The Prague Spring

In 1968, the world changed. This was the year that witnessed the assassinations of both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. As the Vietnam War raged on, the world witnessed protests across the world including one in Poland against the communist government in March, student protests in France in May that led to the eventual demise of the de Gaulle government, as well as civil rights protests and disturbances across the United States. The year 1968 also witnessed a period now referred to as Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia. While it seemed like the rest of the world was witnessing terror and unrest, for a brief period of time people in Czechoslovakia experienced a loosening of restrictions imposed on them by the communist regime. However, the Prague Spring did not last. In the fall of 1968, Czechoslovakia also saw terror and unrest as the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact leaders invaded the country to bring the Prague Spring and its democratization to an end. This paper will examine the origins of Prague Spring, and its eventual demise.
Czechoslovakia had been treated unfairly in World War II. Forced by the Western allies to cede its Sudetenland border territory to Nazi Germany through the 1938 Munich Agreement, Czechoslovakia lost much of its territory. This event is known as the Western Betrayal in Czechoslovakia because the Czech president at the time, Edvard Benes, had not been invited to the signing of the Munich Agreement by the Western allies, and was forced to give up territory.1 In 1939, the rest of Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Nazis and divided into a puppet Slovakia (much of which was annexed by Hungary) and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. By the end of the war, Czechoslovakia was liberated by United States and Soviet Union forces. Most of the prewar Czechoslovakia was recreated. Following the war, there was large support for communism because of the lack of trust Czechs had for the Western allies due to the Western Betrayal. Slowly, between 1945-48, Czechoslovakia became a communist satellite state of the Soviet Union.
Shortly after Czechoslovakia became communist, the Prague Coup took place in 1948. During this time, popularity of the communists in Czechoslovakia began to loose support because of outside events happening in Eastern Europe at the time. Party members, including premiership Klement Gottwald, moved to gain more power by replacing non-communist police officers with party members. Non-communist cabinet members resigned in protest, and the party member police force took their opportunity to arrest all of their opponents. “They suppressed all non-party newspapers, placed party-members in key-positions, and surrounded Prague with armed activists supported by the Red Army. Finally the Communist Party instituted a Soviet-like constitution.”2 Benes, who was still President at this time and in failing health, resigned in 1948 and died shortly afterwards. Gottwald succeeded him as the new President of Czechoslovakia. Gottwald continued the non-communist purges and arrested thousands of people, many of whom were forced to participate in show trials, and were eventually imprisoned or executed.3
Gottwald continued following Stalin's orders, and succeeded in nationalizing the industry and collectivizing the farms. Stalin sent advisors to Czechoslovakia who helped see to it that the strict policies of the Communist state were being enforced. To his dismay, Gottwald was met with extreme resistance and discontent, especially among party members who were upset “with the Soviet stronghold on Czechoslovak politics.”4 Instead of dealing with the discontent head-on, Gottwald decided to conduct purges within the communist party itself. Both the Foreign Minister Vladimir Clementis and Prime Minister Gustáv Husák were fired from their positions. Clementis was later executed and Husak was imprisoned. During the Gottwald purges, two hundred communists were executed and thousands more were sent to concentration or labor camps, or to mines in the western part of Czechoslovakia.5 Gottwald did not last long as President of Czechoslovakia. He died in 1953, only three days after his devoted Soviet Union leader, Stalin, having caught the Moscow flu at the late Communist leader's funeral.6 Antonin Zapotocky reigned as President for four years, from 1953 – 1957. In 1957, Zapotocky was replaced by the new President Antonin Novotný.
Novotný had been the Communist Party leader since 1953, after Gottwald died. He later added President to his resume in 1957. He held both positions until 1968. Novotný was “unlikeable and unpopular, yet he became immensely powerful.”7 Novotný had consolidated power and rose to the top of the Communist party. Following the death of Stalin and Khrushchev's subsequent denunciation of Stalin three years later, the Soviet Union along with its satellite states began a process of de-Stalinization. Novotný started this program in Czechoslovakia in 1956. Although the Czech people still faced harsh government restrictions on the arts and media, it was loosened compared to what life was like under Stalin. However, Novotný's de-Stalinization program moved more slowly compared to other countries in the Soviet bloc.8
Soon Novotný began to see small uprising from the people of his country. Wanting a more free press, the Union of Czechoslovak Writers began airing their discontent. “The writers, responsive to the degeneration of the socialist ideal, soon launched an open revolt against the policies of Novotný. ...[the writers] denounced Stalinist governance and demanded changes in accordance with the country's democratic traditions.”9 The uprising was eventually suppressed and the conservatives continued to hold control over the reformers. The Union's gazette, Literarni Noviny, along with several publishing houses were transferred to the Ministry of Culture.10 On May Day 1956, students in Prague demonstrated “demanding freedom of speech and access to the Western press.”11 In reaction to these events, the Novotný government introduced a policy of Neo-Stalinism.12 With revolution in Hungary and disturbances in Poland, Novotný's Czechoslovakia remained strong in the old ways of Stalinism in the late 1950s to early 1960s, easing up very little on restrictions imposed. Novotný retained control over the country for ten years before large unrest began to take hold.
In the first half of the 1960s, Czechoslovakia experienced an economic downturn. Despite Gottwald's attempts at nationalizing the country's industry, the Soviet model did not apply well to Czechoslovakia. The country was already fairly industrialized before World War II. Gottwald and Stalin failed to see that the Soviet model most aptly applied to lesser developed economies, not ones like Czechoslovakia. In effect, the country's economy had become stagnated. Industrial growth was the lowest in all of Eastern Europe.13 The living standards in Czechoslovakia were also the lowest in the Soviet Bloc.14 In 1965, Novotný passed the New Economic Model, attempting to restructure the Czech economy. “The program called for a second, intensive stage of economic development, emphasizing technological and managerial improvements.”15 The model did little but increase demands from the people for political reform.
By 1967, the New Economic Model was a failure and Novotný had lost the majority of his support. Novotný agreed to some limited economic changes for financial stability, and even “rehabilitated” some former communists that had been victims of the Purges a few years early, Husak included. However, he refused to make any political changes in fear that the Slovak population of Czechoslovakia would gain political influence.16 His refusal to make any political concessions led to an alliance between the reformers and Slovaks. All of this came to a head when Alexander Dubček, then the First Secretary of the regional Communist Party of Slovakia, and Ota Šik, the economist who had drafted a version of the New Economic Model, challenged Novotný at the Central Committee of Czechoslovak Communist Party meeting in October, 1967. Dubček gained the support of the majority of party members along with Soviet Premier Brezhnev who, shocked at the wide-spread opposition to Novotný, supported the removal of Novotný.17 On January 5, 1968, after Novotný had Central Committee members of the Presidium vote to whom they would like to elect as First Secretary of the Communist Party, Alexander Dubček succeeded Novotný as the General Secretary of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia.18 Novotný still remained President until March when he was forced to resign and Ludvik Svoboda became President.19
The time period from January to August, 1968, in Czechoslovakia is known as the Prague Spring. Once Dubček came to power, the country experienced a time of great liberalization. Beginning in January when Dubček took power, he began promoting his Action Program that he had been pushing for since 1967.20 In April, Dubček officially launched of the Action Program. In his book The Prague Spring and its Aftermath: Czechoslovak Politics 1968 – 1970, Kieran Williams writes, “The programme [sic] built on the original assumption that power had to be redistributed throughout the system, and constrained by constitutionalism to allow the renewal of civil freedoms.”21 Williams continues, “The party's leading role in society... was reformulated: the party would no longer demand to be the sole director and decision-maker..., but would strive to earn this prominent position through example, persuasion, and compromise.”22 Among other things, the Action Program guaranteed freedoms of speech, press, and assembly, and a new constitution by the end of 1969.23 Dubček was very adamant about easing on censorship. He writes, “I knew that I needed a free press to help me open to way to basic reforms, political as well as economic.”24 There was also a shift to an emphasis on consumer goods in the economy and the possibility of a multi-party government. The program also called for the separation of Czechoslovakia into two separate nations; this is the only reform to survive the Prague Spring. “A significant step in that direction was the rerecognition [sic] of Bratislava as the capital of Slovakia by a decree of the National Assembly in March.”25 Dubček believed that economic recovery would be impossible without these reforms.26 In his autobiography Hope Dies Last, states that the Action Program was “one of the most important legacies of Prague Spring.”27
Dubček received a large amount of criticism for his new program. Communist leaders in the Warsaw Pact and Soviet Bloc were weary of the program since Dubček had first began promoting it in January. In a private meeting with Soviet Premier Brezhnev and other Warsaw Pact leaders, Dubček wrote that he “tried to reassure them, pointing out that nothing [his] supporters and [he] planned was in any way directed against the interests of the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact, or economic cooperation within the Soviet bloc.”28 Apparently, Dubček's call for understanding did not sit well with the other Warsaw Pact leaders. Over the next few months, Dubček continually met with Brezhnev and the other leaders in order to pacify them. This effort on Dubček's part payed off little. Brezhnev and the Warsaw Pact leaders called for a renunciation of the Action Program by Dubček, fearing that the program would weaken the Communist bloc during the pivotal time of the Cold War. However, dedicated to creating “socialism with a face,” Dubček continually refused to concede to their demands.
In March, Brezhnev called Dubček and informed him of a meeting in Dresden with all the Soviet bloc countries. Dubček agreed to the conference, being told that the discussions would revolve around “economic cooperation within the bloc.”29 However, once the meeting began, it became clear that the topic of the agenda was not economic cooperation, but the situation in Czechoslovakia. Most of their criticisms against Dubček dealt with the abolishment of censorship in his country. As Dubček writes in his autobiography, “With varying intensity, they [Brezhnev and the Warsaw Pact leaders] attacked us [Dubček and the Czechs] for 'losing control' over our situation and permitting a diversity of opinion that, in their view, bordered on 'counterrevolution.' Mixed in were the usual references to 'outside threats to the socialist camp.'”30 Dubček reiterated that because they had abolished censorship, the government was not able to control the content of the newspapers. Moreover, the abolishment of censorship was an internal affair and did not effect, Dubček believed, the whole of the Soviet bloc.31 Dubček continues, “The conference ended in a cool mood. There were no conclusions, no joint declaration, only a very formal final communiqué [sic]. We disagreed completely.”32 Once home, Dubček continued the reforms of the Action Program and the Warsaw Pact leaders continued to worry about the situation that was developing. Unfortunately for Dubček, the Dresden meeting was one of many to follow during the Prague Spring.
Over the next few months, relations between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union continued to break down. In May, Dubček went to Moscow for another meeting with the Warsaw Pact leaders. Again, Brezhnev restated “that the Czechoslovak Party was losing control over mass communications and that [the Czechoslovak] economic reform could lead to a restoration of capitalism.”33 Dubček, in his rebuttal, replied that the Party “was not losing its leading role but [they] were gaining more support than ever before—from all segments of society and all nationalities. ...Moreover, the press was, in the main, supportive of [their] policy...”34 It seemed as though no matter what each said, both parties refused to move from their side of the argument. This meeting in Moscow is yet another example from the many phone calls, letters, and meetings between Dubček and Brezhnev that continued to end in a stalemate.
In July, The Five, Brezhnev and his fellow Warsaw Pact leaders, met secretly to discuss the Czechoslovakian crisis. In the now famous Warsaw Letter, the leaders wrote Dubček saying that the Czechoslovak Party had “lost control of events in Czechoslovakia” and had retreated “under the pressure of anti-communist forces.”35 The letter urged the Czechoslovak Party to “move immediately to reimpose censorship, restore 'democratic centralism' within the party, dismiss reform-minded officials, and prohibit all non-communist political clubs and organizations.”36 In the end, the Warsaw Letter amounted to an ultimatum: The Five asserted both a right and a duty “for the Soviet Union and its allies to intervene in 'defense of socialist gains.'”37 In response to the Warsaw Letter, Dubček and his Presidium wrote back refuting all the charges made in the infamous letter. As editor Jaromír Navrátil writes, the response letter “invokes the Soviet Union's own rhetoric about the 'sacred' principles of relations among socialist countries, especially the principle of non-interference in internal affairs.”38 Dubček called for more bilateral meetings to help them conquer their serious disagreements. According to Navrátil, the Soviets interpreted Dubček's response letter as a sign that the Czechs “had no intention of complying with Moscow's demands.”39
Following the publishing of both the Warsaw Letter and Dubček's reply, Brezhnev and Dubček agreed to another meeting to discuss negotiations regarding the Action Program in Čierna nad Tisou, an area near the Slovak-Soviet border on July 29th. Here, Dubček once again defended his Action Program to Brezhnev. Dubček guaranteed his commitment to the Warsaw Pact. Dubček writes, “The two sides disagreed as completely before. Brezhnev and I simply restated our opinions.”40 In a meeting several days later on August 3rd in Bratislava, the Powers adopted a new document that did not include anything mentioned in the Warsaw Letter. In fact, one author writes, that the “ambiguous document...was a complete reversal of the Warsaw Letter.”41 The declaration that was signed by the six Warsaw Pact leaders stated that “'each fraternal party' must 'take account of specific national features and conditions' when 'deciding questions of socialist development.' It also obliged the signatories to respect one another's 'sovereignty, national independence, and territorial integrity.'”42 Once back in Prague, Dubček assured his people that they did not sign any secret agreements, and that the declaration “opened further necessary space for [the Prague Spring] reforms.”43 The declaration was signed by representatives from Czechoslovakia, along with other Warsaw Pact members including the Soviet Union, East Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria. In the declaration, the Soviet Union again made clear its intentions of intervening in a Warsaw Pact country if a “bourgeois system” was ever established.44 Here, the communist forces were ensuring the use of the Brezhnev Doctrine. After the signing of the document, Soviet troops that had been in Czechoslovakia since June for a military exercise left the country but remained near its border and eventually invaded the reform-minded Czechoslovakia once again only a few weeks later.
The Bratislava Declaration marked the beginning of the end for Dubček. As Dubček writes, “The period between the Bratislava conference and the invasion brought no changes in our internal situation that could be construed as provocation for what happened. There was a general relaxation of tension, a feeling of hope that we had finally been left alone.”45 As time would tell, the Czechs and Slovaks were not to be left alone. Three short weeks after the Bratislava Declaration was signed, the Soviet Union and the other Warsaw Pact leaders invaded Czechoslovakia to bring Prague Spring to an end.
“During the night of 20-1 August, under the code-name Operation Danube, an invasion coalition led by the Soviet Union moved 165,000 soldiers and 4,600 tanks into Czechoslovakia from Southern Poland, the GDR, and Northern Hungary. Within a week, after further contingents arrived, approximately half a million foreign solders and more than 6,000 tanks were roaming over Czechoslovak territory.”46 Although absolute reasons as to why the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia are debated by historians still today, it is evident that Brezhnev and the Warsaw Pact leaders did invoked the Brezhnev Doctrine as a reason to invade the country. In his autobiography, Dubček states that The Five had made their decision to invade on August 18th, after a three day conference. He contends that the Five used confusion over the Bratislava Declaration in order to invade. He writes,
“Brezhnev stated that in Cierna 'it had been agreed' that the Czechoslovak Communist Party would reinstitute [sic] censorship and outlaw KAN and K-231, the organization of former political prisoners. He further said that 'it had been agreed' that we would demote Presidium member[s]... Brezhnev added that this 'agreement' had been the basis of the Bratislava conference. All that, of course, was the most blatant of lies. The Soviets had presented these demands, but we had rejected them all decisively, and the only agreement we then reached was about going to Bratislava. Nothing else.”47

Clearly, Brezhnev hoped to use these lies to give founding to the invasion. In the actual resolution to invade set forth by the Soviets and the Warsaw Pact leaders, the language is much different when compared to Dubček's account. The resolution made by the Five states that the final decision was made to adopt “active measures in support of socialism in the ČSSR” and to “provide help to the Communist Party and people of Czechoslovakia through military force.”48 Others write that the invasion “was intended to install a more reliable regime in Prague, intimidate the 'counter-revolutionary' forces into submission, and signal to the world that the Soviet Union would only enter détente from a position of strength, with its sphere of influence unassailable and united.”49 Whatever the reason, clearly the Soviet Union hoped to end to Prague Spring and bring Czechoslovakia back in line with the communist regime.
As the day of August 20th developed, Dubček started the day as normal, attending a Presidium meeting in the afternoon. The meetings continued throughout the evening. No one knew that the Soviets and the Warsaw Pact leaders were gaining ground and getting ready to invade the country. Dubček writes, “The atmosphere was electric with fresh rumors about Soviet military moves close to our borders, especially in East Germany.”50 Dubček said that he had not paid attention to the rumors though, thinking that they were just an intimidation tactic by the Warsaw Pact. He continues, “But shortly before midnight, Prime Minister Cernik was called to the telephone and told by Defense Minister General Dzur that the Soviets and four of their allies had invaded. ...Cernik's news was like a bombshell.”51
After the initial shock wore off, Dubček and other members of the Presidium sat down and wrote a public statement about the invasion. In the letter, the Presidium encouraged all citizens to stay calm and to not resist the military forces that had moved in. The letter made clear that the Czech army and militia had not been called on to defend the country.52 Meanwhile, the Soviets had taken over Ruzyne, the Prague airport, and were landing planes frequently, bringing in more tanks, armored vehicles, and troops.
Around 4:00 A.M., Red Army air infantry men (paratroopers) with automatic rifles in hand, had surrounded the Central Committee building, where Dubček and others were. Within a few hours time, Dubček and others in his office were contained by eight paratroopers and were told they were being protected by a high officer of the KGB. Dubček writes, “Indeed we were protected, sitting around that table—each of us had a tommy gun pointed at the back of his head.”53 Within the next few hours, Dubček was officially arrested and told that he would be brought before a “revolutionary tribunal.”54 Dubček was soon taken to the airport and transported to Legnica, Poland. He was then transferred to another airport in Uzhgorod, Ukraine, near the eastern border of Slovakia. From there, Dubček and Prime Minister Cernik, whom Dubček had been reunited with at the Ukraine airport, were taken to “a complex of mountain chalets.”55 There they were held kidnapped for several days.
On Friday, August 23, Dubček was taken to the office of the regional Soviet Party committee, where he was informed by Chairman of the Presidium of the Soviet Union that he would be taken to Moscow for negotiations. Dubček arrived at the Kremlin late Friday night. There, he was rushed into a meeting with Brezhnev and three members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Central Committee Politburo: Kosygin, Podgorny, and Voronov.56 As Navrátil writes, “The meeting...lasted over three hours during which they attempted to coerce Dubček to cooperate in publicly justifying the invasion, reversing Prague Spring, and 'normalizing' the situation.”57 Dubček refused to yield to their demands, and stated that he thought that “what happened—the use of troops—was the greatest political mistake and one that will [sic] have tragic consequences...”58
After the meeting ended, Dubček learned that the Soviets demanded that they sign documents “constituting an agreement of sorts on how to solve the impasse, and a list of obligations, presumed mutual.”59 Dubček refused to “take part in such a charade.” He and the other ministers of Czechoslovakia that were present, including President Svoboda, had no constitutional authority to agree to an accord with the Soviets without the approval of the government and parliament. Others, including Svoboda, disagreed, saying that an “extraordinary situation justified such extralegal steps.”60 Dubček refused to partake in any negotiations with the Soviets until his entire Party leadership be brought to Moscow so that they could “act in an official capacity.”61 Brezhnev agreed and soon the rest of the staff were flown in to Moscow. Dubček was finally updated on the status of events in Czechoslovakia, having not been told anything since his kidnapping. He learned that “practically all existing political and professional organizations” supported the reforms of Prague Spring, demanded a withdraw of troops, and supported the safe return of the Czechoslovak leadership.62 There was also international support from Western Communist parties and the United States who had brought before the Security Council of the United Nations the issue of Soviet aggression in Czechoslovakia. However, this amounted to little but vocal support for Czechoslovakia because the Western allies feared nuclear war with the Soviet Union if they were to intervene in any physical way.
Once up to date with matters on the home-front, Dubček's men (minus Dubček who still refused to participate directly in the negotiations) began talks with the Soviets. The Soviets first drafted a proposal which they presented to the Czechoslovak leadership. In their draft, the Soviets called for Czechoslovak Communist Party (CPCz) to “legitimize the aggression” by having them concede that the invasion was “necessary” and that there had been a “counterrevolution” in the country. The Soviets also had other demands: the CPCz had to “admit the validity of the admonitions in the Warsaw Letter and [their] error in refuting them;” to end the reforms that embodied the Action Program; to “declare void and invalid the Fourteenth Party Congress” (which had met secretly in Prague after the invasion); and finally, the Soviets “demanded that [the CPCz] ask the U.N. Security Council to withdraw from its agenda the question of Warsaw Pact aggression against Czechoslovakia.”63 The Czechs countered the Soviets with their own proposal. Dubček writes, “It repeated our refusal to recognize the existence of counterrevolution in Czechoslovakia, it firmly defended the Action Program, it characterized the invasion as a 'tragic misunderstanding'...and it demanded a Soviet commitment to withdraw their troops.”64 As to be expected, the Soviets answered with “arrogance and threats, flatly refusing practically all of [the] main points.”65 After several revisions, a heated debate between Brezhnev and Dubček, and concessions made on both sides, the Czech leadership was forced to sign the Moscow Protocol on August 26, after the Warsaw Five made it clear that they “would establish a full-fledged military dictatorship in Czechoslovakia” if they refused to sign.66
The Moscow Protocol effectively ended Prague Spring and ushered in a normalization period in Czechoslovakia. In the document, the Czechs gained some concessions that they had fought for during the negotiations. These included no longer coining the events leading up to the invasion as “counterrevolutionary,” bypassing any mention of the Warsaw Letter, and no call for a return to the status quo as it were before January, 1968. However, the Soviets made clear their demands in the Protocol: nullify the Fourteenth Congress, put an emphasis to central economic planning, ban political groups KAN and K-231, as well as the re-emergence of the Social Democratic Party, re-institute censorship, and dismiss reformist officials, among other things. Lastly, the document provided “no timetable for the withdrawal of Soviet and allied troops from Czechoslovakia; instead, it merely specified that withdrawals would 'occur in stages' once 'the threat to the gains of socialism in Czechoslovakia and the threat to the security of the countries of the socialist commonwealth have been eliminated.'”67
With the signing of the Moscow Protocol, Prague Spring came to an end. Much to the credit of Dubček and his fellow Presidium members urging the Czech people to resist nonviolently, the Soviet invasion had caused minimal casualties.“By 3 September the invading soldiers had killed 72 civilians, severely wounded 266, and lightly wounded 436.”68 Given the high amount of troops that participated in the invasion, the number of casualties is quite low. With the return of the Czech leadership to Prague on August 27th, a period of normalization in the country slowly began. In April, 1969, Dubček was forced to resign as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia after the mass Czechoslovak Hockey riots in March.69 Dubček was succeeded by Gustáv Husák. Husák ushered in the normalization period, undoing much of the work Dubček had fought so hard to achieve. Many of the reforms that the people had been granted through the Action Program were slowly overturned (including censorship being re-established) and Czechoslovakia began on its new course as a committed member of the Soviet bloc. Husák was eventually elected as President of Czechoslovakia in 1975.
During Prague Spring, the Czechoslovak people experienced a great period of liberalization in 1968. Prague Spring made Dubček the politician that he was. Or perhaps, Dubček made Prague Spring the great success that it became. Either way, Dubček was a reformer and a revolutionary. Unfortunately for him, his ideas were twenty years ahead of its time. In 1987, Soviet leader Gorbachev recognized that his policies of Glasnost and Perestroika owed a great deal to Dubček's Prague Spring reforms.70 With the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the communist government in Czechoslovakia finally came to an end. Prague Spring paved the way for the revolution to occur, and should be remembered in history for the important influence it had on the Communist regime during the Cold War.