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But there was one most fundamental difference. For its future security, Czechoslovakia looked not west but east. The cornerstone of Dr. Benes' rebuilt temple was a Treaty of Friendship, Mutual Assistance and Postwar Collaboration signed with the Kremlin in December 1943. The memory of Munich had erased the memory of Versailles.
New Freedom. Before the liberated Czechs acclaimed his return to the homeland last April, Dr. Benes expressed a double hope: within six months after liberation, Czechoslovaks would hold their first elections; within a year, Czechoslovakia would again be one of the most prosperous states in Central Europe. Last week the first of these promises had not yet been made good, the second stood in fair way of fulfillment.
Prague, abustle with material reconstruction and cultural renaissance, was a mirror of the nation. Life was still conditioned by shortages—in everything from bread to books. But Prague, like most of the country, had escaped with relatively light war damage. It was heady with vitality.
Busy pedestrians, cyclists and trams crowded the streets. The coffee houses did not yet have cream, but they were free of the hated Nazi "chimney sweeps" (black-uniformed SS men). Bookstores exuberantly displayed volumes banned by the Germans. Every day a thousand news-hungry people trooped to the U.S. Information Service office, hoping to find American papers and magazines. At night people gathered before the charred City Hall to hear a band play Smetana's stirring Ma Vlast—My Country.
Industry lacked raw materials and transport. But production was picking up. Coal mines were operating at a third of capacity. On the farms the harvest was good—a ray of hope for a nation that expects a hungry winter. Everywhere the people—farmers, workers, professionals, politicians—busily organized into cooperatives, unions, guilds, blocs, all woven into a Government-controlled web.
Everywhere people discussed politics openly and frankly. No censor was at work. But the character of the press had changed. Individuals could no longer publish newspapers. Only groups (political parties, unions, etc. had the right. At first the new press displayed a striking sameness in content, tameness in outlook. Recently polemical fur has begun to fly between Socialists and Communists.
The Program. Eduard Benes was the link between Czechoslovakia's democratic past and the uncertain present. His great talents for compromise and maneuver which he developed and used in the prewar years stood him and his country in good stead now. A prewar French biographer, Pierre Crabites, said of him that Benes "understands the art of keeping his eye on the bear when circumstances force him to dance with it." But, as his conduct in 1938 proved, he also knows when to stop dancing.