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CZECHOSLOVAK SOCIETY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES |
MEMORANDUM OF NOVEMBER 1, 1968
Addressed to the Major Universities throughout the World
At a time
when armed forces of the Soviet Union and other countries of the Warsaw Pact have invaded
Czechoslovakia, when the governments of most of the Western Democracies meet this criminal
act by silence, when many members of the United Nations pretend that nothing has happened,
the people of Czechoslovakia have but one forum where law and truth cannot be suppressed
by bayonets, sold for gold, outsmarted by diplomacy nor forgotten by indifference. Such a
forum are the universities throughout the world, the fountains of knowledge and,
therefore, also the fountains of truth and, in the words of Jan Amos Comenius,
"officinae summae humanitatis" ? the guardians of humanism and morality.
The Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences in America, a non?political organization
uniting some 1200 scholars and artists in the Free World, acting on behalf of Prague's
famous old Charles University whose voice has once again been stilled, as well as on
behalf of the other captive Czechoslovak universities, appeals to all of their sister
universities to join them in their protest against the occupation of Czechoslovakia and
the decline of public morality throughout the world. Such circumstances have in the past
always signaled the impending catastrophe.
Neither the institutions of learning, in whose name we are not merely entitled but
duty?bound to act, nor we ourselves want to interfere in the internal affairs of
Czechoslovakia. What we do have in mind is to assure the freedom of Czechoslovakia whose
centuries old culture we are trying to present to the world, to assure the Czechs and
Slovaks the right and possibility to determine their own fate and handle their own affairs
without Soviet terror. We urge you not to be deceived by statements of the official
spokesmen of occupied Czechoslovakia to the effect that allegedly they agree to the
occupation and the nullification of their freedoms. They are acting under brutal duress in
order to give the appearance of legitimacy to the acts of violence committed against them.
We cannot remain silent when the Soviets and their helpers violate basic human rights in
occupied Czechoslovakia ? rights which they themselves had pledged to respect so many
times in the past. We reject the so?called "Brezhnev Doctrine" announced on
September 25. 1968 in the Moscow Pravda in an article entitled "Sovereignty and
International Duties of Socialist Countries," that law and legal norms applicable to
the mutual relations of socialist countries are subject to the "laws" of class
struggle as defined by the teachings of Marxism?Leninism. This "doctrine"
violates not merely all principles of international law and the Charter of the United
Nations, but it is, first of all, totally incompatible with the moral bases of European
civilization and ominously indicates the probability of further plans to occupy other
countries wherever the Moscow brand of communism believes itself in danger.
We urge you to help the people of Czechoslovakia in their new fight for freedom, not by
the power of arms, but by the power of the word, by the power of truth, which is always
stronger, in the final outcome, than any tanks, which cannot be stopped by the most
powerful armies nor arrested by any secret police.
We expect that the August events in Central Europe wilt be a matter of discussion among
members of your faculties and among your students; should they be interested in pertinent
documentation we shall be pleased to make it available to them.
We would guess that they may reach the same conclusion as we do, that the Nazi "Drang
nach Osten" has been replaced by an equally ruthless Soviet imperialism. We have no
doubts in the outcome of such debates, for it is not difficult to distinguish between the
killer and his victim.
May we ask you one special favor: If you can give any assistance to Czechoslovak
intellectuals in the impending exodus to enable them to continue the fight for their
ideals abroad, you will be assured of the gratitude of the long?suffering people of
Czechoslovakia longing for liberty and peace, who have been fighting for these aims again
and again for the long centuries of their history, but who lost 200,000 of their
intellectuals under Nazism and additional tens of thousands under Soviet Stalinism. Please
help to save whatever can be saved today.
Sincerely yours,
CZECHOSLOVAK SOCIETY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES IN AMERICA, INC.
Jaroslav Nemec, J.D. President John G. Lexa, J.D. Secretary General
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