Introduction

Between April 1991 and the 23rd June 1992, the Slovak Republic, which is the eastern half of Czechoslovakia, was ruled by a coalition of the following parties:

The Christian Democratic Movement (KDH)
The Civic Democratic Union (ODU)
The Democratic Party
The Hungarian Civic Initiative (MOI)[1]

Led by Dr Jan Carnogursky of the KDH, this government was broadly committed to following the same free market reform policies as had been adopted by the Czech and Federal governments. Though they are working well enough in the Czechlands, in Slovakia, these policies have been accompanied by - and to some extent have caused - a fall of output by more than a third since the 1989 revolution. The resulting increase of unemployment helped revive the cause of Slovak separatism.[2]

This cause was most effectively exploited by Dr Vladimir Meciar, Slovak Prime Minister until April 1991, and since March 1991 leader of the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS). Throughout his year-long campaign to return to power, he was careful not to make any specific policy commitments, but let it be known or believed that he would ensure greater at least greater autonomy from Prague, and at least a slowing or diversion of economic reform.

Despite some efforts, the ruling coalition never managed to separate in the public mind what should have been the distinct questions, of national independence and an end to economic reforms perceived to be damaging to the economy. Accordingly, in the June 1992 elections, Meciar inflicted on it a comprehensive defeat.

The Election Results

The results of the elections held in the Slovak Republic on the 6th and 7th June 1992, were as follows:

This body is able to legislate on all Slovak matters, save monetary and trade, defence and foreign policy, these being reserved to the Federal Government in Prague. Its decisions are subject to review by a federal Constitutional Court based in Brno. Rather as in Britain, whichever party or group of parties has a majority in this body is able to form a government for Slovakia.

FEDERAL PARLIAMENT (2 houses)

This body is the originating house for all federal legislation. Bills are passed by simple or qualified majority, according to their nature.

This body is the upper house. It votes in separate Czech and Slovak divisions. Legislation must receive the required majority in each division before it can become law.

It will be observed that neither the ODU nor the MOI is represented in any legislative body. This is the result of a provision in the electoral law that limits representation only to those parties that gain more than five per cent of the vote among the relevant electorate. For the Slovak Parliament the ODU gained only 4.03 per cent, the MOI 4.5 per cent. The SKDH, a breakaway movement from the KDH, gained 3.05 per cent.

What the Elections Mean for the Federation

For considerations of space and relevancy, I have not given the results for the Czech Parliament. It is enough to say that this is dominated by a pro-reform coalition led by Vaclav Klaus. If, therefore, the governments of the two republics wish to keep their election promises, the Federation cannot continue in its present form. If all the anti-reform parties in the House of the People, swollen with Slovak votes, were to join together, they could defeat all proposals for further reform at the federal level, or even try to reverse that already in place. If unable to do this, their dominance of the Slovak half of the House of Nations will allow them to veto all future legislation.

Already, it looks as if there will be a deadlock over the election of the Federal President. Meciar has decalred that he will not support the renewal of Vaclav Havel in that office.

There are apparently solid reasons for doubting if the federation will dissolve so dramatically and finally as the pessimists suppose. For all their differences, the Czechs and Slovaks do need each other.

The Czechs need the Slovaks to help prevent their being absorbed, by one means or another, by Germany. Between the 17th and 19th centuries, there was a German ascendancy in the Czechlands. For law, administration, and most culture, the language was German, Czech being relegated to the status of a lower class vernacular. The Czech national revival of the 19th century came just in time to keep the nation from disappearing. The creeping Germanisation of the Czechlands was stopped and partly reversed.

Then, following the annexations of 1938-39, it was pushed forward with unprecedented speed and brutality. Nazi rule in the Czechlands was savage almost beyond belief. A civilised, largely urban people, accustomed for centuries to at least a limited rule of law, was divided into two groups - those deemed sufficiently "aryan" to be forcibly Germanised; and the rest, where not to be murdered at once, fit only to be deported as slave labour to the conquered territories of the east.

Memories of the German occupation are still fresh in the national mind. 1992 is the 50th anniversary of the Lidice massacre, where as a punishment for the assasination of Heydrich, the German Governer, an entire village was destroyed, by shooting or deportation to Theresianstadt concentration camp. The anniversary is being widely commemorated.

Since the 1989 Revolution, more than 75 per cent of all investment into Czechoslovakia has come from Germany. Most foreign tourists are German. In the north Bohemian spa towns and in parts of Prague, German is fast becoming the normal language of communication between strangers in restaurants and other public places. In central Prague, prices and rents have been inflated more than five times, from Czechoslovak to German levels.

This process is both feared and resented. The union with Slvovakia converts the Czechlands from a small slavonic island in a teutonic sea to the western extremity of a slav bloc that includes Russia and the Ukraine.

Moreover, in 1945, the entire German minority in the Czechlands was expelled, after centuries of existence there. The expulsion was carried out with a brutality the reflected previous German atrocities. More than three million people were expropriated and pushed across the border into Germany or Austria: more than 10 per cent died in the transfer. These people or their descendants are demanding the return of their confiscated property, or compensation for its loss. The 1990 Restitution Act was deliberately drafted to exclude these claims, covering only property confiscated by the Communists since 1948. The German Government has so far refused to intervene in this dispute between some of its citizens and a friendly foreign government.

Such non-intervention, however, might not long survive the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. The German elections set for late 1992 are expected to elect a more nationalist Parliament in Bonn, more willing to consider revising the 1945 settlement. The Czechlands alone will be more amenable to such pressure than a continued Czechoslovakia.

The Slovaks need the Czechs for similar reasons. There are Hungarian irredentists in Budapest who dream of extending their northern border as far as Poland. At the least, these people want the largely Hungarian regions in Slovakia along the north bank of the Danube. An independent Slovak state will be far more easily pushed around than Czechoslovakia. It may also be less tolerant towards its Hungarian minority, and so justify intervention.

Therefore, the Slovaks may resent the dominance of their wealthier and more numerous Czech colleagues, but must find this more bearable than at least a partial Hungarian reconquest.

Also, they need Czech money. Slovakia currently contains less than a third of the Czechoslovak population, but absorbs more than half the federal budget. For all their record of corrupt oppression, the Communists left the Czechlands with something like a modern industrial base, something able to prosper in a free market economy. They turned Slovakia into the world's largest weapons factory: and the world since 1989 has needed neither Slovak weapons nor the steel and chemicals used in their manufacture. As said, the resulting different performances of the two economies has led to an increase of Slovak nationalism. However, it has led also to an increasing dependence of the Slovak on the Czech economy for subsidies and other assistance.

For these reasons, no rational Czech or Slovak politician ought to desire the dissolution of the common state. There are Czech politicians who are considering the threat of a dissolution as a means to force the Slovak demands down to a more realistic level, but it is to be doubted how far these will go. The real question, then, is how rational are the politicians who currently have power in Bratislava: can they be trusted to take their disputes with the Czechs so far and no further? Or will they decide in favour of an independent Slovak state? And, assuming this second course, to what extent can they be trusted not to do to their country what is being done elsewhere in the former Soviet empire? Will they inflate? Will they restore price controls and other elements of central economic planning? Will they try to hide economic collapse behind a screen of venomous nationalism?

The answers to these questions depend on the personalities of the politicians themselves.

The New Slovak Government

Announced on Wednesday 24th June 1992, the new Government of the Slovak Republic is not purely a party government, but consists according to Meciar "of members appointed from all areas of Slovak life, the criterion being their fitness for their positions". It contains one independent member, Tuchyna, and one from the SNS, Cernak, but is otherwise composed of HZDS members.

I give below all the information I have been able so far to gather on the new Ministers. Much of this is allegation, and I do not vouch for the the truth of any alleged fact. Many of them are obviously false, and I draw attention to these. I repeat everything, however, because even if false, what I have learnt in the past month is an accurate record of what is being discussed in opposition cafes and dinner parties. Needless to say, there is no intent to bring the character of any new Minister into hatred, ridicule or contempt.

Vladimir Meciar - Prime Minister

Born 26th July 1942 in Zvolen, a large town in central Slovakia. Married with three children. Speaks German to an unknown standard, but said to have no English.

Graduated with a doctorate from the Law Faculty at Comenius University in Bratislava. After 1959 worked as legal reporter for the local Economic Planning Committee at Ziar, in east Slovakia; later as secretary. 1967-68, Chairman of the local youth committee in Kollarova in south Slovakia. In 1969, condemmed as a "reformer" by the hardline regime installed in Prague after the Warsaw Pact invasion the previous year, and removed from all youth functions. In 1970, expelled from the Communist Party as an unrepentant reformer. After six months of unemployment, worked 1970-73 as a welder's assistant at a heavy engineering plant at Dubnica, in middle Slovakia.

In 1973, suddenly rehabilitated. Allowed back to the Comenius Law Faculty for further study; then from 1974 a legal reporter again, then a senior factory lawyer, at the Nemsova glassworks, specialising in industrial injury claims.

* He is alleged to have recovered his status by joining the secret police (StB). It is said that he was the "Doctor", an agent given the task of spying on Alexander Dubcek, hero of the 1968 "Prague Spring".

Though to differing extents, these are both dubious claims. Regarding Dubcek, the following observations can be made:

Dubcek himself has denied all knowledge of the matter, even stating that he never saw or heard of Meciar before January 1990.

During the time in question, Meciar was a factory lawyer at Nemsova, and Dubcek worked for the State Forests Enterprise in Bratislava. These two places are about a hundred miles apart. Probably, Dubcek was closely watched. But the StB must have had more sense than to appoint a spy who would need to have spent most of his working life commuting.

This claim was made in public for the first time in February 1992, by people who hate Meciar. At the time, Dubcek was re-entering public life, as leader of the Slovak Social Democratic Party, and was rumoured to be favourably inclined to Meciar. To set the two most popular men in Slovakia at odds, and to discredit Meciar, was the clear interest of those who revealed and did most to cry up the alleged scandal. Therefore, while it may be true, it cannot without better evidence, be accepted.

* That Meciar joined the StB in 1973 is not improbable. Before the Revolution, more than two per cent of the adult population collaborated to some extent. Equally, though, he could have gained his rehabilitation by waiting until the Government had tired of actively persecuting him, and then had used his old connections in the Party and the bureaucracy.

In January 1990, following the "Velvet Revolution" of the previous month, he was appointed Slovak Minister of the Interior and Minister of the Environment. There are two versions of how this happened.

* First, he came to Bratislava to see the Revolution, and met Jan Budaj, leader of the Revolutionary movement Public Against Violence (VPN). He impressed Budaj with his personality and legal knowledge. His worst enemies seldom deny that he is both clever and - if only on first impression - exceedingly charming. He was in the right place at the right time.

* Second, his name was put forward by Milan Cic, who had been appointed Prime Minister and Minister of Justice immediately after the Revolution; and, as a senior academic at the Comenius Law Faculty, can be expected to have known Meciar.

A sinister variant to this version plays on the fact that Cic had previously been Deputy Slovak Minister of Justice after the 1968 Soviet Invasion, and was otherwise well-rewarded under the old regime for his writings on "socialist" law. He is now a senior member of Meciar's party, a Deputy in the Federal House of the Nations, and a Minister in the new Federal Government.

As Minister of the Interior, Meciar is alleged to have tampered with the secret police files in his custody, for the sake of exculpating himself and those who had helped his rehabilitation in the Mid-1970s. During the first half of 1992, the Federal and Slovak Governments considered laying formal charges concerning the disappearence of eight sensitive files from the StB archive in Bratislava. Nothing has yet been done, however - whether for lack of reliable evidence or for political reasons, remains unclear.

Regardless of subsequent claims, Meciar was popular with the Slovak people - a popularity which he has retained throughout - and respected by his colleagues, sufficiently to replace Budaj as leader of the VPN and Cic as Prime Minister in June 1990. In that month, he led the VPN to a very good showing in the Federal and State elections.

As Prime Minister, he is alleged to have practised the most shameless political corruption, even to the point of collaborating with the Soviet KGB (the last Soviet troops only left Slovakia in June 1991).

His downfall began with the "Andras scandal". Anton Andras of the KDH, appointed Minister of the Interior in July 1990, is said to have been so devoted a witchunter within his Ministry, that he conducted illegal vettings. In December 1990, he dismissed 37 middle ranking officials for alleged misconduct. To everyone's surprise, Meciar intervened on their behalf, threatening to resign as Prime Minister unless the Presidium of the Slovak Parliament, which is a kind of collective presidency, would agree to Andras' dismissal. He got his way. Andras was replaced by Ladislav Pittner, who remained in the position throughout the subsequent Carnogursky ministry.

* The received version of this story, that the officers had information on Meciar which they threatened to reveal unless he helped them, sounds likely. However, I know Andras very well. I worked with him for several months on the KDH election campaign. I found him to lack both motivation and judgment, and was glad when he went with the other faction after the party split in March 1992. He is now regretting that move, since his faction failed to gain seats in any legislative body in the elections, and is moving closer to Meciar - who still loathes Andras. I find it hard to believe that anyone so lamentably deficient in the normal political skills could have played such an heroic role, especially to have stood so firm under Meciar's pressure that a government crisis resulted. The Andras that I know and the Andras that has been described to me might be different people. Even so, the story is curious.

Between then and the following April, Meciar is said to have become increasingly despotic. He refused to release the Slovak StB archive to the Federal Ministry of the Interior for safekeeping in Prague. He claimed that the disposal of the archive was a state not a Federal matter, and that its security could not be guaranteed either in transit to Prague or while stored there.

He is further said to have tried blackmailing some of his Government colleagues with information partly taken from that archive and partly given him by his contacts in the Soviet KGB.

What no one denies is that he grew increasingly less capable of working with his colleagues.

In April 1991, the Hungarian ministers in the coalition began moves to have Meciar dismissed. At the same time, a large part of the VPN was dissatisfied with his leadership. A conspiracy was set in motion. The KDH agreed to support it, having obtained as its price the Premiership for one of its Ministers in the coalition. Meciar was dismissed as Prime Minister and as leader of the VPN. He went into opposition, taking rather more than half the party with him, together with all its popular support, and declared that he would return. His personal popularity in one poll taken at this time in Slovakia was rather more than 80 per cent.

That part of the VPN remaining in the Government renamed itself the ODU. His own part was absorbed into the HZDS which he founded in April 1991.

The year following his dismissal was spent preparing for the June 1992 election campaign. On the campaign itself he spent an estimated Kcs60 million (Sterling 1.2 million), compared with the KDH's Kcs4 million. Over the whole year, he may have spent that much again. Where he found this money, and what he promised in return for it, no one knows. Rumours vary from MOSSAD as his paymaster to BMW.

The matter of who stands behind Meciar is important, since, contrary to what is claimed by his enemies, he does not appear to be a committed Marxist-Leninist. Since his misfortunes as a reformist in 1968, he has been indifferent to ideology. In 1990, when federalism and free markets were the fashion, he was a federalist and a free marketeer. In 1991, when the Slovak public turned against these, he also turned against them. Since then, he has been careful to tell his audience only what it wants to hear. Thus, during the campaign, he hinted a promise to a meeting of Hungarians of full autonomy within an independent Slovakia. In middle Slovakia, a few days later, he spoke about the need for ensuring Slovak cultural supremacy within Slovakia. He told a meeting of factory managers about his dislike of economic reform, and a meeting of German businessmen that he would continue it. He was against coupon privatisation until three million Slovaks bought coupons; and since then has only opposed what he claims is the scheme's faulty and unfair administration.

Roman Kovac - First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Control

Born 10th September 1940 in Bratislava. Studied 1957-63 at the Medical Faculty at Plzen University in the Czechlands, graduating as doctor. Worked 1977-90 in the Bratislava Research Institute of Medical Bionics. Since June 1990 Federal Deputy in the House of Nations, first for VPN, then for HZDS.

I have been able to discover nothing else about Kovac. That he used to profit from the sale of aborted Slovak foetuses to American research laboratories is a claim too conveniently disgusting to be likely.

Milan Knazko - Minister of International Relations

Born 28th August 1945 at Horne Plachtince, a small town in north Slovakia. Graduated 1968 from the actors' school in the Bratislava School of Musical Arts. 1968-70 studied at the International Academy of Theatre in Nancy, France. Speaks perfect French. Married to Frenchwoman - three children.

From 1970-89, actor, specialising in tragi-comic roles. October 1989, only actor in Czechoslovakia to return title of artistic merit as protest against policies of Communist regime. Organised revolutionary meetings in Bratislava. Co-founder of VPN.

In 1990, one of President Havel's advisers in Prague. June 1990, Deputy in Federal Assembly for VPN. Until April 1991, Minister of International Relations of Slovak Republic.

As a Slovak nationalist, increasingly disillusioned with Federal Government and pro-federalist parties in Bratislava. Resigned as Presidential adviser on grounds that Havel surrounded by Czech supremacists. Left Slovak Government with Meciar. Co-founded HZDS.

It is rumoured that since then, relations between him and Meciar have cooled. It is alleged that the two had to be pulled apart after a particularly bitter argument in February 1992. The suggested reason for this coldness is that Meciar is no longer sufficiently nationalist for Knazko's taste.

Before the election, it was said that he was negotiating to join the Slovak National Party. Considering all present circumstances, however, he seems likely to remain with Meciar for the forseeable future.

He is currently an HZDS Deputy in the Slovak Parliament.

Peter Baco - Minister of Agriculture and Rivers and Forests

Born 9th April 1945 in Vahom, a village in west Slovakia. 1963-68, studied at Agricultural School in Nitra, graduating with title of Inzenir. 1973-86, Chairman of Union of Agricultural Cooperatives at Nemsova - where Meciar was then working. 1986-91, manager of Department of Science and Technological Development in Slovak Ministry of Agriculture.

Since June 1990, Deputy in Slovak Parliament, first for VPN, then for HZDS.

Baco is said to be a pure Meciar creation. He has no independent support, and no tendency to think for himself. Throughout the history of the HHZDS he has been a consistent Meciar loyalist. He can be expected to remain the same in Government.

Ludovit Cernak - Minister of the Economy and Industry and Trade And Tourism

Born 12th October 1951 at Hlinik, a small town in middle Slovakia. Graduated 1975 from the Electro-technical faculty at the Bratislava Technical University. Married with three children. Speaks good English.

Worked until 1992 in Ziar in middle Slovakia, eventually as manager of state aluminium enterprise. 1990, attended management course in England.

Since 1990 a member of the Slovak National Party. Elected 1992 as SNS Deputy to Slovak Parliament. A staunch nationalist, he is said also to oppose economic reform. The reason given for this latter, though, is that his aluminium enterprise absorbed 1.5 per cent of the Slovak budget in 1991 in direct subsidies; and that he fiercely opposed all attempts to scale down production or to enforce more environment-friendly methods.

In all politics, though - and especially in Slovak - it is unwise to deduce ideological leanings from specific acts. It may be that ss factory manager, Cernak had an interest in robbing and poisoning the Slovak people. If so, this interest has ceased to exist, and there is no reason to suppose that he will gladly allow others to rob and poison in his place.

It seems in fact that he is a pragmatist in economic matters. His first significant act as Minister was to seek out Tom Grey, and continue his contract as Senior Policy Adviser to the Ministry of the Economy. I worked with Tom as an adviser to Carnogursky, and know him well. He is an extreme economic liberal, who ran once for public office in California for the Libertarian Party. During the past eight months, he has successfully opposed all efforts to stop economic reform in Slovakia and to solve the country's problems by deficit financing and a return to price controls. He may have been re-employed because his advice is valued by Cernak or those round him, or simply for his contacts with the various US aid agencies now disbursing funds in Bratislava. What Tom is doing in three months' time will do much to answer this question.

Lubomir Dolgos - Minister of Privatisation

Born 20th August 1956 at Banska Bystrica in middle Slovakia. Graduated 1983 from the Economic Faculty in Bratislava with title of Inzenir. Married with two children.

1983-90, worked at the Economic Institute at the Slovak Academy of Sciences. After the Revolution, joined VPN and published critical study, "Notes on the Marxist Labour Theory of Value".

In 1990, Chairman of Slovak Anti-Monoply Office. Despite his theoretical hostility to Marxism, he used his position to resist all calls for the breaking up of the State monopolies. Alleged to have taken bribes, but not in hard currency. He is despised for this latter allegation. Regarding the truth of either allegation, I know nothing. I give them not as statements of fact, but as statements on which many people rest their judgement of his character.

Left Government in April 1991 with Meciar. Now an HZDS Deputy in the Federal house of the Nations.

Senior members of the ODU who know Dolgos from their days together in the VPN say that he will do as his advisers and superiors tell him, even if that conflicts with what he is on record as having said.

It is further said that he was appointed Minister of Privatisation to ensure that State enterprises are passed to the right people - that is to members of the old Communist elite.

Roman Hofbauer - Minister of Transport and Construction

Born 21st February 1940 in Bratislava. Graduated 1962 from Construction Faculty of Bratislava Technical University with title of inzenir. Married with one child.

Worked 1962-72 on Bratislava Transport Project, in which capacity partly responsible for destroying the city's ancient heart. 1972-79, in the department of urban architecture, where further harm done. 1979-90, an expert at the Ministry of Construction.

March-September 1990, Lord Mayor of Bratislava. November 1990 to August 1991, worked in Slovak Ministry of the Economy. Thereafter at the Ministry of Construction again as senior official.

Elected June 1990 VPN Deputy of Slovak Parliament. Left with Meciar and joined HZDS. Now a Federal Deputy in the House of the People.

Except that he did very well under the old regime, and has done equally well since the Revolution, I know nothing particularly bad about Hofbauer.

Olga Keltosova - Minister of Social Security

Born 27th February 1943 in Bratislava. Graduated 1966 from the School of Journalism in the Comenius Philosophy Faculty. Married with two children. Speaks good German and English.

Worked until 1990 as Editor of various child and youth magazines, and commissioning editor of translations into Slovak.

Elected to the Slovak Parliament June 1990 for the Democratic Party. Resigned from party September 1991, allegedly to avoid being unmasked as a former StB collaborator. After five months as an independent, joined the HZDS, of which she is now Secretary and for which she is a Deputy in the Slovak Parliament.

The claim that she worked for or with the StB may be true, but may no longer be important. More important is that she is a strong nationalist, and a very effective yet charming politician. It is even suggested that she might replace Meciar if illness or some other cause should remove him from office in the next few years.

Viliam Sobona - Minister of Health

Born 24th October 1947 in Bardonove, a small town in southern Slovakia. Graduated 1972 from the Medical Faculty at Comenius University. Speaks a little English.

1972-92, worked as doctor at Nove Znamky, near his home town.

Elected to Federal House of the People in 1990 as VPN Deputy. Left with Meciar and joined HZDS. Returned to House of the People in 1992.

Nothing else known about him as yet.

Dusan Slobodnik - Minister of Culture, Education and Sport

Born 11th April 1927 in Pezinok. Graduated 1963 as external student from Philosophical Faculty at Charles university in Prague (PHD), having previously studied in Philosophical Faculty at Comenius University. Unmarried. Speaks Russian, German, English, French.

During the War, said to have been a member of the Hlinka Guard, an organisation of the Slovak State modelled on the German SS, and which carried out many of the atrocities for which Tiso was subsequently hanged.

Arrested 22nd April 1945 by the Red Army, and deported to the Soviet Union alledgedly as a punishment for his collaboration with the Nazis. Seems to have reached some agreement with the Soviets, for returned December 1953 in good health and an able linguist, and admitted to study philosophy - for which an informal certificate of ideological soundness was then a necessity.

* These are lurid claims. At least one of them, however, is unlikely. As an SS-type organisation, the Hlinka Guard was not for boys but for men. At the time of his arrest, Slobodnik was ten days past his 18th birthday, and Slovakia had been occupied since a month before then by the Soviet Union, and for some time before then, since the May 1944 uprising, by the Germans. Recruitment to the Hlinka Guard had ceased long before Slobodnik was old enough to have joined it. He himself claims to have been at secondary school when he was arrested.

If he did join some national socialist youth movement, he can no more be blamed for that than can most present German politicians - including helmut Kohl - for having been members of the Hitler Youth.

As for his arrest and deportation, that was an experience shared by more than a hundred thousand other Slovaks. Many were simply stopped in the street and herded onto trains going east. The Soviets needed manpower to help rebuild their ravaged western regions. The restored Czechoslovak Government, sitting in the east Slovak city of Kosice, under Soviet protection, was unable to intervene and was happy to see Slovak nationalism suppressed by a third party.

Slobodnik's evident turning to Communism cannot be regarded as at all culpable, bearing in mind the consequences of his doing otherwise.

1958-60, head of the agricultural products purchasing department at Banska Bystrica. 1961-65, worked in Institute of Research into Cables and Insulation. 1965-69, in research library of Slovak Academy of Sciences. 1969-73, at Institute of World Literature and Languages at SAS. From 1990, head of that Department.

Published widely on literature and literary theory.

Elected 1992 HZDS Deputy in Federal House of the People.

Slobodnik is said to have been a ruthless "normaliser" after the Warwaw Pact invasion, and now to be an extreme and almost mystical nationalist. If true, this latter is disturbing, since he is in charge not only of Slovak education but also of the Slovak media - electronic directly, others indirectly.

* However, this former claim is not indicated by the record of his career. Since his return in 1953, that has shown a steady progression throughout. There was a change of job in 1969, but this does not seem to have been the spectacular jump that a ruthless Soviet collaborator could have expected.

As for his nationalism, the past 40 years of bureaucratic compromise ought to have taken from him all capacity for holding to any ideology. His statements during the election campaign, then, may be taken as opportunistic.

Nevertheless, on account of his position, Slobodnik is a man to be watched. He has the power if he desires, or is directed, to turn the Slovak media along a very strange and sinister path.

Julius Toth - Minister of Finance

Born 6th May 1935 at Zvolen, in middle Slovakia. Graduated 1960 from Kosice Technical University. Command of languages and marital status unknown.

From 1961 worked as administrator in the central ironworks office of east Slovakia in Kosice.

Expelled from the Communist Party in 1970 as a reformer.

Has no seat in any legislative body. I am currently unable to say more about him.

Katarina Tothova - Minister of Justice

Born 6th February 1940. Graduated 1962 from Comenius Law Faculty (JUDr). Speaks some English. Marital status unknown, though not married to Julius Toth.

1965-92, taught at Comenius Law Faculty. Almost certainly a fried or at least a close colleague of both Meciar and Cic from long before the Revolution.

I know nothing definite about her views regarding economic reform and the national question, but expect that she will support Meciar for as long as it is her interest to do so.

One interesting point: she is said, with Meciar, to favour a reform of Slovak legal procedure to reduce the inquisitorial role of the judge and replace it with the Anglo-Saxon adversarial system. It is suggested that this reform is desired only to economise on the time spent by judges on the preparation of cases. However, both Tothova and Meciar can be expected to understand enough of comparative jurisprudence to know that such a change would make it harder for the State to mount political prosecutions.

Major-General Jozef Tuchyna - Minister of the Interior

Born 11th November 1941 at Krasna Ves, a village in western Slovakia. Graduated 1974 from Military Acadmey in Brno, and in 1984 from Military Academy in Moscow (in operational strategy). Speaks no foreign languages other than Russian. Married with three children.

From 1963 a professional soldier. Until 1972 worked in general headquarters. 1972-82, staff officer in Warsaw Pact high command. 1984-87, chief of staff and divisional commander in chief. 1987-90, deputy commander in chief of Czechoslovak Army in eastern Slovakia. From 1990, commander in chief.

Has no seat in any legislative body. His appointment to Ministry of the Interior came as a surprise.

Alleged to have been heavily involved in military intelligence, and still to have contacts with the Ukrainian KGB.

I have no idea with to think of Tuchyna's appointment, except that he is said to be an old friend of Meciar. I sat opposite him at a dinner in May 1992 to honour John Major's visit to Slovakia, and spoke with him for about an hour. He praised the achievements of the Soviet system, and regretted its passing, but also spoke of his eagerness to see Slovak troops integrated into Western peace-keeping forces and sent to places like the Balkans and the Middle East. His main personal desire seemed to be to direct his men in battle from a tank.

His appointment may represent the restoration of a modified police state. On the other hand, if Meciar wanted that, he would have appointed one of his own creatures to the office. His alleged experience with Anton Andras ought to have told him the danger of having someone there not utterly dependent on him. Tuchyna is entirely independent of Meciar, and can come and go in politics much as he pleases.

Jozef Zlocha - Minister of the Environment

Born 6th June 1940 in Lysa, a village in middle Slovakia. Graduated 1963 from Mining and Geological Faculty at Ostrava University. Command of languages and marital status unknown.

From 1963, a geologist.

June 1990, elected Deputy to Federal House of the Nations, first for VPN, then for HZDS.

Currently has no seat in any legislative body.

Zlocha is purely a Meciar creature, and can be expected to support him in all that he does.

Conclusion and Advertisement

The Government described above has yet to do anything specific. Therefore, how it will work together, and how long it will last, are unknown matters. My own guess is that Meciar has made so many contradictory - no matter how vague - commitments, that his support will begin to collapse the moment his Government begins to do anything at all.

On the other hand, he is a clever politician, and may be able to keep his support far longer than his enemies hope or expect by blaming all Slovakia's problems on the Czechs, and projecting himself as its only national champion.

For all supplementary information to the above, and for all further information about political or economic and commercial condiditions in Slovakia, I can be reached at the following address:

Hanulova 1

Bratislava 84101

Czechoslovakia

NOTES

1. The Slovak Republic contains a Hungarian majority amounting to 12.3 per cent of its total population, concentrated along the north bank of the Danube. Until 1918, the minority was part of Greater Hungary, together with the whole of Slovakia. The north bank was awarded to Czechoslovakia at the Paris Peace Conference for strategic reasons, and has been a cause of trouble ever since between the two countries. At the Nazi-dictated Conference of Vienna in December 1939, it was returned to Hungary. This settlement was annulled by the Allies in 1945. Since the 1989 Revolution, the Hungarian minority has been divided between those who want to be ruled from Budapest and those who are happy to live in the present federal Czechoslovak state. Led by Dr Laslo Nagy, the MOI is the federalist party. It also believes in a rapid transition to a free market economy.

2. Slovakia has not been a fully independent nation state for more than a thousand years. Early in the 10th century, it was conquered by the Hungarians. Later it was conquered by the Turks. In the 17th century, with the rest of greater Hungary, it was absorbed into the Hapsburg Empire. In 1918, it was joined with the Czech regions of the Hapsburg Empire to form the eastern half of Czechoslovakia. Despite their linguistic proximity - their languages are mutually comprehensible - the Czechs and Slovaks were unable to form a single nation. After the September 1939 Munich Settlement, Slovakia remained part of a diminished Czechoslovakia, itself diminished by the cession of its southern region to Hungary (See note above).

In March 1939, the Czechlands were annexed by Germany, and Slovakia became in name an independent state. Ruled throughout its brief history by Jozef Tiso, a Roman Catholic priest, it external and internal policies were largely dictated from Berlin. To what extent Tiso collaborated, and how willingly, are matters of controversy which I cannot here discuss. It is, however, certain that 60,000 Jews were deported by the Slovak Government to Poland, where most were in various ways murdered. There were similar, if smaller and less famous, persecutions of Gypsies and the other usual minority groups.

After two civil wars and German and Soviet invasions, the Slovak State came to an end in 1945, and was made part of a restored Czechoslovakia. Tiso was hanged in 1946 as a war criminal. Upwards of 100,000 Slovaks were deported to the Soviet Union under the pretexts of punishment or voluntary emigration. Many never returned.

During the Communist period (1948-89), Slovak nationalism was sternly repressed; though in partial compensation Slovaks were given far greater representation in the middle bureaucracy than either their numbers or ability warranted. Additionally, one of the reforms achieved during the 1968 "Prague Spring" was the conversion of Czechoslovakia from a unitary to a federal state, with coordinate governments in Prague and Bratislava. This change came into effect after the Warsaw Pact invasion of August 1968, and was retained by the more pro-Soviet regime that replaced the Dubcek Government. But it was never during the next two decades more than a facade of regional autonomy behind which a centralised Communist Party ruled the whole country from Prague Castle.

The 1989 Revolution was accompanied by the first mass expressions of goodwill between Czechs and Slovaks in their common history. These became less frequent during 1990, as Slovak national feeling began to revive.

3. Otherwise known as the Party of the Democratic Left (SDL)

4. This party has no stated position on economic reform or the national question. Its only known economic policy is the fostering of closer links between the Hungarian regions and Hungary. Its leader, Miklos Duray, spent most of the election broadcasting from a television studio in Budapest as a guest of the Hungarian Government. I place his party among the anti-reformers because it has no apparent interest in the wellbeing of Czechoslovakia or its two constituent parts.

5. Otherwise known as the Left Block.