Tito Gives Support To Czechoslovakia

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31755, 12 August 1968, Page 13

Tito Gives Support To Czechoslovakia

(N.Z Press Association—Copyright)

PRAGUE, August 11.

President Tito, of Jugoslavia, the first Communist ruler to break away from Moscow, has dodged questions about whether he personally intervened to stop the Soviet Union from halting Czechoslovakia’s liberalisation process, the Associated Press reported.

President Tito met Czechoslovak reform leaders yesterday, then was pressed by Jugoslav and Czechoslovak reporters at a news conference broadcast live to the nation —a precedent in Communist countries.

No other journalists were admitted, but the live broadcast of a Communist I|ead of State “under fire" was considered a first.

Asked about possible Soviet intervention, President Tito, an ally of Prague’s reformers, said: “These are delicate questions.

“1 know of no other factors —affecting developments—here than the unity of the Czechoslovak people behind the Central Committee of their Communist Party. “The Czechoslovak leaders defended their position honorably and this was not without result,” he said, referring to the showdown meetings between Prague and the Soviet bloc. Own Road President Tito emphasised several times that each Communist country had the right to take its own road. Intervening in the affairs of other countries would be damaging to world socialism, he said. “The Bratislava meeting showed that a comradely solution to some problems is the only correct way.” The Bratislava conference was attended by the Soviet, East German, Polish, Hungarian, Bulgarian and Czechoslovak parties. It produced Soviet-led demands that Czechoslovakia reverse its course.

President Tito said he thought Rumania was justified in complaining that it was not invited to the meeting. “They are members of the Warsaw Pact and they have a right to be dissatisfied,” he said. “Jugoslavia is not a member. Jugoslavia Not Invited “Jugoslavia was not invited and I don’t know whether we would have decided to go if we had been. “In any case, it’s not a good thing when several parties talk about the affairs of one party.” The talks yesterday were apparently to set the stage for increased co-operation between Czechoslovakia and Jugoslavia. The Soviet Union all but ignored President Tito’s visit

to Czechoslovakia while hit-1 ting out at all its ideological i opponents in the world Communist movement. All Soviet newspapers, I which gave one sentence to President Tito’s arrival in Prague, devoted their entire! front pages and most of their! second pages to a 7000-word document issued by the Communist Party Central Committee, which summed up the main points of current Soviet policy.

The document was csten-; sibly a call to all Soviet organisations to start preparations for the April, 1970, centenary of the birth of Lenin,' the founder of the Soviet Union. It seemed intended to dispel any lingering doubts that the truce might mean some moderation of the Soviet Union’s own “orthodox” views of tight Communist Party control of what is being said and done in Prague. The document called for the “purity of Marxism” to be maintained, saying that “every deviation from the principle of Marxist-Leninist teaching . . , inevitably enters into irreconcilable conflict with ... the basic interests of socialism.” It gave a warning against all attempts to weaken the leading role of Communist parties in Socialist countries, adding that a party which did not carry out a correct political line could not olay its leading role effectively. It said that imperialism was banking on “nationalist revisionist and ultra-Leftist elements” all shades of opposition to Kremlin policy.

whether in Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia, Rumania, or China—to weaken world Communist unity.