Czechoslovakia: Who's a Stalinist?

With the exception of Walter Ulbricht's puppet state of East Germany, the most stubbornly Stalinist regime in the Soviet empire is run by Czechoslovakia's Antonin Novotny. Observing the form rather than the function of Nikita Khrushchev's destalinization drive, Novotny three months ago ordered the demolition of Prague's 6,000-ton Stalin statue and the transfer of dead Red Boss Klement Gottwald from a glass-topped coffin in a grandiose mausoleum to a less conspicuous resting place (TIME. Dec. 1, 1961). But this month, under the transparent banner of destalinization, Novotny carried out a political...

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