DUBCEK SUSPENDED; HUSAK MAY BE LOSING GROUND

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32253, 23 March 1970, Page 17

DUBCEK SUSPENDED; HUSAK MAY BE LOSING GROUND

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) VIENNA, March 21. With the new action against Mr Alexander Dubcek, Dr Gustav Uusak, the Czechoslovak Communist Party leader, has lost ground in his struggle against party extremists who wish to accelerate the severity of the present purge sweeping through Communist ranks throughout the country.

Reports reaching Vienna from informed sources in Prague and Bratislava said that yesterday’s news of the suspension of Mr Dubcek, the liberal leader of 1968, and expulsion of several Dubcek supporters, had revealed the extent of Dr Husak’s loss of power to the ultra-con-servatives.

According to the reports from Prague, Dr Husak was forced to agree to the suspen- • sion of Mr Dubcek after a meeting of 400 ultra-conser-vatives in a Prague suburb early this month. This meeting had the backing of Soviet representatives in Prague who have pointed out that a man like Mr Dubcek, compromised in the eyes of the Communist Party, was unfit to hold any kind of state, Government or party post. Dr Husak is believed to have deliberately removed Mr (Dubcek from the party in- | fighting in Prague and sent (him to Ankara as Czechoslovak Ambassador to indicate

that leniency should be the watchword in the coming party purges. Dr Husak felt that Mr Dubcek would refuse to recant or to admit doctrinal errors leading up to the August, 1968, invasion by Soviet-led armies and that it was better to prevent this head-on clash. Mr Dubcek himself, sources

recalled, only accepted the Ankara appointment with reluctance. He felt that Czechoslovak ultra-conservatives with Soviet backing would finally obtain their demands. The Husak decision to summon a party presidium meeting earlier this month was a direct result of the meeting a few days earlier, Prague sources claimed. The sources doubted that Mr Dubcek would be able to remain much longer in Ankara and doubted that he would want to do so. Apparently the ultra-conser-vative group in Prague believes that while Mr Dubcek remains outside the country and free from an official partyinquiry the purge cannot get properly under way.

Dr Husak, however, wants to limit the purge to those who still cling to the reformist ideas of 1968.

The ultra-conservatives apparently want a party consisting of 100 per cent loyal men who never wavered in their pro-Soviet ideas even during the 1968 invasion.