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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 21. 5th September 1973

The Spirit of Dick Whittington

The Spirit of Dick Whittington

The fall of Dubcek provoked a profound crisis in the pro-Moscow "communist" parties. Because Dubcek's Action Programme was essentially identical with than political programmes most had been enthusiastically proclaiming the virtues of Dubcek. In New Zealand the Socialist Unity Patty devoied a two-page panegyric of the Action Programme entitled "The word is 'democratisation'" in Tribune, July 4, 1968 ([unclear: surely]) no coincidence!) Repeatedly the SUP leaders scoffed at those who thought that Czechoslovakia was rapidly becoming a bourgeois democracy. As late as August 15, 1968, in the whipped dog tone which distinguishes Tribune editorials, the SUP whined about those who doubled the good intentions of the Soviet Union, alleging that "long planned military manoeuvres were played up as a threat calculated to 'pressure Czechoslovakia'"

But once the Soviet Union occupied Czechoslovakia in its surprise attack, showing that the spirit of Dick Whittington lives on all the servile parties about-turned and vilified Dubcek with an energy matched only by what used to praise him. With unconscious irony. Tribune lectured its readers about how counter revolutionaries do not advertise themselves as such, etc. etc.

(See Tribune, September 12, 1968. p. 6). These fake-Marxists were silent about why they now saw counter-revolution where once there was "revolution" and why they mocked Marxist Leninists when the latter stated that Dubcek was a counter-revolutionary.

Photo of Brezhnev and Dubeck cooking

Brezhnev and Dubeck in happier days