ABSTRACT
The youth union regional secretaries responded by softening their blockade on student access to the factories in an effort to preempt the expected demand for an entirely new youth organization; this move in fact only delayed the final collapse of the Socialist Union of Youth. Prague's main square and been moved to Letna, a large, open space in the city center once used mainly for military parades—public protests were flooding into the Czechoslovak Press Agency. Apart from the three main speakers, the Letna demonstration became a festival of "theater sketches brought to life and reflecting public opinion," as CF described it. The moderator's jibes at Adamec were a poor advertisement for both and had more to do with the old authoritarianism than the new regime of dialogue. The resignation of Husak on December 10 opened the way to a presidential election to offer reform communism another chance.
