speaks only of stabilization. And even this is not certain if the evolution of money wage rates and-prices is taken into consideration,
Nominal wages actually dropped more than 1% in the first half of 1963, The January resolution talks about. an increase of 1.3% in average nominal wages in industry. This means that wages in 1964 will return to the 1962 levél and that nominal wages will have suffered stagnation for three consecutive years.
' Along with ‘this, however, . a big rise has occurred in the cost-ofliving index, The January plenum announced in fact: (1) an increase in rents for houses and apartments; (2) a “reform of the national health service, ending free services and imposing nominal charges for doctors' visits and prescriptions; (3) a "reform" of the educational system, ending free school supplies and placing the cost on parents; (4) a reduction of high pensions and an increase in low pensions,
-Except for the fourth measure, involving ‘the: pension system, which is progressive, the.other three "reforms" signify an increase in the cost of living for the average working-class family. This means that for the second consecutive year, the Czechoslovak workers! standard of living is going down instead of up.
A reform of the general wage system and of factory management has also been introduced, In the wage system, the reactionary piecework pattern is to be brought back on a broad scale, lowering the minimum hourly wage rates.
_ Premiums are to be granted factories that "release" (i, Coy fire!) “excessive man power" from their staffs, A total of 162 "old
factories," omploying 15,000. workers, are to be closed in 1962 and the workers “transferreda* to shops where there is a shortage of man power (and also to some tractor jobs in the countryside which are desperately in need of mechanics),
The Central Committee solemnly guaranteed to the workers that no loss of income will be suffered through these transfers. But they. gave no guarantee that jobs: will be given to them in the same town. where they now live; and since the housing shortage is quite acute andthe new rent increases will.cause a general scramble for "cheap" living quarters, the transfers will mean severe hardships for some of the families involved.
Although President Antonin Novotny's New Year's message. struck a note of "austerity," and an intensive press campaign for some months had prepared the people for some cutbacks in their standard of. living (the highest of all the workers!. states ),. the announcements came as a shock to the advanced workers, particularly since not the slightest political concession was made by way of "compensation,"
The workers foot the bill. for the inefficiency. and parasitism of the ruling bureaucracy, And not the slightest reform is in sight in the direotion of self-management,. The line, instead, is to -strengthen the "autonomy of the faotories® and the rights of the factory management. " oO This: reactionary. development, “Groh runs completely counter to the progressive trend of 1962 and.1963, was accompanied by a sharp attack against the "liberal" and "exaggerated" criticisms of the ~ ruling bureaucracy!s past policies, especially in the ideological field, which appeared in the two literary magazines Kulturny Zivot (Slovak) and Literarni Noviny (Czech).. The editors of both magazines, however, have. defen ed themselves and tried a counteroffensive. -~
The workers seem to have responded in the same Way, for the: theoretical organ of thé Czechoslovak Communist party Zivot Strany admits that “antiparty" leaflets have been distributed in Moravia, |
Behind the scenes, Novotny's position appears to have been weakened and to have come under question among many who remember his complicity in the crimes of Stalin's years, Khrushchev, however, has intervened repeatedly to protect Novotny against those who want a ‘change in party leadership, He sent Leonid I, Brezhnev, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, to Czechoslovakia to praise Novotny in a speech December 12 as “the Joyal son of the Czecho-~ slovak people" and 2 "relentless fighter for communism. wr
On the same. occasion, Novotny served notice that de-Stalinization had been "definitely ended" in December 1962 and that "liberal-bour~ geois deviations" had to be vigorously combatted, along with all attempts. to "lower ‘the authority ‘of. the party." oa
Novotny was absent from the December 1963 and January 1964 Cen= tral Committee meetings, Many Communists are asking questions about this conspicuous absence, Does it mean that the “first secretary" of the party is slowly being squeezed.out? Or does it mean that he wants to avoid being too closely associated with the unpopular measures which the regime feels compelled to take at present?
THAT