NARRATOR: Prague, 1964.
Nikita Khrushchev visits Antonio Novotny,
the loyal communist ruler of Czechoslovakia.
Khrushchev boasted that the Soviet system
was dynamic and healthy.
[speaking Russian ]
Communists were brothers,
members of the same family,
sharing resources, sharing a joke.
[ laughter ]
But only four years later,
the Soviet Union returned to Prague
with tanks.
♫
NARRATION: Khrushchev brimmed with confidence.
He hated formality --
he acted on impulse --
he loved a fight.
He wanted to make the Soviet Union happy
as well as glorious.
[ Man speaking Russian ]
INTERPRETER: He believed that socialism had to be liberated
from the debris of Stalin's rule
and from bureaucracy.
It should be made more democratic.
The gates should be opened,
but gradually step by step.
Because for him,
socialism was like paradise on earth.
NARRATION: To show his confidence,
Khrushchev allowed ah American exhibition
into Moscow in 1959.
For the first time,
Russians could touch and taste American achievement.
NARRATOR: Some of the women complained sometimes it smelt like benzine,
and men wanted to know if it would make them drunk.
NARRATION: But Khrushchev knew that the Soviet Union
was beating America in the space race.
For Khrushchev, here was evidence
that communism meant not just power
but technical progress.
The first generation of Soviet cosmonauts --
Gagarin, Titov,
and the first woman in space,
Valentina Tereshkova,
became instant national heroes.
They personified Khrushchev's vision --
a modernized, vigorous Soviet Union
which would lead the world into the future.
The Soviet Union's natural resources seemed limitless.
Khrushchev believed that the Soviet people would work
even harder if they were freed from fear and poverty.
[speaking Russian ]
NARRATION: But the cold War's pressure to rearm
kept the old priority for heavy industry alive,
especially in the expanding defense sector.
[Woman speaking Russian ]
INTERPRETER: They would shout, "Come on, come on, speed up!"
But sometimes we used to get irritated
because we knew even without their orders
that we had to hurry up.
We knew that there was a threat
that bombs and missiles could reach us --
so we had to defend ourselves.
There was no feeling
that we were on equal terms with the West,
or that we could come to any agreement.
NARRATION: The Cold War also kept huge armed forces in the field.
Khrushchev tried to out them back,
but the generals resisted.
[ Man speaking Russian ]
INTERPRETER: it was very prestigious to join the military.
First, because you earned a higher wage.
When I graduated I was paid 240 roubles,
and an engineer only got 120 roubles.
Also, I received five uniforms
and that mattered.
And in the military you got an apartment.
NARRATION: Cities like Sverdlovsk,
900 miles east of Moscow,
were dominated by giant armament plants.
Production was a matter of fulfilling --
or outstripping --
targets set by the planners in Moscow.
Patriotic propaganda kept the workers straining
to produce more and faster.
[speaking Russian ]
INTERPRETER: We believed that it was our duty to the motherland
and we worked very hard.
A lot of young people worked at our factory.
About 3,000 young communists -- Komsomol members.
We had our own committee
and we created youth brigades
which competed against each other.
The best brigades were awarded pennants and trophies.
NARRATION: Khrushchev and the Party still relied
on propaganda and patriotism
to keep the economy going.
[speaking Russian ]
People forgave us a lot because of the Cold War.
The West didn't only harm us,
it also helped us.
Because by frightening us, it played into our hands.
We could say to the people,
"Tighten up your belts, be patient,
we have to wait for a better life
and be prepared for the worst."
And we used that.
[speaking Russian ]
INTERPRETER: We had such a huge country,
with vast resources, all the people worked.
So why were we dressed so badly
in whatever we could lay our hands on,
and ate whatever there was, and not what we wanted?
The explanation was simple --
Uncle Sam and the imperialists are
making an atomic bomb,
so we had to make two in order to frighten them.
If they made two bombs, we had to produce four.
♫ [orchestra plays] ♫
NARRATION: Government films celebrated the onward march to communism.
But most people in the Soviet Union still lived
in hardship and overcrowding.
[speaking Russian ]
INTERPRETER: They were mainly communal flats.
In one flat there were 2 or 3, sometimes 4 rooms,
and in each room lived a whole family.
Can you imagine a whole family in one room?
There was only one kitchen
and only one of all other conveniences.
It was an awful life.
NARRATION: Khrushchev was impatient to see
Soviet people living as well as Americans --
or even better.
He tried to shift the planned economy
towards light industry and consumer needs.
But the Soviet Establishment, set in its ways,
resisted change.
[speaking Russian ]
INTERPRETER: He understood that politics is about people.
The basis of his policy was to improve people's lives.
He knew he had to deal differently
with the outside world,
that change was needed.
He understood it as a man with a lot of common sense,
peasan's common sense.
He had very strong instinctive gut feelings
and he followed them.
But professional politicians and diplomats at the time
were horrified.
They said, "What is he doing?"
NARRATION: To solve the housing shortage,
prefabrication seemed the answer.
In the 1960s,
apartment blocks shot up around every Soviet city.
For millions of Russians
it was an opportunity for a new life.
[speaking Russian ]
Of course we were happy.
We had waited every day for this apartment
like a cake out of the oven.
We were fed up with lodging with three other families.
When we moved here, we thought it was paradise.
We've lived here ever since and it's fine.
NARRATION: Living conditions improved,
but there was still a shortage of goods in the shops.
[ Nedoboyeva speaking Russian ]
INTERPRETER: We were quiet hard up.
I can't say we were rolling like cheese in butter.
We had to queue for a loaf of bread.
Such products as cereal, pasta, and bread --
they were all rationed.
NARRATION: To solve the food shortage,
Khrushchev rushed through agricultural reforms.
He launched the Virgin Lands campaign,
which ploughed up the natural grasslands of central Asia
and planted them with wheat.
Khrushchev boasted that he would overtake America
in meat, milk, and grain.
Volunteers poured out to the Virgin Lands
with the old communist zeal.
[woman speaking Russian ]
INTERPRETER: The Virgin Lands and Khrushchev are inseparable.
He was such a vivacious, enthusiastic person.
He woke up the whole country.
He inspired people.
It was exciting and romantic.
Though that sounds naive now,
it was a wonderful time.
NARRATION: But there were not enough fertilizers,
rail road cars, or grain silos.
Much of the harvest was wasted.
[speaking Russian ]
INTERPRETER: It was hard to get meat in our town
so we had to go to Moscow.
We took huge rucksacks and we went on a bus,
120 kilometers to Moscow.
We went to Gum,
the central department store on Red Square
and spent a whole day shopping.
We bought sausages, cookies --
all the delicacies.
We held our rucksacks open
while our mothers did the shopping.
Then we went back on the bus.
It was a real celebration.
Moscow got the bulk of the supplies.
The provinces were sausageless and meatless.
NARRATION: Moscow, the showcase capital city,
was allowed special supplies.
[ Merzlikina speaking Russian ]
INTERPRETER: We had no advertising.
We just looked at what the others were wearing.
We tried to keep in step with fashion.
We normally bought only inexpensive clothes and shoes,
but we tried to get something modern.
We wanted to look good,
not to look old-fashioned.
NARRATION: People wanted more out of life,
and found ways to get it.
Russians who worked in the defense industry
got special privileges.
Soviet home movies recorded changing behavior --
the company picnic.
[speaking Russian ]
We used to go in very large groups,
about 40 people.
We used to buy food,
and cook in large pots on open fires.
We slept in tents.
That's how we spent our time.
NARRATION: Resorts were run by the Party
and the trade unions.
Millions of families took a free vacation.
Official films showed the world
a new image of modern Soviet man and woman.
Western lifestyles were alluring.
[ Moskalenko speaking Russian ]
INTERPRETER: Fashion did penetrate our country.
In the late '50s and the beginning of the '60s,
when we got trousers,
we changed them to make them very narrow and flute-like.
You could only get them on and off
by using soap on your legs.
We were punished severely for wearing them.
[ Projector running ]
[ Man speaking Russian ]
INTERPRETER: I think that the "war of the trousers"
was of great importance.
People suddenly started allowing themselves something
they could not have during all of those decades
of Soviet Power.
The young people who did this were rounded up.
[speaking Russian ]
There were special patrol guards with red bands on their arms.
And if they saw that someone was dressed English style,
not Soviet style,
he was pulled out of the crowd
and taken to the militia station
where they out the trousers, then out their hair,
and then let them off home.
That's how they fought against Western fashion.
NARRATION: But the new sounds, the new dances,
still found their way in --
the twist with a glance over the shoulder.
New portable radios could sometimes pick up
forbidden programs from abroad.
[speaking Russian ]
Society was trying to crawl out
from under the stones of totalitarianism.
You couldn't get any discs here,
and to record them off air was almost impossible
because the radio was jammed.
But, I don't know how,
some were smuggled in.
Copies were made on X-ray plates
and sold illegally.
It was music on X-rays.
You played it on the bones of your relatives.
[speaking Russian ]
INTERPRETER: We used to go from one end of town to the other,
paid crazy money for them.
Each record cost one rouble.
That was a lot of money at the time.
So I skipped lunch at school for a week,
for two weeks.
Several of us would save up the money together
and go and get a record, get back,
put the record on and listen to Rock and Roll --
to Elvis Presley.
That was really something.
NARRATION: But most ordinary Russians received
only what the state approved.
[speaking Russian ]
INTERPRETER: We made sure our people were getting
only what we believed they needed,
and what we thought was beneficial
and necessary for our State,
our system,
and the policy of our Party,
which played the leading role in our society.
[speaking Russian ]
They interfered in all spheres of our life.
If a man behaved badly in the family,
if he was drinking or had another woman,
then his wife would tell the Party
or Komsomol organization,
and he would be called before a party meeting.
NARRATION: The young were trying to make up
their own rules.
The old Russian family was losing control
of its children.
In vain, the communist youth movement tried
to preserve traditional morals.
[speaking Russian ]
To have sex before marriage,
for us was very bad manners.
The first night was normally after the wedding.
Of course, there were some young people
who did not stick to this.
They behaved freely...
but they were called before the Komsomol committee,
where they had to explain themselves.
We tried to deal with their emotional conflicts
and give them direction.
♫
[speaking Russian ]
NARRATION: Writers and artists grew bolder,
challenging the censors.
The young crowded to hear new voices,
speaking from the heart.
MAN: I'd become popular nationally,
not as a political poet, as a poet of love
because for many, many years of Cold War
after 1945,
some poets even didn't use in the poetry about love,
the word
They were using "we," "we love."
"I love you as I love my country," for instance.
That was typical, you know, hypocritical quotation
from poetry of that time.
And even poems about...
not political poems,
about loneliness, for instance --
like my poem, early poem --
it was accused like anti-Soviet poem,
because if I am Soviet man,
how I could be lonely
if I'm member of such a giant collective
like two millions of my friends
who are working for ideals of communism,
something like that.
I remember these hypocritical articles.
[speaking Russian ]
INTERPRETER: The KGB did not deal directly with artists and writers.
But if certain facts came to the attention of the KGB,
and if they discovered anti-Soviet content
or something that contradicted our ideology and policies...
then the KGB could get involved
and try to find out who started it,
Why,
and what their motives were.
NARRATION: The Party was in control everywhere.
In 1962,
hard-liners persuaded Khrushchev
to visit an exhibition of modern art.
They hoped he would be shocked,
and restore even tighter censorship.
He asked, "These are some unfinished canvases?"
They send' “No?
"But why they have no human faces
or landscapes of our Motherland?" he asked.
And they answered him,
"Because they hate the faces
of our Soviet workers, miners.
NARRATION: The hard-liners succeeded.
Khrushchev exploded
and shouted abuse at the painters and sculptors.
[ Man speaking Russian ]
INTERPRETER: The exhibition was a provocation.
It was like a move in chess
which had several targets at once.
It was a trap set for the intelligentsia,
which included a trap for me,
because I had won lots of competitions.
And it was also meant
to provoke Khrushchev into repression.
[speaking Russian ]
He didn't like --
he didn't understand avant garde art.
He liked opera, classical music, folk music.
Realistic art where one could see a forest
and know it was a forest.
The ideologists told him he was very wise
not to understand it
because behind it,
bourgeois ideology is penetrating our pure society,
and it could all end up rather badly.
[speaking Russian ]
NARRATION: The censors stifled free speech
in other parts of the Soviet Empire.
In Czechoslovakia,
where a rigid Stalinist leadership blocked all reform,
the struggle was the same --
the free-thinking artist trying to elude the Party censor.
In those years,
Vaclav Havel began to write for the theater.
[Speaking Czech ]
INTERPRETER: To criticize communist ideology was like suicide.
It was better to find another way,
to write about human rights,
human freedom and basic human existence,
rather than enter into a direct confrontation
with ideology.
You know the censorship itself,
it's not the worst evil.
The worst evil is --
and that is the product of censorship --
is the self-censorship
because that twists spines,
that destroys my character,
because I have to think something else
and say something else.
I have to always control myself.
I am stopping to being honest.
I am becoming hypocrite.
And that is what they wanted.
They wanted everybody to feel guilty.
NARRATION: Whatever went wrong,
the communist system itself must never be blamed.
Khrushchev had still hot solved the problem
of food supply,
but he was buoyant about his grand schemes.
He ordered everyone to grow corn,
claiming -- wrongly -- that new Soviet varieties
could survive in cold climates.
[speaking Russian ]
The poor girls and boys had to warm up the fields,
day and night, so that the corn would grow.
They burnt fires all through the night,
especially if a frost was forecast.
Sometimes they fell asleep too close to the fire
and burnt their hands and faces.
So the corn, for us, was not the queen of the fields,
but an evil stepmother.
When they couldn't save the crops,
despite burning the fires,
the boys would put on a brave face.
But the girls cried bitter tears,
because the crop had died.
NARRATION: In 1963, the harvest failed.
There were bread shortages and renewed rationing.
Wheat head to be imported from the West.
[speaking Russian ]
INTERPRETER: At least we'd always had bread before.
But when suddenly it disappeared,
thanks to him,
Khrushchev was cursed --
but only at home.
In the street you had to keep quiet.
But at home,
even though my father was a communist,
he used to swear and curse Khrushchev
because he made life much more difficult for us.
NARRATION: The Soviet people, officials and citizens alike,
were losing patience with Khrushchev.
His great plans all seemed to end in calamity.
Khrushchev's peasant boisterousness
amused the West, but it shocked Russians.
They found him clownish, irresponsible.
Over Cuba, he had nearly blundered into nuclear war.
[speaking Russian ]
He caused unrest among the Party elite.
Almost everyone was dissatisfied with him
but for various reasons.
These could be personal,
or because of the constant reforms
he introduced and then cancelled...
or his unsuccessful moves in politics.
Of course personal reasons played a part, too.
A lot of people were afraid
that he would undermine the stability of the system.
[speaking Russian ]
The fruit was overripe.
We had to decide quickly,
before the fruit fell and started to decay
and infect society.
Because then society would start to rot.
That is why we made the decision to depose Khrushchev.
It was done quietly, without any blood.
NARRATION: The Politburo selected Leonid Brezhnev
to lead the attack oh Khrushchev.
In October, 1964,
Khrushchev was deposed.
[speaking Russian ]
INTERPRETER: I met him.
He gave me his briefcase
and he never touched it again.
He said, "it's all finished. I resign."
When they all went to lunch, I left.
I didn't want to join them."
I don't think they actually invited him
to have lunch anyway.
He was in a state of nervous stress.
He had tears in his eyes.
He was very unsettled.
He couldn't find a place for himself.
He would go to the dacha,
come back, sit around.
It was month and a half before he gradually calmed down.
NARRATION: Few people missed Khrushchev.
Many wanted a firm hand on the tiller again.
[ Nedoboyeva speaking Russian ]
INTERPRETER: Everybody was satisfied with the wiser,
more sensible position taken up
by the new leadership
and by Brezhnev in particular.
That was our first impression.
It was more acceptable to the people
because it was more stable.
Before that, the situation had been uncertain
and we didn't know what would happen
from one day to the next.
NARRATION: Stability was restored in the Soviet Union,
but unrest stirred in the Empire.
In Czechoslovakia,
the repressive regime of Antonio Novotny
still stamped on demands for a more open society.
They tried to push back
the progress of freedom,
but they didn't succeed any more.
We made two steps forward
and we were repressed by one step,
but we gained one step always.
NARRATION: By February, 1968
the Czechoslovak reformers were taking over.
Brezhnev flew to Prague
to size up the new leader, Alexander Dubcek.
Brezhnev accepted that some change was inevitable.
Alexander Dubcek seemed a loyal communist
who would alter only what was necessary.
By March 1968,
Dubcek and the new President Ludvik Svoboda were in charge,
but their reforms were already shocking
the rest of the Communist world.
The reformers were confident
that they could bring communism up to date.
The Party would still lead --
but by consent, not force.
There would be freedom to speak and write,
to travel and organize.
There would even be a form of market economy.
Dubcek's vision was named --
"Socialism with a human face."
One of the first changes was the ending of censorship.
Suddenly the papers were full of truth,
revealing the crimes of Stalinist Czechoslovakia.
Everywhere crowds gathered in an anxious debate.
[ Overlapping conversations ]
[ Applause ]
After two decades of terror and silence,
Czechs and Slovaks had found their voice again.
GOLDSTUCKER: People came in thousands,
and if they didn't get in,
they listened outside for hours on end.
People suddenly realized
that they can live more freely.
And they came
very anxious to learn
about the new enlarged boundaries of their lives.
NARRATION: Western styles and visitors poured in.
This May Day there was genuine joy.
Trust was growing between the people
and their leaders.
But could communism be reformed?
[Speaking Czech ]
INTERPRETER: On the one hand they wanted to preserve communism
and socialism as they called it.
But on the other hand
they wanted to give it a human face...
which meant that they wanted to lift the lid a little.
But they hoped that the lid would not fly off
with the pressure inside the cooker, as it were,
that they would still be able to contain the situation.
It was funny that, you know, before...
you know, in the '50s and like that,
you know, people were looking over their shoulders,
you know, who could be following you,
and if they had somebody brought from the West,
some newspaper, it was in the pockets,
deep in the pockets.
In the '60s, in the euphoria of free press,
everybody was talking freely
and at the same time looking over their shoulders,
because it was not...
I think it was a freedom in spasm,
a spasmodic freedom that people were really --
it was like a freedom, unleashed by fever, you know,
it was not really a comfortable freedom.
It was not.
NARRATION: In May, a grim Soviet Prime Minister,
Alexei Kosygin, visited the Czechs.
Soviet dislike of Dubcek's reforms
had turned to horror.
Moscow feared the Communist party might lose power.
Worse, Dubcek might change sides in the Cold War.
A few hard-line Czechoslovak Communists
agreed with the Kremlin.
[ Bilak speaking Czech ]
INTERPRETER: They didn't ask for anything special,
just to halt the disintegration of the party,
stop anti-Soviet activity
and anti-socialist propaganda.
Stop the growing voices saying that
Czechoslovakia should leave the Warsaw Pact.
They said quite openly, "We cannot accept it,
we cannot allow the border of the West
to come right up to the Soviet border."
NARRATION: In the early summer,
Warsaw Pact troops staged
very public maneuvers in Czechoslovakia.
After the exercise,
they left their signals network in place.
They warning was not hard to read.
Threats from Moscow and the Warsaw Pact
failed to make Dubcek climb down.
In July, Brezhnev, Kosygin, and the entire Politburo
arrived from Moscow with renewed demands.
[ Man speaking Russian ]
INTERPRETER: The situation was quite tense.
We came to an agreement
that the Czechoslovaks would themselves carry out
a certain number of crucial measures
to restore order.
This involved some changes in personnel,
the introduction of tighter control over the mass media,
and stricter work among certain layers of society.
And the imposition of censorship,
because openly anti-communist, anti-Soviet publications
and articles started to appear.
NARRATION: Two days later,
the Czechoslovak leaders made some concessions.
But it was too late.
The Soviet Politburo had already decided
to solve the problem -- by force.
On the night of August 21,
Soviet paratroopers seized Prague Airport.
Soviet and Warsaw Pact armies
burst through the Czechoslovak frontiers.
[ Radio announcement in Czech ]
NARRATION: As the invasion began,
the Czechoslovak leaders were meeting in Prague.
[Speaking Czech ]
INTERPRETER: We listened to the airplanes flying overhead.
Dubcek was waiting for a telephone message,
but instead the door suddenly opened,
and paratroopers came in carrying Kalashnikovs.
They stood behind us and the commander said
they were taking us under protection
in the name of the forces of the Warsaw Pact.
What will happen later, we will see.
We were prisoners.
NARRATION: Before their arrest,
the party's leaders managed to condemn the invasion.
By morning,
Soviet tanks had taken over the center of Prague.
[chanting in Czech]
[speaking Russian ]
INTERPRETER: A lot of the population were bewildered.
They were surprised.
When we had taken up our positions
in front of the target buildings,
people starting coming up to us, asking,
"What's going oh? What's happened?"
[Woman speaking Czech ]
INTERPRETER: They came like burglars
and pretended they wanted to help us.
So we went to speak to them.
We climbed on the tanks
and we told them to go back home,
that they had lost their way
or been sent to the wrong place.
They were really surprised
and didn't understand what we were trying to tell them.
[gunshot]
[woman speaking Czech ]
INTERPRETER: Suddenly we heard a shot.
I saw a boy, only two meters away from me,
fall to the ground.
The armored car started to advance.
People moved to the side streets.
But there were so many of us,
we couldn't all fit in those narrow streets.
I was at the edge of the crowd.
The armored car struck me.
There was nothing I could do.
It hit my knee with the front wheel.
[ Gunshots ]
GOLDSTUCKER: You see, I went through
the Hitler invasion in 1939,
And I must say that the Soviet invasion in '68
was even crueller impact
than the Hitler one, Hitlerite one.
Because Hitler was our declared enemy,
we didn't expect anything from him but the worst.
But here, those who for years and decades
preached they're our best friends, our brothers,
the guarantors of our independence,
came with an army of half a million
to suppress our drive for a little bit more freedom.
They came to crush it. They came to murder it.
To murder that attempt to democratize socialism.
[speaking Russian ]
INTERPRETER: This action was dictated first of all
by the need...
to preserve the balance of power
in the relations between the East and West.
And of course we were interested in preserving there,
the established system.
NARRATION: Czechoslovakia's kidnapped leaders decided
resistance was hopeless.
In a tragic broadcast,
Dubcek broke the news.
[Speaking Czech ]
The Czechoslovak experiment, the most daring attempt
to marry communism with democracy,
had failed.
Subtitles ripped, converted and adapted by Juan Claudio Epsteyn
E-mail: epsteyn@hotmail.com