Jan Moravec is the author of another descriptive recollection of the events of May Day 1968 in Prague:
People were thinking up the slogans for the banners themselves in factories, schools, offices, institutions. In the past years there were slogans mostly about commitments of how much will the factory improve or cheering slogans such as Long live the Communist Party! Slogans for this year were mostly about social ethic values: Jesus – not Ceasar; let’s believe in ourselves; Jan Hus was great; Truth will win but it is not easy; We demand rehabilitation of Christ; Make peace not war ect.
The slogan in the form of joke had the biggest impact : No more clover seeds for our fields; The crown back to the lion; Less schools – more playgrounds; We demand wealth at once; Houses will solve the housing crisis; Don’t mix up Vaculiks, Slovaks, leave us at least ř!
First time from 1948 we could see slogans – demands and critical slogans : We demand special congress of the Communist Party; We demand immediate dissolution of political unit of StB; Workers from shops want free Saturday; Fair working conditions for bakers; Stop interrupting foreign radio broadcast with our Tesla products; Suppress censorship; Club rooms for the young; Democratization? Democracy!; Freedom for different opinions!
There were hundreds of portraits of leaders, both dead and alive, held by marchers in the past years. This time, as someone on the platform counted, there were only five Lenins, four Marxs, three Gottwalds, two Engels and one Dubcek, Castro, Che Guevara and T.G. Masaryk in the parade.
There was no-one shouting off slogans from the loud-speakers this year. Not even Pavel Kohout, he gave this up and so did his followers. Members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party were happy until the moment when KAN (The Club of Committed Independents) appeared among marchers. They were the only ones shouting out their slogans: People like Novotny should stay home; We want free elections; We don’t want unified election tickets; Permission for KAN! It’s six millions of us!
Look at those new Sokols. They don’t have uniforms yet, they don’t take exercise but they are already marching in aligned rows! And tomorrow they will take us down! the former Secretary of the Communist Party Vratislav Krutina shouted. He was from the group around the former President Novotny who was hiding his truth beliefes only with difficulty.
The end of the parade; tens of thousands of people blocked the wide Na Prikopech Street all the way from Wenceslas square to Republika square. They crowded around the platform; they were clapping, throwing flowers to the President Svoboda and Party’s General Secretary Dubcek, chanting:
Long live the Communist Party! Long live Dubcek! Long live Svoboda! Viva freedom! Viva democracy!
The bravest ones came to the platform to chat with the Party leaders and members of government.