PRAGUE, Aug. 21. . ©: — The fol-
lowing is the text of an appeal by a
group of members of the Central Com-
mittee of the Communist Party of
Czechoslovakia. the government, and
the National Assembly of the Czechoslo-
vak Socialist Republic, who called up-
on the governments and Communist par-
ties of fraternal countries to render
urgent assistance to the Czechoslovak

le.

Citizens of Czechoslovakia, workers,
peasants. working intellectuals. men
and women, young people. to all, ir-
respective of political affiliation, na-
tionality. creed, and social standing.
to all who cherish our Socialist Mother-
land and for whom it really is a
motherland, to all of you we appeal in
“this minute. when the destiny of the
country is at stake. in the minute
which for always will remain a crucial
moment of our history and our further
Socialist and democratic development,
a minute when it is for us a question

of the values. gained through our 20-

year efforts. our sacrifices, our. labor,
in a minute when everything is at
stake.

€ 1

We appeal to you in a period when
the results of our Socialist order are
threatened by forces. which abuse the
progressive steps launched by the Party
itself at the January plenary meeting
of the Central Committee of the Com-
munist Party of Czechoslovakia and sin-
cerely implemented since then by the
party for the sake of achieving genuine
democracy and genuine humanity, the
ideals which are cherished by all hon-
est citizens of our country.

At the initiative of the Party we em-
barked in January upon a road of
searching and finding a new look of
Socialism, which would accord with
the way of life and thought of our
people .and with which all prospects
of society and the individual would be
linked. The Party openly criticized past
mistakes. It emphatically dissociated
itself from the period of the regime
of personal power, which really de-
formed the humane and democratic
nature of socialism with the active
participation and support of all hon-
estly-minded patriots, it decisively en-
tered into the new period with the
most honest intentions to remedy the
past mistakes and to create conditions

for full-blooded rich and happy life .

in our country.
e

The fundamental civil rights, which
have always been vitally associated
with our people’s ideas of democracy
and humanity, were restored in the
thoughts and progressive spirit of a
program of action, this long-term plat-
form of our Socialist advance, the pro-
gram which enlisted the unprecedent-
edly massive support of our people.

Above all, this unanimous support re-
affirmed the justice, the strength and
force of attraction of our new road.
This fact has proved particularly that
notwithstanding all shortcomings of the
pre-January period, the ideas of So
cialism have struck deep roots in our
people, that our people regard Social-
ism as the natural medium of their
life; our people’s profound aspiration
for rights and justice found their real
expression precisely in the progressive
ideas, outlined by the January plenary
meeting. Through these ideas society
was led out of a state of unsound in-
difference and, thus, the gates were
thrown wide open to a powerful cur-
rent of sound, untapped initiative. Our
people brilliantly passed this historical
test and again proved their high
maturity.

e

Unfortunately, this period of quests

and transformation” of our society has.

ing the aims. set in

Czech call to guard socialism

"Don’t permit anarchy,
maintain calm, order’

been abused for their purposes, for
active entry into the political arena
by those forces that for many years
waited for such a favorable moment to
discredit the Party and challenge its
political and moral right to guide so-
ciety. Certain forces inside the Party
and in party bodies factually met these
Right-wing forces half way and thus
they came into contradiction with the
principles and purposes of the Party.
the ideas of proletarian internation-
alism. Jointly they directed their forc-
es towards the systematic violation of
the constitutional nature of our politi-
cal reform and concentrated them on
the struggle against the positive efforts
of the party and state organs in attain-
January.

They organized a smear campaign
designed to discredit individual func-
tionaries, including some from the new
leadership of the Communist Party of
Czechoslovakia, who found the courage
to publicly draw attention to the threat-
ening danger and to see the real state
of affairs in all its complexity. They vi-
viated public order, aroused base na-
tionalist passions. They did not even
disdain slander against our Czechoslo-
vak Socialist Motherland, slander
against the honest labor of our people,
our Party, army and security agencies,
they demanded changes in our foreign
policy. Their smear campaign even
went to the lengths of attacking the
alliance with the Soviet Union, especi-
ally in connection with the staff ex-
ercises' of the armed forces of the
Warsaw. treaty, and also attacking the
friendship with the Socialist countries.
In this way they created an atmos-
phere utterly unacceptable for Socialist
countries.

The Communist Party of Czechoslo-
vakia, the government of the republic
and the national front maintained ex-
ceptional patience and understanding.
However it was emphasized more than

once, especially at the May plenary

meeting, that the paramount task now
was to frustrate the plans of the Right-
wing anti-Socialist forces and not to
let any mistake place in jeopardy the
implementation of the program of ac-
tion, make sure that the question of
the further party line be settled not
by exponents of the extremist views

but by the sound, progressive nucleus
of the Party, to render in public full.

support to the Party and state mach-
inery, the army, security agencies, the

prosecutor’s Office, the judicial agen

cies, the people’s militia. In one word—
to consolidate the situation. ee

However, the extremist Right-wing
forces, that regarded this magnanimity
and patience and really democratic
means of solving a_ serious _politi-
cal problem by the Party as a sign of
its weakness and not its strength, still
further

As is known, during spontaneous
meetings in Prague attended by many
thousands things went to the length of
gross indignities when different ele-
ments attacked the Party and insulted

its representatives whom they them-
selves made more than -once -attend..
. such: meetings. A public. campaign was |
- - PACIFIC TRIBUNE*+AUGUST 30; 196B--Page gts Seer ss

stepped up their activity.

launched in the centre of the city to
collect signatures in favor of liquida-
ting the people’s militia. Communists
who spoke at these spontaneous street
meetings from their viewpoint were
rudely silenced and force was more
than once used against them. Many of
those who signed the letter at the Au-
to-Praha Works were shamelessly per-
secuted up to dismissal from’ work.
The press continued, though indirectly,
to abuse leading functionaries by other.
more sophisticated methods, and this
organized subversion came to a head
in recent days when a group of Right
extremists openly attacked the prem-
ises of the Secretariat of the Central
Committee of the Czechoslovak Com-
munist Party in Prague. So the ex-
tremist forces did not heed the Par-
ty’s appeals and stepped up their sub-
version in an effort to provoke at any
price’ a. conflict in our country.
@

Thus, there arose a situation when
commitments following from the Brat-
islava statement of six fraternal Com-
munist and Workers’ Parties which was
also signed by representatives of our
Party, are being systematically and
publicly violated.

Citizens, everything that our working
people have built in the last twenty
years, all the gains .of Socialism are
at stake today. Placed in jeopardy is
not only our road of Socialist demo-
cracy on which we embarked in Jan-
uary, but also the very foundation ot
Socialism, our republic.

Being conscious of our supreme re-
sponsibility to our people, filled with
‘the feelings of true patriotism and in-
ternational Socialist solidarity, and con-
scious of our international commitments
we have assumed the initiative of ral-
lying all patriotic forces in the name

of our Socialist future and our home-

land. The danger of fratricidal struggle
which was prepared by reaction and
which would be a tragic repetition of

Lipan (battle of Lipany of 1434. Edi- -

tor) has faced us with the need to
take a historic decision and appeal to
the Soviet Union and other fraternal

Socialist countries for help. Our allies’

came to our help as they did in 1945

when. the problem for us was to be

or not to be.

We urge all citizens to give every
support to the military units of our
allies. After the danger of a reaction-
ary coup is removed, the allied troops
will leave Czechoslovakia. All foreign-
ers staying now in Czechoslovakia may
and.will enjoy further our . hospitality.
Their security and immunity will be
fully guaranteed if they abide by our
laws.

Guided by a deep-felt sense of re-
sponsibility to our people, to our work-

ing class, to the peoples of our country:

and to the international working class
and the world Communist movement,
we appeal at this crucial moment to
you, citizens of the republic, to rally
around the realistically thinking core
of the Party. which holds dear the
cause of Socialism, progress, the new

post-January path and which holds dear
.the, cause of friendship with the people

of the Soviet Union and other fraternal
countries.

Firmly believing in your common
sense, maturity and political conscious-
ness, we urge you, all honest citizens
of our homeland, workers, peasants, in-
tellectuals, men, women, youth, the

healthy forces of the National Front.

servicemen, workers of security or-
gans, Communists and non-Communists,
all honest people to prevent by their
concrete deeds and actions an onslaught
of any reactionary forces in or outside
the party. Don’t permit any spontaneous
actions, disorganization, anarchy, main-

‘tain calm and order.

We reject pre-January policies. We
shall not permit any sign of return to
the discredited pre-January methods
which met with a strong rebuff from
any overwhelming majority of our
people, and which placed in jeopardy
the leading role of the Party and the
Socialist gains of our working people
and helped create a situation really
fraught with a conflict involving the
use of force. On the contrary, we want

’ to defend and to carry fully into life

the progressive January ideas which
lead us to the creation of a Socialist
society, really up-to-date. regenerated,
humane society which the founders of
Marxism; Leninism and those who be-
gan translating them into life after the
victory of the October Revolution, had
in view. ;

We are loyal and shall be loyal to
the end to our progressive national
traditions connected with. the 50th an-
niversary of the republic. with the be-
hests of anti-fascist struggle, national
and democratic values, with the tradi-
tions of the Slovak nationa! uprising.
the Prague May uprising of 1945 and
the revolutionary appeal of February.
1948: ‘Onward, not a step back!"

We shall guard as the apple of the
eye our fraternal bonds of allied rela-
tions and friendship with the Soviet
Union, its people, the peoples of all
countries of the world socialist com-
munity and all the force of peace, de-
mocracy, progress and socialism —
the values which give us a guarantee
of our independent, national and state
sovereignty, without which we would
come face to face again with the dan-
ger of a new Munich and those who
were behind it in 1938.

@

Czechoslovakia can develop only as
a socialist country and as an insepar-
able part of the socialist community;
its power and strength lay down the
foundations for a further prospect of
the international revolutionary move-
ment; any weakening and disorganiza-
tion of the socialist camp would do.
harm to the cause of revolutionary pro-
gress and socialism in the world, a
harm which is hard to imagine.

We appeal to you, esteemed citi-
zens, being sure that by joint actions
we Shall raise a barrier to the immi-
nent danger and that by joint efforts
we shall overcome the present diffi-
‘cult situation and secure a happy pre-
sent and future for our homeland and
for this and future generations.

We urge all of you, from the Su-
mava border mountains to Cierna Nad
Tisou, from Karkonosze to the Danube
banks, to realize the magnitude and
gravity of these days when the matter
in question for us is everything we as-
sociate with the concepts of democracy
and socialism, to realize your respon-
sibility and maintain unity and mutual
trust with which we must enter the
days to come.

Our guiding principles have been
and remain foresight, order, progress,
truth and prospect of socialism, state
sovereignty and close solidarity. =

Long live and flourish democratic

mS socialist Czechoslovakia!