Evening star., 1953-06-02
The SwindIed Czechs

In announcing it's internal economic
reforms" Communicated Czechosovakia
has given the free world another striking ex-
ample of how the Red totalitarians-as in
George Orwell's Unconstitutional "1984"-use
language to turn reality upside down and
translate truth into the exact opposite of
itself
Thus, through its completely Subservient
press and radio, the Prague regime has eulo-
gized the reforms as a great blessing and
boon designed to promote the happiness and
prosperity of the Czech people-particularly
the working classes. as opposed to bourgeois
elements" and other groups with "capitalistic"
tendencies. This blessing this boon, has taken
the form of % drastic upward revaluation
of the country's currency, (2) abolishment of
food rationing, 60 phony cut in the prices
of consumer goods, "a a lowering Of wage
rates, (5) the wiping out of all savings accounts
accumulated by thrifty individuals up to 1945,
and CO. total repudiation of what the govern
ment owes to the public through bonds and
securities issued since the end of the war
Experts who have looked at these reforms
describe them as the most ruthless measures
of their kind adopted by any Communist coun-
try since 1945. AS result of them, despite
PragueS shril propaganda to the contrary,
every Czech will find that he will have to work
harder than ever to earn enough to buy the
simple necessities of life in a country where
Soviet-imposed policy has caused severe
shortage of consumer goods 1t is because OF
this imitation breeding shortage that industrial
laborers. lacking incentives, have resorted to
widespread absenteeism seriously affecting pro-
duction. It is because of it, too, and because
Of numerous related factors indicating the
existence of an internal economic crisis of the
first order, that the Red regime has acted as
it haS-with the hope that the consequent
work-or-starve situation will solve the absentee
problem in factories
AS far as individual Czechs are concerned,
the most vicious provisions of the new "re-
forms" are those that wipe out pre-1945 bank
deposits and declare worthless all state loans
and securities issued since the wars end. This
is confiscation and repudiation of the most
vengeful and repugnant sort Not only are the
people robbed of their savings, but they are
also told by their puppet Communist dictator
ship that everything they have invested in
government bonds is money lost forever. In
recent years they have been practically forced
especially the industrial workers among them
to purchase such bonds, and now they learn
that they have been as thoroughly and as
atrociously flimaammed as if some swindler
had talked them into buying the Brooklyn
Bridge.
Yet the Prague regime. like Big Brother
and his helpers in 1894" has the brazenness
to describe all this as an exercise in virtue and
a display of governmental solicitude for the
well-being of the masses. The Czechs, however,
are highly intelligent people who remember
that theirs was one of the finest and most
advanced of the worlds democracieS before
communism moved in and destroyed it. Moth
ing could be more improbable than that they
will take kindly to the latest reforms" or be
fooled by them in the slightest