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Karel Kryl and his Musicianship In February 1948 the Communists provoked a political crisis and took over the government in Prague. Under the leadership of Slovak Gustav Husak, the Communists patterned Czechoslovakia’s economy and government on those of the Soviet Union. The state took control of the country’s factories and many businesses; private property was nationalized; and farmers were forced to join collective farms in which all land and equipment were jointly owned. The government prohibited opposition to the Communist Party and the Communist Party became the only effective party in Czechoslovakia. In the 1960s party leaders and intellectuals in Slovakia and the Czech lands created a movement to reform the Communist system. The USSR feared that the reforms would threaten its influence in Czechoslovakia, and on August 21 of 1968, the Soviet military, assisted by troops from other Communist countries of Eastern Europe invaded Czechoslovakia. During the 1970s and 1980s, political opposition brought forth a powerful dissident movement called Charter 77. Nevertheless, highly oppressed opposition had only limited means of fighting the alien system. “Because music has considerable power to mobilize the sentiment and act