The Other Face

Supporters of Alexander Dubcek's ill-fated 1968 attempt to give "socialism a human face" in Czechoslovakia are being punished in such numbers that even Western Communists have begun to protest. Last week in the seventh known trial since July 17, former Czech Communist Party College Rector Milan Huebl, 45, and two other men were accused of distributing "provocative printed matter" in order to weaken "the socialist system in the state." That is, they had passed out pamphlets during Czechoslovakia's elections last fall, informing voters of their constitutional right to cross out names of the government-sponsored slate or not vote at all. Huebl,, who was also accused of making contact with Italian Communists, was given a 61-year sentence, the stiffest meted out in any trial so far. One co-defendant got 20 months, the other, a suspended sentence.

The trials are meant not only to punish those who supported Dubcek's reforms three years ago but also to prevent any replay of that "springtime of freedom." The defendants are all party officials or intellectuals. But such revenge is costing the regime heavily among its friends abroad. Italian, British and Swedish Communist newspapers have criticized the trials, and so has the acting head of the French Communist Party, Georges Marchais. One exception: U.S. Communist Angela Davis, to whom Czechoslovak liberals appealed for help. She let it be known through a friend that in her opinion, people in Eastern Europe got into difficulties and ended in jail only if they were undermining the government.

The Czech regime last week began trial No. 8, charging Jaroslav Sabata, former secretary of the Brno party organization with subversion.

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