Crocker Snow Reports From Germany; 2; A View Of Eastern Europe

Rockers no reports view of Eastern Europe one of a series of five programs prepared especially for WGBH FM Boston. During a tape recorder record snow recently traveled by car through a number of the communist countries of Europe East Germany Czechoslovakia Hungary Romania and Yugoslavia. These reports combine his personal impressions with statements recorded on the scene both Communist Party officials. And private citizens in the various countries. Today listen as some of the people of Eastern Europe talk to me about their lives and their existence like this native of Prague airing a pet grievance in the first place I'm no woman and I like nice. And I I couldn't find here now I think. And this is the this is the room and it is the first thing this woman once lived briefly in New Orleans.

There of course she could find nice things. Perhaps her gripe seems overly simple in the complicated world of ideologies but it is a basic one. Certainly I saw no abundance of nice things in the countries I traveled through. The pressure for a better life is one that the communist countries cannot overlook. This pressure can be seen in the mobs the jam the department stores after work. Usually there is nothing new to be seen. The same basic line on clothes or shoes or radios. But the crowds are there with the hope of seeing and maybe even buying anything new and different. That may happen to appear on the counter. The uniformity is very apparent in Hungary for example it seems that every motorcyclist in the country where is either a green yellow or a red and black crash helmet the two color schemes are apparently the only ones available. Naturally the society does support the wealthy and comfortable few walking through Prague One evening I spotted a whole bevy of shiny black tacho

automobiles parked on a side street. A rare sight in Czechoslovakia where privately owned cars were an object of curiosity. I asked my Czech companion about them. Oh that's easy to explain he shrugged. That's a club for a communist VIP. The cars then weren't privately owned after all. However for all but the small minority of in favor of party members or whatever in the supposedly classless society life is demanding. The main worries of people I met are the worries of those who can just make ends meet. Those who seek some sort of security and creature comforts a Czechoslovakia and family man for instance. I am an mechanical engineer created and at my age it is around 40 year one who is supposed to be just at the top of his allies.

But meanwhile one has to struggle hard just to make things seem especially when you have a family. Then it is very difficult to get through. Because you must not forget that we are both. I may say a civilized country and cultured country and you know we have in mind appropriate to that situation and that of course through with our image a nation of law of which we won't do it for fear or you're suggesting that for you and for many people that money is a big problem that just meeting the necessities of life is a big big problem is us. Is this correct. Disconnect Yes and see and in fact I am working beside my job. My wife is working.

And we don't manage to get some money just for the humbling amount to say if you see you have a television set and you have a motor scooter and you have a nice although modest flat. Is it possible that with your salary and your wife working that you could ever get a car. Is this sort of thing possible. No it is quite simple very simple to answer no. If you have no help from your parents or you wife that ends then I find it's almost impossible. This man will remain anonymous. His thoughts were hardly subversive by nature but like all of those private sources with whom I spoke he insisted on this for he fears reprisals should the secret police somehow connect his words with his identity.

This says much about the so-called liberalizing trend in Eastern Europe. There is a long way to go before the anxieties and suspicions of the people will be over. It is not particularly difficult to meet people when travelling through Eastern Europe. Take a young Czech lightning rod fitter. We met outside the national travel service where I had gone looking for a hotel room. There were no rooms free but this didn't prove to be a problem for as I was leaving a young man approached. Let's call him Frank. Frank had a room and I could have it for a very reasonable price. The gimmick was obvious enough. Frank wanted me to pay in hard Western currencies not check crowns. Why. Aside from the well-known fact that Western currencies can buy many things not otherwise available to the peoples of Eastern Europe.

Frank was building up a small nest egg before leaving the country. He had met a West German frontline in Yugoslavia. They had fallen in love. And now he was preparing to leave for good. He knew that soft UN convertible check money wouldn't do him any good at all. Frank is a laborer but he lives quite well. He has a small bachelor flat in the top floor of a dingy tenement. It has just a hint of a playboy pad fake pine paneling a radio and Victrola Gauguin nudes on the walls. His relative comfort can be explained. He is middle aged and as yet unmarried he holds two jobs. He dabbles in the black market. I spent four nights at Frank's apartment. His mother served breakfast and dinner and did my laundry. Total cost $8. Frank had learned some English in 1945 from the American occupation forces temporarily in Prague.

It was good enough to talk about the world situation. He is bitter for example about the close relations between the United States and West Germany. It's a feeling I encountered almost everywhere. There is a lasting antipathy towards Germans in Eastern Europe and although the language still goes a long way I found that my first words were often it's been merely Qana. In the east the German economic miracle is not applauded as Frank here explains it is not all just this course Jarman's you know of course that I'm not sympathetic to us because Germans did much evil intercourse Larry King I didn't deserve them because they defeated in the vote. And now there are I think the biggest and most important people in Europe because they have a lot of money and our event kind of income here for example I'd like to know is that it was John and they did it become art does it on the ice and it is not just this the Czech people think badly of America for helping West Germany in this way.

You know who they don't think they think it is not good it is not the right. I think in a sense to people like I'm much more American than John and you know is there much sympathy between Czechoslovakia and the Russians. No I think it is not that it was after the war or after the vote because when you've got such a neutral country and who like American it was possible I certainly was also possibly worth a lot of Americans who Madison films was good neutral counter in good sense. So a lot of people like that options but no no no not because example in television and the newspapers they tell us all of the day and over the years that the Russians are the best and that he must learn a lot of them are after him and so on and the last two are some nonsenses about that and we know it or the generation knew it have it but it was before the war. I covered that would be like pretty much Russian people.

Frank uses English as a common language with his German girlfriend to practice. He listens to the Voice of America and the BBC and this has given him ideas enough to be outspoken even about the system under which he lives. I think it is not good his it is no private enterprise because there is no competition here. It looks very bad in the business and there is no competition. There are no pride in the use of because souls are monopolized. This owner of an enterprise is not good. For example when I lurk in the enterprise I don't stop it and the bigger it is not possible here. I think it is not right. I see you are a member of the Communist Party yourself. No I'm not the are many of your friends members. No no no not an uncommon reaction to the Communist Party. Judging from those I met in the various countries and in general I found that other checks with the perspective gained from travel in the West were even more skeptical and cynical than Frank. Such as a truck a Slovakian

woman a practicing architect who had traveled to the United States and later suffered the consequences. She wanted to talk about America. I like the way of living in the United States. And I like I like people there and I like freedom. This is the first thing I felt there. So for so free in every respect I was so happy the United States that I prolong prolong my stay in the United States. And I wrote to our office to my director that I will stay there but I will photograph takes naps there and then when I return I make lessons for architects. And I wrote in that I have to prolong staying there because the trip is very expensive too for my

relatives. They had to pay everything. And then when I returned home to Prague. I came to my office and my director told me that I have to leave my office because I stayed in United States without his own permission. But I had everything in order with my passport and with the Czechoslovak embassy and with the visa everything. Are you satisfied with the way if you're in Czechoslovakia today having seen away from America hears her I have seen life in America and I'm not satisfied with life. And she was like why. Wrong I think. Socialistic economy is not good. And in the first place I am of woman and I like nice things. And I I couldn't find here nice things. And this is the this

is the. For a woman this is the first think I do think things are changing though. Do you feel freer here in Czechoslovakia now than 10 years ago. Yes I'm sure that it's better now because we can travel for instance. Not everybody but nearly everybody can travel west. You're talking about freedom or more freedom here in Europe. Just now I ask you some questions and you're scared to answer them. And I wonder why. Why are you scared. Why. I'm accustomed to it these many years. Ten years ago and many years we were in such a pressure pressure. And I'm still scared because I'm accustomed to it. Do you think that you could be in trouble for speaking with me you know. I don't know but I think I

risk a little. I risk a little not simply female imagination. Everyone I talked with felt the same way. Great caution. Private meetings and rendezvous no names used. Everyone was wary of the microphone. One man even insisted on using a handkerchief over it to disguise his voice. Almost without exception these people were brooders and highly critical in their comments. A national mood of pessimism one check labeled it. But of course there is a certain danger in accepting their words and state of mind as representative simply the fact that they either sought me out or agreed to talk with me and that they spoke English. I meant that most of them were Western oriented to begin with. On the other hand my other source of information officials usually Communist Party members were often simply at the other extreme. The challenge lay in finding representative middle of the roaders with neither an axe to grind nor an

official position to uphold. The best place for this is Yugoslavia. The national mood there is neither suspicion nor pessimism. Most everything is above board President Tito is a popular leader. The people are proud of him and of their political system. Have you been to Russia. Is a common question that Yugoslavs ask for they think that the difference between their own system and the Russian one is self-evident. Communism in fact is not a popular word in Yugoslavia. One is constantly corrected for using it. My government interpreter once corrected me with the statement. It's socialism not communism and we haven't reached it yet. One young and well-educated Yugoslav girl I met had close associations with the

country's ruling elite. She had met President Tito and his son through an acquaintance with the son of the former vice president the now deposed rank of fish. Following the lead of her father a prominent banker. The girl has chosen not to join the Communist Party but she hastens to add that her brother is a member and out of conviction. Unlike the Czech girl I met who feigned being an Italian because I'm sort of embarrassed at being a Czech. This girl has a definite national pride. She has travelled to the west on five occasions including one stay of a year studying in England. Significantly she was not afraid of using her name. Baba of logic likes life in the West but with reservations. When I was in England especially I realised how big is there a class action and that made me a bit sad because well the people in Yugoslavia. You have

got of course poor and rich people here as well but its everywhere. But you can find poor people together with rich people on the street in the cinema in the same group in the party wherever you like but its not the case in England. I mean they wouldnt appreciate to go out with people from the lower class. How about Western attitudes towards Yugoslavia and toward socialism do you find there are great misunderstandings in the West about about your country. Yes unfortunately I can say that I did find especially in England I used to attend I attended the private school of English language for foreign students so there was a teacher. Who disappointed me very much really happened in the middle of the lesson. We were talking just sheets and blankets and she put me the question. If we have got sheets and blankets in Yugoslavia

I was surprised. Well I didn't know if she was joking or not. And then I said Yes I've got to answer. So she said quite seriously that she heard and she thought that she was like these uncivilized people. I was really shocked. I haven't forgotten that and I can't I one programmed it. How about Yugoslavia in general do you. Do you consider that that the country really stands as a neutral country between the east and the West between communism and capitalism. We can say it is in between but I think it's going on the right way to talk to us to come in and say you know what you're in favor of calm. Yes. As they told us as I can imagine communism which they told us will come I mean it also could be and it could be yes. And what do you think this communism could be.

Well I was taught that communism will be a sort of easy life. I mean you will get easier made things then you get them now getting TVs cars good flat house everything. Well everybody will work for anything they need I mean everything they need and they will get it. When you don't get everything I mean. You work more probably then and you get less than you should get. Thus both of logic's major reservation seems to be that her country's socialism has not and probably will not live up to its promises. The ideology is essentially an economic one. But the theory can be refuted with the fact it hasn't worked very well so far and it's open to question whether it ever will. So at least runs the Western argument supporting itself by citing the constant economic reforms which the communist countries

have found necessary in recent years. It is curious to note however that just what is pointed to as proof of failure by Westerners is the same thing that confirmed communist believers point to with pride. Listen for example to Gheorghiu care tetes a former member of the political affairs ministry of the Communist Party of Hungary and now a chief editor of radio Budapest and the theoretical program or the Community Party could be or are I would be better folded than the roof of any other political party. I'm convinced that the only spot will be to create a reasonable human condition. And that it will in the short or possibly period of time Ruby provide the best possible condition for the bigger possible number of people being deprived of the many stupid kids and poor that have been committed. The short

story or the current wave already give pretty could prove to be. I don't intend to be the moon. I want to complete my dude look around doing that to boot. Did Rob who had been. Working in my open more important market who were only there to have a good girl. Member who prompted me to be commuted there me in writing to be part of the assertions are open to question but not the sincerity of the man who made them. Although a Communist Party official I found purity care tetes to be a franc an independent man. Often critical of the system and not afraid to say so. I was intrigued at meeting such a rare fish. And after a brief luncheon conversation wrote out some questions for him to answer later at his own convenience. I

imagined that that was the end of it. But he was as good as his word and mailed me a taped monologue in reply. Parts of which you have just heard. In truth our luncheon conversation was franker than his words into the microphone more critical too. For example I asked him whether he as a party member felt free to criticize the system. Of course I can and do speak up at party meetings he answered. I'm quite candid and it isn't held against me. Then as an afterthought of course it doesn't do any good either. Nevertheless on a theoretical plane the devoted party member can still talk up a pretty good storm but when this is reduced to the level of the effect of criticism or just how much money or material things the neighbor has the theory suffers badly. Listen now to an argument on both the human and ideological level as posed by a native of Prague Czechoslovakia. He will

remain anonymous. No only that as a well-known performing artist he has travelled widely in western countries. I first talked with a man about how the system affects his artistic career. I am afraid not to one of them who proofread too much from this system. I leave more individual. And I think in this way act individually is the whole program. It's not too good to be individual. It's better to as we say to howl of if there was. And then you have more possibility more occasion to do to make a bigger carrier. But if you prefer to be individual to live your own life and to have fewer own meaning then it's not so easy. Now you were talking a little bit about how wing with the war suggesting a certain conformity

and in the social structure here does this mean that the best people get to the best positions necessarily or not. That's the problem. It could happen in the previous years and perhaps or steerer now that many not exactly competent. Almost sometimes a bit persons could penetrate. Two important leading positions and there they make mistakes and you can imagine what economically resides this politics can have. You're painting sort of a dark picture and of course I have noticed myself here I have noticed many inefficiencies of operation and I've noticed people apparently employed a labourer's just standing still doing nothing sitting in trucks. Yes and you're not exactly a business or a management person

here. You're somewhat apart from this but do you still have a certain feeling about why this is so. Think of time in many you can see in many places. I think it's the better organization of the whole life. I don't understand too much all these things but I can see and I can feel and I think I think psychologically they're our mate and they're a very made many mistakes and turn it equally to tyranny of socialism and so on is very nice yes. But the psychology you must take people as they are and you can believe they will do what you say or so people are very complicated. The words of a Czechoslovakia and citizen a man sensitive enough to both feel the pressures and see the fallacies of his country's communism. He is an

unhappy man for this. He lives he told me for as irregular tours as a performing artist into Western Europe. He and his wife together earn a nice living. But it does them little good. Their fondest dream is to buy a car. They have the money but not the patience to wait the necessary three to five years to get on through proper channels. So they are prepared to buy one from a tourist and then pay the government the assessed value as well to make it all legal. Thus paying twice for the same car. For this man and others like him there is a cautious optimism concerning the much talked of liberalisation trend which is just beginning to be felt in Eastern Europe. The old line communist revolutionary is beginning to look like a reactionary today. The pressures for a change are coming from within and without and doubtless they are strong. How else to explain the various economic reforms being undertaken at this time in almost every one of the nations of Eastern Europe. Just what these reforms mean and

why. As told by communist officials and as tempered by my own observations is the subject of next week's report on Eastern Europe. Progress no reports of U of Eastern Europe. One program in a five part series based on impressions and information gathered during a recent automobile journey through East Germany Czechoslovakia Hungary Romania and Yugoslavia. Listen again next week at the same time. Well the next programme in this series.