A speech made by Frantisek Kriegel on his expulsion from the party's Central Committee in May 1969. Kriegel attacks those Communists who committed crimes long before 1968, referring to the arrests and show trials of the 1950's, and mentions his refusal to sign the Moscow Protocol:
". . . I would further like to draw to the presidium's attention the fact that so far no one has been expelled from the Central Committee who carries responsibility for gradually surrendering dozens of our innocent people to the executioner's hands, for condemning thousands and tens of thousands to long years of torture and imprisonment on the basis of fabricated accusations, for letting many end their lives in prison without seeing the light of freedom. So far no one has been expelled from the Central Committee because of their responsibility for the protracted economic crisis of many years, which has led us to our current state -- and nothing is changed by attempts to foist the causes for this situation off on a few months of last year. . . It is known that I refused to sign the so-called Moscow Protocol. I refused it because I saw it as a document that tied the hands of our republic in every way. I refused to sign it because it took place in an atmosphere of military occupation of the republic, without consultation with constitutional organs and in contradiction with the feeling of the people of this country. . ."