had powerful enemies. His case had been discussed at a recent central committee meeting but no decision on his future was made.

It was understood that the progressives in the committee wanted the general eventually to return to a political role. The conservatives opposed it. Meanwhile, diplomatic sources in Moscow said yesterday that the Communist leaders of Rumania would formally protest against their ex. elusion from the recent Bratislava conference on the Czechoslovak crisis, the latest

incident in an intensifying orthodox Communist freeze against Rumania. In Bucharest, an angry editorial in the Communist Party daily, “Scinteia,” said Rumania's exclusion had accelerated the crumbling of the East European defence and economic community. The editorial foreshadowed the predicted protest by denouncing the Bratislava review of Czechoslovak internal [affairs as “a profoundly ‘harmful practice which canInot but generate further ani- [ mosities and tensions.” The freeze began on March 23, when Rumania was not invited to the Dresden conference of six Communist nations, which primarily discussed Czechoslovak developments. She was snubbed again on July 15 when the Soviet Union, East Germany, Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary met at Warsaw to demand that Czechoslovakia abandon its reform programme. N.Z.P.A.-Reuter said that the Kremlin’s new polite but firm reminder to Czechoslovakia’s reformist leaders that they must curb liberal elements in their country was front-paged by Soviet newspapers yesterday. The reminder came in a

? statement issued by the 11- ; man ruling Politburo of the Soviet Communist party. It endorsed the results of i the Politburo's meeting last I week with the Czechoslovak 1 Party presidium at Cierna f Nad Tisou and the six-nation > summit in Bratislava on Saturday. . Observers said the statement’s unmistakeable mean- ’ ing was to remind the CzechoJ vak leaders that they must J carry out their pledges of loyalty to orthodox communism. The declaration acknowledged the right of each Com--1 munist Party to formulate its • own policies to suit local ■ conditions, with the key conl dition that nothing should be ■ allowed to weaken the party’s ■ leading role.

Hovercraft Rescue. A British Army hovercraft which today saved a drifting yacht is believed to be the first cushion-of-air craft to be engaged in a rescue. The 11-ton yacht Poacher radioed for help when her engine failed in the English Channel off Bournemouth, and the hovercraft, on a test trip, found her and stood by until a Royal Navy minesweeper arrived.—Bournemouth, August 8.