Kremlin Gives New Warning To Czechs

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31770, 29 August 1968, Page 11

Kremlin Gives New Warning To Czechs

( N .Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

MOSCOW, August 28.

The Kremlin today warned Czechoslovak leaders that they must take decisive action against liberal party members and other “counter-revolutionary forces” still active in Prague.

It issued the warning in a “Pravda” article by a top commentator, Yuri Zhukov, who made it clear Soviet leaders still regarded the situation in Prague as abnormal despite yesterday’s agreement on the gradual withdrawal of Soviet and allied troops which swept into the country a week ago.

According to the official communique, the agreement provided for the gradual withdrawal of the occupying troops as the situation “normalises” in return for a pledge by the reformist Czech leadership to take so far unspecified measures against bourgeois ideology and anti-Socialist elements. No time limit was set for the withdrawal of the troops in the communique, which did not mention widespread reports both in Moscow and Prague that units of Warsaw Pact troops would stay permanently on the Czechoslovak border with West Germany.

While Czechoslovak sources still insist that the agreement contains “mutual concessions,” Western observers in Moscow are convinced that the Czechoslovak leaders have

given more than they have received.

The main Soviet concession appears to be recognition of the party leader, Mr Alexander Dubcek, and his associates, described by “Pravda” only last week as a Rightwing opportunist minority group who had connived at counter-revolution.

When the troops were sent in, an official Kremlin statement said they were going in in answer to an appeal by a group of unnamed Czechoslovak party and Government leaders who had remained “true to Leninism.”

The names of these people have never been revealed, and now they appear to have been obliterated from the official Soviet record—so long as Mr Dubcek conforms to desirable policies. Today’s “Pravda” article confirmed the Soviet attitude after the four days of gruelling Czechoslovak - Soviet talks, first set out briefly by

the Government newspaper “Izvestia” last bight. “The measures worked out during these talks,” Zhukov said, “will help liquidate the threats to socialism in Czechoslovakia from internal and external reaction.” He added that the reaction inside Czechoslovakia to news of yesterday's agreement “leave no possible doubt that the shameless corrupt revolutionaries are not giving up the struggle.” He cited the criticism of the agreement by the underground radio stations which have sprung up all over Czechoslovakia since the occupation, and said they were “obviously acting to order."