Šik's reforms were launched in 1967, before Dubček came to power, but were heavily watered down by party "apparatchiks" who worried about losing control of the factories. The only palpable, and certainly the most popular, result of the reforms was the appearance of private taxis on the streets of Prague. In December 1967, at a party meeting that was a precursor to Dubček's rise to power a month later, Šik publicly denounced Novotný's regime. He demanded a fundamental change to the Communist system and a new leadership, two decades before Mikhail Gorbachev he announced that economic reform could not be separated from fundamental political change. By this point Czechoslovakia had the lowest growth rates in the Soviet bloc, whereas previously it had been the economic backbone of the Habsburg empire.