Czechoslovakia: Playing Out of Tune

Communist Czechoslovakia's new leaders published detailed blueprints last week for their own "road to Socialism." Debated for weeks in camera, the action program drawn up by new Party Boss Alexander Dubček stressed the country's development through a combination of "broad democracy with a scientific and highly qualified management." It stopped short of the outright democratization that many Czechoslovaks are clamoring for, and made abundantly clear the Communist Party's unwillingness to permit challenges as yet to its dominant political role. Nonetheless, the remarkable document officially retired many bits of Marxist dogma and...