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Prague Spring. Prague Spring. Part of the invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Cold War and the Protests of 1968. Date. 5 January – 21 August 1968 (7 months, 2 weeks and 2 days) Location. Czechoslovakia. Participants. People and Government of Czechoslovakia.
- Overview
- Background and causes
- Outbreak of the Prague Spring
- Soviet invasion and the end of reform
- Aftermath
Prague Spring, brief period of economic and political liberalization in Czechoslovakia under Alexander Dubček that began in January 1968 and effectively ended on August 20, 1968, when Soviet forces invaded the country.
By the early 1960s, Antonín Novotný, Czechoslovakia’s communist leader, was facing acute economic problems after his government’s failure to improve the country’s economy. Industrial production began to fall as a result of a host of problems, among them high costs and widespread worker absenteeism. Collectivized agriculture generated less output in 1960 than in the years before World War II. In September 1964 a group of reformers within the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia forced Novotný to accept a new set of economic principles. Prominent among the reformists was economics professor Ota Šik, who argued for replacing the country’s rigid command economy with a mixed economy. Numerous changes aimed at liberalizing the economy were outlined by the “economists,” as Šik and other reformers were known, but Novotný ultimately implemented few of them, which meant that Czechoslovakia’s broader economic problems persisted.
In addition to the pressure put on him by the economists, Novotný faced new leadership in Slovakia and calls for greater Slovak autonomy. When he could not satisfy those demands, Slovak leaders turned against him, further eroding any support he still had.
However, the immediate cause of Novotný’s downfall—and, therefore, the start of the Prague Spring—was unrest in Czechoslovakia’s public and cultural spheres, particularly among students and writers. The young generation, raised under the communist regime and educated according to the Soviet model, had tired of restrictions on personal freedom and was frustrated by their country’s low standard of living. Students were restless throughout the 1960s, and the traditional student festival, the Majáles, in 1966 became a riot against Novotný’s regime. Then in 1967, dissatisfied with the conditions in their dormitories, students gathered in the streets demanding “more light.” The Communist Party felt challenged and sent in the police, who brutalized the students.
Meanwhile, since 1962 the country’s writers, despite the imposition of Socialist Realism as the official literary style, had produced some remarkable works that had escaped censorship. In 1967, at a congress of Czechoslovak writers, many rejected the standards demanded by the Communist Party. Novotný answered this rebellion with sanctions against numerous notable writers, including Jan Beneš, Ludvík Vaculík, Antonín J. Liehm, Ivan Klíma, and Jan Procházka. As a result of his repression, Novotný faced even more opposition.
During the session of the Central Committee in October 1967, Novotný clashed openly with the Slovaks. He invited the Soviets to help him regain control and eliminate his opposition, but they declined. Isolated and increasingly powerless, Novotný eventually resigned as first secretary, and in January 1968 he recommended as his successor his Slovak opponent Alexander Dubček, who was elected unanimously, albeit after the Central Committee failed to agree on the other candidates.
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Dubček became the first secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on January 5, 1968. Because he was a compromise candidate, little was expected of him, but public opinion soon gave him the opportunity to seize the role of chief reformer: the people of Czechoslovakia were turning more and more against the status quo, especially after members of the press resolved to express themselves more freely in March.
By April 1968 the reformers had gained the upper hand. On the whole the transfer of power was peaceful. Oldřich Černík became prime minister, and Šik and one of Novotný’s Slovak opponents, Gustav Husák, became vice premiers in charge of reforms in the economy and Slovakia, respectively. From March 30, Czechoslovakia also had a new president, Ludvík Svoboda, who had been minister of defense in Czechoslovakia’s first government after World War II. He had aided the communists during the 1948 coup but was himself purged in the 1950s and had lived in retirement since then. The interior ministry came under the control of another purge victim, Josef Pavel. The newly elected Presidium, the policy-making body of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, consisted largely of newcomers.
The crowning achievement of the new reformist government under Dubček was the Action Program, which was adopted by the party’s Central Committee in April 1968. The program embodied ideas developed over the preceding years; it encompassed not only economic reforms but also the democratization of Czechoslovak political life. Among its most important points were the promotion of Slovakia to full parity within a new Czechoslovak federation, long overdue industrial and agricultural reforms, a revised constitution that would guarantee civil rights and liberties, and the complete rehabilitation of all citizens whose rights had been infringed in the past.
On the evening of August 20, 1968, Soviet-led armed forces invaded Czechoslovakia. The Soviets seized Dubček, Černík, and several other leaders and secretly took them to Moscow. Meanwhile, the Czechoslovak population responded to the invasion through acts of passive resistance and improvisation (e.g., road signs were removed so that the invading troops would lose their way). Although communications and supplies were disrupted, the people of Czechoslovakia went on with their lives at the local level. Even the scheduled 14th Communist Party Congress took place on August 22; it elected a pro-Dubček Central Committee and Presidium—the very things the invasion had been timed to prevent. The National Assembly, declaring its loyalty to Dubček, continued its plenary sessions.
On August 23 Svoboda, accompanied by Husák, left for Moscow to negotiate an end to the occupation. But by August 27 the Czechoslovaks had been compelled to yield to the Soviets’ demands in an agreement known as the Moscow Protocol. Svoboda, bringing with him Dubček and the other leaders, returned to Prague to tell the population the consequences of their “socialism with a human face”: Soviet troops were going to remain in Czechoslovakia, and the country’s leaders had agreed to tighter controls over political and cultural activities.
The Soviet occupation helped the communist hard-liners, who were joined by Husák, to defeat Dubček and the reformers. The 14th Party Congress was declared invalid, as required by the Moscow Protocol; hard-liners were thus able to occupy positions of power. Czechoslovakia was proclaimed a federal republic, with two autonomous units—the Czech Lands (Bohemia and Moravia) forming the Czech Socialist Republic and Slovakia the Slovak Socialist Republic, respectively—each with national parliaments and governments. A federal arrangement was the one concession the hard-liners were ready to make, and many citizens (particularly the Slovaks) had wanted it. Nonetheless, protests against the end of the liberalization movement—such as the suicide of Jan Palach, a student who on January 16, 1969, set himself on fire—held the country’s attention.
Gradually, Dubček either dismissed his friends and allies or forced them to resign. On April 17, 1969, Husák replaced Dubček as first secretary. Dubček continued for a time as chairman (speaker) of the parliament. He then became ambassador to Turkey, but he was recalled in 1970 and stripped of his party membership. Husák and his fellow hard-liners had defeated the reformers.
Husák embarked on a process of “normalization” intended to purge Czechoslovakia of any lingering effects of the Prague Spring and to ingratiate the country with its fellow members of the Warsaw Pact, particularly the Soviet Union. He succeeded, and the Soviet Union tallied its preservation of communist rule in Czechoslovakia as a victory in the Cold War.
Under Husák, Czechoslovakia continued to experience economic problems as well as social unrest. He remained Czechoslovakia’s leader until 1989, when the Velvet Revolution swept him from power as protests against communist rule spread across eastern Europe. Milan Hauner
Mar 14, 2022 · Learn how the Soviet Union and its allies crushed the liberal reforms of the \"Prague Spring\" in Czechoslovakia in 1968. Find out why the West responded with caution and what happened later in the Cold War.
- Fred Frommer
The Prague Spring describes attempts to reform communism in Czechoslovakia during the 1960s. Czechoslovakia was a relatively young nation, formed at the end of World War I . It was invaded by the Nazis at the start of World War II, then liberated by the Soviet Red Army in 1945.
Soviet forces had invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the reform movement known as the Prague Spring. (more) However, on the evening of Aug. 20, 1968, Soviet-led armed forces invaded the country. The Soviet authorities seized Dubček, Černík, and several other leaders and secretly took them to Moscow.
Feb 9, 2010 · Learn about the Prague Spring, a brief period of liberalization in Czechoslovakia in 1968, and its suppression by the Soviet Union. Find out how the Prague Spring influenced the fall of Communism in 1989 and the return of Vaclav Havel to power.
Aug 20, 2018 · Aug. 20, 2018. Leer en español. PRAGUE — Could Soviet-style communism be reconciled with the dignity and freedom of the individual? In 1968, the question was put to the test when the leader of...
