APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110015-7
and to a slightly less degree in the Slovak, tenacity of purpose combines with the pragmatism and prudence of the shrewd negotiator.
Both Slovaks and Czechs have a strong egalitarian outlook. Class differences have never been very pronounced in the country, nor have there been great extremes in poverty and wealth. At the same time, however, there is class consciousness which is stronger among Slovaks than Czechs.
Czechoslovak values and attitudes are typically middle class. The Czechs in particular place a high premium on economic independence and personal security. Since to amass material possessions requires hard work, diligence, and ability, these characteristics are much admired and encouraged among the young. And since security is so important in the scale of values, personal characteristics that preserve security are also greatly valued, such as stoicism, adaptation to difficulties, and compliance.
The Communists have persistently tired to obliterate the nation's democratic heritage, to disrupt traditional ties with the West, and to isolate the people from anti-Communist influences. The government has systematically vilified those principles of humanistic liberalism which were the hallmark of the founder of the Czechoslovak state, Tomas G. Masaryk. To supplant individual thought with collective action, the regime has involved most of the population on a more or less compulsory basis in a busy organizational life in state-sponsored mass organizations. Czechs and Slovaks, however, still maintain traditional attitudes and values despite governmental and party pressures and indoctrination attempts.
Deeply rooted anti-German and, to a lesser extent, anti-Hungarian sentiments persist among some segments of the population. Among members of the younger generation, however, West Germany appears as a model of material well-being and efficiency and thus anti-German prejudices surface more with respect to East Germans than West Germans. Recent efforts by the government to normalize relations with West Germany have considerably muted anti-German sentiments.
Prior to the Communist takeover Czechoslovaks usually sought support for their aspirations from the Western democracies, particularly France, Great Britain, and the United States. Pan-Slavism and the tendency to look to the Russians for support and leadership was a minor element in Czechoslovak history, and only after the post-Munich disillusionment with the West did the Czechoslovaks turn increasingly to the U.S.S.R. for support. However, the sympathetic attitude of many Czechoslovaks toward their brother Slavs of the Soviet Union has gradually changed to hostility as a result of the brutish behavior of Soviet troops who liberated Czechoslovakia in 1945, the Soviet-directed communization of Czechoslovakia after 1948, and, more dramatically and extensively, because of the 1968 Soviet-led invasion.
C. Population (U/OU)
Czechoslovakia's population, estimated at 14,563,000 at midyear 1973, has been slowly increasing since the vast population shifts between 1938 and 1950. Among the six Warsaw Pact nations of Eastern Europe, Czechoslovakia ranks fourth in total population; however, only East Germany has a greater population density. Like Eastern Europe in general, Czechoslovakia has a lower density than most nations of Western Europe.
The rate of population growth has been fairly slow throughout the 20th century. Natural increase in present-day Czechoslovakia was high in the early 20th century, but emigration, particularly to the United States, Austria, and Hungary, was heavy. In the interwar period, emigration was sharply reduced but the birth rate sharply declined also. Czechoslovakia had relatively few military losses during World War II but other population changes, including the decimation of the Jewish population under the German occupation and the expulsion of almost 3 million Germans between 1945 and 1950, reduced the 1950 population to 12,338,000, or about the same level as in 1900. Following the large postwar shifts of population, migration to and from Czechoslovakia has been small. In the early 1950's immigrants outnumbered emigrants slightly, but since then this movement has been reversed. Some German emigrants have been permitted to move to West Germany to join relatives. Following the Warsaw Pact invasion of August 1968, according to official figures, about 20,000 persons emigrated between August 1968 and the end of 1970; other sources, however, estimate that as many as 80,000 Czechoslovaks fled the country because of the threat of political repression. (Even this figure is considered low by some in view of the possibility of relatively free travel to the West which ended only some months after the 1968 invasion.) The efforts of the Husak regime to coax them back through amnesties met with little success, and in early 1970 the government began confiscating their homes and property. A new amnesty was granted to all political exiles in early 1973 as part of a move to gain greater public support for the government.
Czechoslovakia's birth rate was not appreciably affected by World War II and was higher immediately
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110015-7
