Historical context The Octavia was designed in the latter part of the 1950s, when the worst excesses of the Stalinist form of Communism were over in both the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. To offer better insight into that period I thought it would be helpful to go back some years before the design work started. The Liberation from the Nazi occupation by the Soviet and US forces in 1945 raised the hopes of all Czechoslovakians for freedom and eventual prosperity. The Red Army liberated over three quarters of the Czechoslovakian territory and suffered heavy casualties in the process, with well over 100,000 Soviet soldiers killed in action in Czechoslovakia. Sadly, many of their losses were preventable and could have been significantly reduced by better tactics and closer co-ordination with the Czechoslovakian Resistance. Understandably, there was a great deal of goodwill towards the Russians among Czechs and Slovaks after the war. This lasted until the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 when it vanished literally overnight. The most frequently asked question by Czechoslovakians at that time was: ''We thought they were our friends.

How could they do this to us?'' For several reasons, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia enjoyed a fair amount of popular support after the Liberation and was in a good position for seizing power. The party claimed to have been the main force in the wartime Resistance, which was a highly debatable claim. Many individual Communists, mostly lower-ranking in the party hierarchy, did very well, showing courage and patriotism. Some successful Resistance groups consisted largely of Communists although many other Communists were sitting on their hands in the first critical years of the war until June 1941 when the Soviet Union was attacked. Prior to that date, the Soviet Union was an ally of Nazi Germany and Communists in occupied Europe were instructed not to take action against the Nazis. Another reason for many Czechs and Slovaks supporting the Communist Party was their disappointment with the West after the 1938 Munich crisis, when Nazi Germany was allowed to annex border areas of Czechoslovakia. The Communist Party''s declared aim to reduce inequality and give better life prospects to the working class and, in general, poorer people was also completely legitimate and fair. What many people did not realise at the time was the enormous discrepancy between the Communist Party''s words and actions.

The party later came to be described as ''Saying something and doing the opposite''. The take-over in February 1948 put in charge of the country the Communist leader Comrade Klement Gottwald. He quickly introduced a brutal dictatorship, in many ways similar to the Third Reich or Stalin''s regime. The secret police, the StB (Státní Bezpecnost, Czech for State Security Police) were watching everyone and using methods comparable to those of the Gestapo. There were political show trials with fake charges and more than 200 people were executed, with thousands more receiving long jail terms. In addition, TNP (Tábory Nucených Prací, Czech for Forced Labour Camps) were set up in October 1948. Like in the Nazi concentration camps, people who might have been opposed to the regime were ''preventively'' detained in TNP without a trial, and although the numbers of detainees remain unclear conservative estimates are between 20,000 and 30,000. The social climate in Czechoslovakia became so oppressive that we cannot begin to imagine it today.

This lasted until March 1953 when Klement Gottwald died at the age of 56, only days after Joseph Stalin, giving rise to speculation that he was disposed of by the Soviets who no longer needed him. However, such speculation is not supported by any evidence and modern historic research suggests alcoholism and syphilis as likely causes. He was replaced by Comrade Antonín Zápotocký (pronounced Zaa-po-tots-kee), who was less extreme but more dishonest. On 29 May 1953 he declared that rumours of an imminent currency reform was enemy propaganda. In fact new banknotes and coins had already been made in the Soviet Union(!) and transported to Czechoslovakia to be put into circulation on 1 June.