Year of the Prague Spring
1953
1956
1968
Much ‘disliked’ communist leader of Czechoslovakia
Imre Nagy
Alexander Dubcek
Anton Novotny
Soviet leader at the time.
Stalin
Khrushchev
Brezhnev
Czech economic ‘complaints’ about communist rule.
Economic exploitation by USSR
Shortages of basic foodstuff
Failure of communist economic policies
Unable to sell surpluses
Czech political ‘discontent’ about communist ‘rule’
Oppression by secret police (StB)
Lack of reforms in the wake of ‘DeStalinisation’
Lack of ‘free speech’
Associated with the StB (Secret Police)
Forced confessions via - torture, blackmail + use of psychoactive drugs.
Surveillance- including phone tapping + interception of private mail + house searches.
Trial by jury
Brezhnev’s ‘initial response’ to calls for reform in January 1968 (after peaceful student protests)
Replaced Novotny with Dubcek
Sent in tanks
Organised Warsaw pact manoeuvres on Czech borders
Calls of reform were known as….
Socialism with an iron fist
Socialism with a human face
The death of socialism
Associated with Dubceks’s reforms
Freedom of speech (lifting of censorship)
Leaving the Warsaw Pact
Pursuing an independent foreign policy
Democratic socialism
Legalising political parties
Reducing powers of the StB
Limited free market capitalism
The communist leadership of Poland and East Germany supported Dubcek’s reforms
The ‘invasion’…
August 20 1968
2000 troops
2000 tanks
500,000 Warsaw Pact troops (from 5 countries)
July 20 1968
Was the largest deployment of troops since WWII
How did the Czech’s respond to the invasion?
Organised anti-soviet militias
With Passive Resistance
Czech army ordered to resist the invasion
Dubcek’s fate
Arrested and flown to Moscow
Arrested and shot
Ordered to reverse the reforms
Replaced by Gustav Husak (but not until April 1969)
