Zusammenfassung der Ressource
CZECHOSLOVAKIA : THE PRAGUE SPRING
- EVENTS IN 1968
- 1. No riots or demonstrations but (1967) students
and writers complained about lack of freedom,
and the poor Czechoslovak economy.
- 2. Novotny, the Czechoslovak
president, asks Brezhnev for help
- Brezhnev does not support him
- 3. Novotny falls from power
- On 5 January 1968, Dubcek
takes over as leader of the
Communist Party (KSC).
- 4. In April 1968, Dubcek
announces an Action Plan
- A new model of
socialism
- It removed state
controls over
industry and
allowed freedom of
speech
- 5. For 4 months (the Prague Spring), there
was freedom in Czechoslovakia
- But then the revolution
began to run out of control
- Dubcek announced that he was still
committed to democratic communism
- 6. Meeting in Bratislava on 3 August 1968 -
Brezhnev read a letter from some
Czechoslovakian Communists asking for help
- He announced the Brezhnev Doctrine - the USSR would not
allow any Eastern European country to reject Communism
- When forces that are hostile to socialism try to turn the
development of some socialist country towards capitalism, it
becomes not only a problem of the country concerned, but a
common problem and concern of all socialist countries
- 7.. 20 August 1968, 500,000 Warsaw
Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia
- Dubcek and three other leaders
were arrested and sent to Moscow
- 8. The Czechoslovakians did
not fight the Russians -
instead, they stood in front of
the tanks, and put flowers in
the soldiers' hair
- Jan Palach burned himself to death in protest
- 9. Brezhnev put
in Gustav Husak,
a supporter of
Russia, as leader
of the KSC
- CAUSES
- 1. Policy of détente encouraged the uprising
- Détente : general easing of the geo-political tensions between the
Soviet Union and the United States
- - a foreign policy of U.S. presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford
as a "thawing out" or "un-freezing"
- Romania also broke free of Russian control - was improving relations with the West
- 2. Czechs hated Russian control
- Because Russian control of the economy
had made Czechoslovakia poor
- Too much censorship
and lack of freedom
- EFFECTS
- 1. Czechoslovakia returned to communist control
- Half the leadership of the KSC, along
with many directors (especially
publishing companies) were sacked
- + 47 anti-communists were arrested
- 2. Russia stayed in control behind the Iron Curtain
- Brezhnev Doctrine stated that Iron
Curtain countries would not be
allowed to abandon communism
- "even if it meant a
third world war"
- 3. Increase of the Cold War
- People in the West were
horrified and so were many
communist countries
- ie. Romania and
Yugoslavia