you have to get it. If you are dissatisfied with it and you complain about it, usually in the newspapers you get the answer, which is practically an excuse and it does not help you any.

Mr. SCHULTZ. Let's get a little more basic than an automobile. How about the foodstuffs, the things that you put on your table, are they always available? Are they of good quality?

Miss FLIDR. In Czechoslovakia we practically don't have housewives. Even a married woman with little children has to go to work because they just could not afford to buy basic food and clothing for the family if she would not work. The availability is bad.

If you go back from the office in the evening with a small child in one hand and a shopping bag in the other, what happens is you go through very long lines, through queues in practically all stores, and you pay exorbitant prices.

Mr. SCHULTZ. Who sets these prices?

Miss FLIDR. These prices are set by the state. When I say "by the state," I mean by the Communist Party, because the chief executives, the leaders of the country, are communists. It is well known that it is not the President, but the first secretary of the Communist Party who has the executive power, the greatest executive power over the country. So when I say "the state," I mean the Communist Party, because all key positions are being held by devoted communists.

Mr. SCHULTZ. To what extent could you own personal or real property?

Miss FLIDR. It is very confused. If I would not make sense to any American when I try to explain it, please stop me. For example, theoretically you are permitted to own a home of your own. That means a little house, in theory. And according to the Constitution, you know, certainly you should be entitled to having it.

Now in practice even if you own a home, one person of your family can only have one room. So, in other words, if there is mother, father, and one child, if you have a big home you can only live in three rooms of that home. You cannot yourself rent the rest of the rooms. The communist committee which distributes apartments assigns you a tenant and you are forced to accept that tenant.

If your child grows and 20 years later you want that tenant's room for your now grown-up child and his family, you cannot get that room. This is an open secret. You read about it in the newspapers. Although you do own that house, you practically don't have any power of decisionmaking over it.

Mr. SCHULTZ. How about personal property, your watch, your rings, this kind of thing?

Miss FLIDR. Well, there are things which are practically unobtainable, much too expensive in any communist country. A thing such as jewelry or furs, that is undreamed about. Even if you are a working woman with good education and your husabnd is a professional, still these are the things which are unobtainable. You spend so much on food and basic clothing that you are not able to afford these things. Maybe even you are afraid to have them, because furs and jewelsthat shows that you are bourgeois minded and that you are hostile to the regime, that your set of values is wrong.

Mr. SCHULTZ. Do you have a black market in Czechoslovakia? Miss FLIDR. Well, there is quite a black market with the goods which cannot be obtained in Czechoslavakia, namely, the Western

goods, namely with American dollars. There is a store which is called Tusaks, and if you obtain any Western currency, for that Western currency you can buy Western goods in that store, which is sponsored by the state, by the Communist Party.

Now that leads to quite a black market, such that an American who sells his $1 to the Czechoslovakian Bank for, let's say, 14 korunas is offered by the Czechs about 90 or 100 korunas for that $1, because the people are just dying to get some foreign goods of good quality, which is unavailable on the domestic markets.

Mr. SCHULTZ. If you don't have the Western dollars, you cannot shop there?

Miss FLIDR. No, you cannot. This is one of the ways how the regime tries to get the money. They do not support Western citizens to send parcels to Czechoslovakia. As a matter of fact, they eliminated this by setting such high custom dues that my friends frequently send me the packages back.

If I send them a sweater or a little transistor radio, they cannot afford to pay the custom due. They have to send it back. Therefore, the government practically forces the people to write to their relatives that they want foreign currency. Now if that foreign currency is sent to Czechoslovakia, your friends or relatives are not permitted to hold it. They have to go to the bank and right away exchange it for korunas or for this special Tusak currency with which they can buy foreign goods.

Mr. SCHULTZ. Are there any particular benefits for the hierarchy of the Communist Party, such as shopping or hospitals?

Miss FLIDR. This is a very interesting point. Very often, frequently you hear now you have free medical care in Czechoslovakia. I would like to make a couple of comments about that.

First of all, you practically have no money left after you buy basic food and modest clothing. You could not afford to pay for medical care. That is one thing. You practically pay for it by paying the exorbitant prices which the state forces you to pay. Now if you go to the hospital or to the doctor, you don't have any choice. There is a district. doctor.

The city the district is virtually cut into districts and all people living within a certain region of the city have to go to the doctor who is assigned to them. If you do not like that doctor for professional or personal reasons, you still have to go to him.

When you want an appointment, you do not get any. You come in the waiting room, you spend there hours and hours, and you get only a very limited time with your doctor.

So although you do not pay anything, these are the gross disadvantages which you have, and frequently you talk to the people who say they would prefer to pay for it and get good care at their convenience.

Mr. SCHULTZ. Do all Czechoslovakians have the same quality of care?

Miss FLIDR. It practically works that way. If you are a communist and you have good recommendations, you get pushed practically everywhere. You have the connections and you do get a preferential treatment. A little telephone call from a party member, even if he does not

know anybody at the hospital or anywhere, can make a world of a difference.

(At this point Mr. Pepper entered the hearing room.)

Mr. SCHULTZ. You mentioned as a teacher you were not a member of the Communist Party. When you were growing up and attending grade school, did you belong to the Czechoslovakian Youth Party? Miss FLIDR. Yes, you have to.

Mr. SCHULTZ. At what age did you join this group?

Miss FLIDR. For every age of school children in Czechoslovakia there is only one youth organization, which is established by the party. For very young children it is so-called Sparkle, and very small children who just start school go to that.

Then as you grow and about third or fourth grade you join the Young Pioneers. Then at a later age, when you are approaching about 15, you join the Czechoslovakian Youth, which was the organization which you mentioned.

Each of these organizations is preparing you for the next organiza tion. There are no organizations such as Scouts, or if any mother decides she would like to start some organization for the children, she cannot.

Mr. SCHULTZ. What is the objective of these various organizations? Miss FLIDR. These organizations are supposed to contribute to your political education and to prepare you to be a good communist. You are frequently listening to the communist literature, to the experts from communist books. You are discussing communist morality, the idea of a communist citizen.

Mr. SCHULTZ. Would you say that these youth groups are a prerequisite to later obtaining a job?

Miss FLIDR. Oh, absolutely. It is not exactly of obtaining a job but to obtain a job of your choice or at least almost of your choice, or if you do want to continue with your school education after you are through with your compulsory school education, then the membership in these organizations is an absolute prerequisite.

Mr. SCHULTZ. You mentioned the work of your choice. Are workers free to choose their place of employment?

Miss FLIDR. Again my explanation will sound a little confusing and absolutely unreal. At the end of each school year the graduating class cannot practically choose what they want to do. The principal of every school gets a certain quota. In other words, only a certain. amount of the students from that school can continue with their education, only a certain amount can go into certain professions, and then comes the time when the political connections and affiliations and convictions of your parents are examined very closely. Then is the time when, if you are from a communist family, you have an enormous advantage. You can have excellent grades and yet you might not be admitted at a school of your choice, and yet someone with very low grades can.

Then you read very openly in our newspapers-I read just about 3 months ago in our newspapers that this is done because the children from families of workers or farmers from good communist families do not have the advantages of the home background, and even if their grades are bad, they have to be supported and accepted primarily before the students with better grades but from intellectual families.

This is admitted very freely, very publicly in the newspapers. That is the dictatorship. There is nobody whom you could come to for help or whom you could appeal to.

Mr. SCHULTZ. Once a person gets out of school, gets a job, whether in a professional category or factory, how is the labor controlled or how is his productivity assessed?

Miss FLIDR. You are getting a monthly salary and in most cases that salary is available, unchangeable salary. It is very infrequent that you would be profit motivated, like the more you produce the more you made. That mostly does not happen. Therefore, you work for the state and you do get that certain salary.

As far as your professional advancement or raises are concerned, very often even if you do a good job, if you are not politically reliable, still someone who is mediocre professionally but better off politically, considered more reliable, gets a better and supervisory position, which is also better pay.

Mr. SCHULTZ. How do they know if you politically reliable?

Miss FLIDR. Practically from the time you go to school you have your personal record. Things such as little remarks against the regime are collected and put down about you, and practically at all key points of your life this record is read by the people, by the communist committees who do the decisionmaking. If there is anything going against you, any careless sentence, any implication that you are dissatisfied with the regime, that you do not like communism, that you have democratic tendencies, that you criticize, you are made very aware of it.

Mr. SCHULTZ. Does a worker have a choice to engage in conversation with regard to wage and price demands?

Miss FLIDR. NO. This practically does not exist. As a matter of fact, you are not only not permitted to speak or discuss your wages, you are not even permitted to change your jobs. What I will say will sound confusing. I try to be as brief and as concise as I can.

Let's say you work in one town in one profession and you want to move to another town. Now what happens? Basically you need two things: a job in another town and an apartment in another town. Let's say you decide, first, you go to look for an apartment. You come to the national committee run by the communists in that town and you say, "I would like an apartment." They tell you first you have to have the job here. So you try to look for a job and they tell you first you have to have an apartment here. Unless you are a resident, you cannot get a job.

Therefore, what avenue is opened to you in such a case? If you want to change jobs or move into another city, it is only to do it through communist channels. You have to apply with your supervisors, with the communist committee at your job, and you have to ask to be officially transferred. If you are officially transferred through these channels, then you can try to exchange your apartment or to apply and wait 15, 20 years to get an apartment in that other city. If you don't do that, you practically have to stay where you are.

Mr. SCHULTZ. Are unions permitted? Does the union representation help you in any way?

Miss FLIDR. Unions are practically nominal, absolutely without any power whatsoever. Their function has been reduced maybe to distribute awards, 2 or 3 weeks in spas or in resorts as a special award to

good workers. But that is about it. They do not help you with any professional grievances.

It is no institution to appeal to. Everybody is forced to join; nobody does it voluntarily. The purpose is that you are formally enrolled so that it looks good in our communist statistics and that you pay your membership dues. It cannot help you with anything, and very often the unions are run by party members and you can't expect any objective decision from these people anyhow.

Mr. SCHULTZ. What is the electoral process in Czechoslovakia? Do you have elections?

Miss FLIDR. We do have elections, but it is definitely not a free election. What happens is you are presented with the nominees on the ballot. Now you do not know anything about them. There aren't any newspaper articles, nobody is permitted to stand up and attack that nominee, say, "I have objections against him for this and this reason." That is not permitted, that does not exist. It can't happen through any channel. Now you get that ballot and you do not know anything about these people. You are totally unfamiliar with their background except that you know and you can take it for granted that they are good communists and that they were very carefully selected.

Mr. SCHULTZ. What is the public reaction to this, the workingman on the street, what is his reaction?

Miss FLIDR. Well, everybody's reaction is that you are scared. You do not dare to do anything. You simply just cross that little box and you know even if you would not-first of all, you are afraid not to do that. Then you know even if you would not, nothing would change. That person still would be elected and the whole election is practically a mock election. It is not a free election.

As a matter of fact, in many cases the election is so-called manifestation election. You check the boxes in front of everyone else, and if you wish to go behind the curtain, you can. But you are afraid to go behind the curtain because that would imply that you are going to vote against the candidates presented to you and that is a very bad thing to do.

Mr. SCHULTZ. Miss Flidr, as a student who grew up in Czechoslovakia and as a teacher who is now a resident of the United States, what is your thinking now as to the communist movement and its international aspect? In other words, what are its aims and what did you learn to be the goals of international communism?

Miss FLIDR. First of all, it would be an absolute dependency of all communist countries on the Soviet Union. This dependency would show in economic terms. We would have to sell our goods with loss to the communist Russia rather than to sell them at a free market.

Mr. SCHULTZ. Could you give us an example of that?

Miss FLIDR. For example, what I read in our newspapers was very revealing. It is a little question. Although we have a very strict censorship, if you do not attack the basic communist doctrines, if you just bring up a little question and it is a concrete question, it can slip in.

A young engineer asked, he said, "We are buying crude oil from Soviet Russia and we pay them $20 for a unit of crude oil, and yet, when they sell it to the West, I recently learned that the West is paying them $10 for the same amount of the same quality crude oil. How

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