Alexander Dubček (; 27 November 1921 – 7 November 1992) was a
Slovak statesman who served as the First Secretary of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia ( Czech and Slovak: ''Komunistická strana Československa'', KSČ) was a communist and Marxist–Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992. It was a member of the Com ...
(KSČ) (''
de facto'' leader of
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...
) from January 1968 to April 1969 and as Chairman of the Federal Assembly from 1989 to 1992 following the
Velvet Revolution
The Velvet Revolution () or Gentle Revolution () was a non-violent transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from 17 November to 28 November 1989. Popular demonstrations against the one-party government of the Communist Pa ...
. He oversaw significant reforms to the
communist system during a period that became known as the
Prague Spring
The Prague Spring (; ) was a period of liberalization, political liberalization and mass protest in
the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected Secretary (title), First Secre ...
, but his reforms were reversed and he was eventually sidelined following the
Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968.
Best known by the slogan, "
Socialism with a human face
Socialism with a human face (, ) was a slogan referring to the reformist and democratic socialist programme of Alexander Dubček and his colleagues, agreed at the Presidium of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in April 1968, after he became ...
", Dubček led a process that accelerated cultural and
economic liberalization
Economic liberalization, or economic liberalisation, is the lessening of government regulations and restrictions in an economy in exchange for greater participation by private entities. In politics, the doctrine is associated with classical liber ...
in Czechoslovakia. Reforms were opposed by conservatives inside the party who benefited from the Stalinist economy, as well as interests in the neighbouring Soviet-bloc who feared contagion, western subversion, strategic vulnerability, and loss of institutional power. For reasons of institutional interests in the Soviet Union such as those of the military and KGB, false reports, and the growing concern among the Soviet leadership that Dubček was no longer able to maintain control of the country, Czechoslovakia was
invaded by half a million Soviet-led
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP), formally the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance (TFCMA), was a Collective security#Collective defense, collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Polish People's Republic, Poland, between the Sovi ...
troops on the night of 20–21 August 1968. This was intended to enable a coup by conservative forces. That coup, however, could not materialize due to lack of a viable pro-Soviet replacement leadership and the unexpected extraordinary popularity of Dubček and the reformist leadership. Soviet intervention ushered in a period of maneuver between conservatives and reformers where conservatives relied on Soviet influence to shift the balance of power, reversing reforms of the Prague Spring.
Dubček was forced to resign as party head in April 1969, succeeded by
Gustáv Husák
Gustáv Husák ( , ; ; 10 January 1913 – 18 November 1991) was a Czechoslovak politician who served as the long-time First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1969 to 1987 and the President of Czechoslovakia from 1975 ...
, a former reformer and victim of Stalinism who was ambiguously favored by Moscow. This signaled the end of the Prague Spring and the beginning of
normalization
Normalization or normalisation refers to a process that makes something more normal or regular. Science
* Normalization process theory, a sociological theory of the implementation of new technologies or innovations
* Normalization model, used in ...
. Dubček was expelled from the Communist Party in 1970, amid a purge that eventually expelled almost two-thirds of the 1968 party membership. This mostly purged the younger generation of post-Stalin communists that he represented along with many of the most competent technical experts and managers.
During the
Velvet Revolution
The Velvet Revolution () or Gentle Revolution () was a non-violent transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from 17 November to 28 November 1989. Popular demonstrations against the one-party government of the Communist Pa ...
in 1989, Dubček served as the Chairman of the
federal Czechoslovak parliament and contended for the presidency with
Václav Havel
Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and dissident. Havel served as the last List of presidents of Czechoslovakia, president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until 1992, prior to the dissol ...
. The
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...
awarded Dubček the
Sakharov Prize the same year.
In the interim between the Prague Spring and the Velvet Revolution, Dubček withdrew from high politics but served as a leading inspiration and symbolic leader for
Eurocommunism, maintaining intermittent contact with European communist reformers, especially in Italy and the Soviet Union. Also in 1989, just before his death,
Andrei Sakharov
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov (; 21 May 192114 December 1989) was a Soviet Physics, physicist and a List of Nobel Peace Prize laureates, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, which he was awarded in 1975 for emphasizing human rights around the world.
Alt ...
wrote, "I am convinced that the 'breath of freedom' which the Czechs and the Slovaks enjoyed when Dubček was their leader was a prologue to the peaceful revolutions now taking place in eastern Europe and Czechoslovakia itself." Sakharov credited Dubček and the Prague Spring as his inspiration.
At the time of his death in an automobile crash in 1992, Dubček remained an important political figure. Many saw him as the destined future president of newly-formed Slovakia.
Early life
Since 1989, many historians and scholars have paraphrased
Gennadi Gerasimov, a spokesman for
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
, when asked the difference between what Gorbachev and Dubček had done. He said it was 19 years.
Many have questioned this since that time, better seeing nuance and particularities beyond cold war narratives. In fact, despite both future leaders profoundly questioning
Stalinism
Stalinism (, ) is the Totalitarianism, totalitarian means of governing and Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union (USSR) from History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953), 1927 to 1953 by dictator Jose ...
at the time of
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...
'secret speech' in 1956, Dubček had a family, upbringing, and early education very different from the conventional communist party training that many assume him to have, as well as fundamentally different education than both Gorbachev and
Velvet Revolution
The Velvet Revolution () or Gentle Revolution () was a non-violent transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from 17 November to 28 November 1989. Popular demonstrations against the one-party government of the Communist Pa ...
leader
Václav Havel
Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and dissident. Havel served as the last List of presidents of Czechoslovakia, president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until 1992, prior to the dissol ...
.
As Ivan Laluha points out, his thinking was shaped by his upbringing by unconventional parents, and personal experience of, and longtime associations with, utopian and international experiments and members that emphasized a consensus-style of leadership.
Alexander Dubček was born in
Uhrovec,
Slovakia
Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...
(then part of Czechoslovakia), on 27 November 1921. When he was three years old, the family moved to the Soviet Union. He spent most of his childhood living on what some have called a commune in Kyrgyzstan. The settlement was in Pishpek (now
Bishkek
Bishkek, formerly known as Pishpek (until 1926), and then Frunze (1926–1991), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Kyrgyzstan. Bishkek is also the administrative centre of the Chüy Region. Bishkek is situated near the Kazakhstan ...
), in the
Kirghiz SSR of the
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
, now the independent state of
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan, officially the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia lying in the Tian Shan and Pamir Mountains, Pamir mountain ranges. Bishkek is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Kyrgyzstan, largest city. Kyrgyz ...
. It was a utopian
Esperantist
An Esperantist () is a person who speaks, reads or writes Esperanto. According to the Declaration of Boulogne, a document agreed upon at the first World Esperanto Congress in 1905, an Esperantist is someone who speaks Esperanto and uses it for ...
and
Idist industrial cooperative,
Interhelpo. Pavol Dubček, Alexander's son, described what his grandfather's family found as, "there was nothing there but an old barracks", after the family had come promised job opportunities and a good life. He said many of the first generation of immigrant children suffered typhus. Despite this, Pavol said it was "impossible" to go back at that time.
In 1933 the family moved to the Central Russian city of
Gorky, now Nizhny Novgorod. Alexander was then 12.
In 1938, due to general orders by Stalin, they would have had to renounce their Czechoslovak citizenship in order to stay. With the same loyalty to their place of birth that Alexander would show for the rest of his life, the family returned to Czechoslovakia. At 17 years old, Alexander joined the then-illegal
Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS),
[B. Wasserstein, ''Barbarism & Civilization'' (Oxford 2007) p. 598] working to organize resistance at his workplace. It was here, as a factory worker in
Dubnica nad Váhom, where he learned his first trade.
He worked together with his brother, Július, and with his childhood friend, Anna Borsekova.
They fought against the wartime pro-German
Slovak state
Slovak may refer to:
* Something from, related to, or belonging to Slovakia (''Slovenská republika'')
* Slovaks, a Western Slavic ethnic group
* Slovak language, an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages
* Slovak, Arkan ...
headed by
Jozef Tiso
Jozef Gašpar Tiso (, ; 13 October 1887 – 18 April 1947) was a Slovaks, Slovak politician and Catholic priest who served as president of the Slovak Republic (1939–1945), First Slovak Republic, a client state of Nazi Germany during World War ...
. In August 1944 Dubček and his brother were ordered to join the partisans. They were members of the
Jan Žižka partisan brigade during the
Slovak National Uprising
Slovak National Uprising ( Slovak: ''Slovenské národné povstanie'', abbreviated SNP; alternatively also ''Povstanie roku 1944'', English: ''The Uprising of 1944'') was organised by the Slovak resistance during the Second World War, directed ag ...
. His brother died in the uprising.
The second and last time Alexander was wounded, he was sent to the Peterov family in
Velčice to recover with Anna's help. Because of his participation in the uprising, this would be a bad mark against him during the Stalinist period, after authorities began amalgamating the activities of partisans in the uprisings with members of the wartime regime and other non-communist elements.
Dubček's father, Štefan, had been a member of the party since 1921. Upon his return he became active in it once again. Štefan was responsible for printing the party papers, forged and official documents, as well as producing other left-wing publications.
During this time, the activities of Alexander and his family relied more on working through personal networks rather than party cells.
The entire family was involved, shifting from one place to the next, eventually moving to Velčice. After the arrest of much of the KSS leadership in 1942, Štefan and the Dubčeks worked with another former Interhelpo member, primarily organizing communist youth. Alexander was arrested himself in July, but not before having significant impact and authority. After Štefan was arrested, Štefan was sent to prison and eventually to
Mauthausen concentration camp
Mauthausen was a German Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen, Upper Austria, Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with List of subcamps of Mauthausen, nearly 100 f ...
, which he survived in part because he was there a short time.
[D. Viney, 'Alexander Dubcek', ''Studies in Comparative Communism'' 1 (1968) pp. 19–20]
Dubček married childhood friend, Anna Dubčeková (née Borseková), in September, 1945. They started a home in
Trenčín
Trenčín (, also known by other #Names and etymology, alternative names) is a List of towns in Slovakia, city in western Slovakia of the central Váh River valley near the Czech Republic, Czech border, around from Bratislava. It has a populati ...
.
Dubček began his studies at
Comenius University in
Bratislava
Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...
,
but he would return to the Soviet Union in 1955 to attend the University of Politics in Moscow, where he graduated in 1958 before he returned home. While in Moscow, Dubček's Russian friends learned of Khrushchev's
'secret speech' denouncing Stalin in 1956. It would be a couple of months before they would tell him about it. The speech had been an answer to stories circulating of those who had begun returning from false imprisonment in the
gulag
The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...
. As much as Dubček was disturbed by the news of what Stalin had done, he also admired Khrushchev for making the speech over the opposition of most of the leadership, who were themselves involved.
Education and early political career
In 1948, the party he had joined was reorganized as the Slovak branch of the
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia ( Czech and Slovak: ''Komunistická strana Československa'', KSČ) was a communist and Marxist–Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992. It was a member of the Com ...
(KSČ). Though still outside of the higher circles, Dubček's generation represented the young idealistic rank-and-file of the party that took power in 1948, not a break from it.
It was Stalinism that represented the discontinuity. It was this pre-Stalinist generation that originally seized power, allied with the younger generation of party members, who began to question the path taken by their leadership elders as they began to rise in the ranks during the 1950s and early 1960s.
The Slovak branch of the party emerged from the war with a smaller membership base and less connection with Slovak institutions than the Czech branches had. To recruit a mass party base for electoral politics, the party's leadership, which was over 60 years old on average, appealed to a broad segment of less ideologically motivated younger people, giving the party a more pragmatic and less orthodox culture. In contrast to the Czech branch of the party, family, regional identity, religious, professional, and inter-personal relationships formed the glue of the Slovak branch of the party. A socially idealistic Dubček, with no rigid ideological destination in mind, rose amid these ranks.
In 1948, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia took power. In June, 1949, still in Trenčín, Dubček was promoted from his minor party duties at his workplace to administrative secretary of the OV KSS. He rose through the party ranks as a party functionary, first in Trenčín, then being transferred to Bratislava, and then to
Banská Bystrica
Banská Bystrica (, also known by other #Etymology, alternative names) is a city in central Slovakia, located on the Hron River in a long and wide valley encircled by the mountain chains of the Low Tatras, the Greater Fatra, Veľká Fatra, and t ...
, while he pursued further education and training. He left for the Soviet Union in 1955, but returned in 1958 after completing his university education there. Shortly after returning from Moscow, in September 1958 he was appointed head secretary of the West Slovak Regional Committee of the KSS, and then transferred to Prague in 1960. There, as Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Czech Republic for Industry,
Dubček became intensely involved in the work of rehabilitation commissions (especially Drahomir Kolder's and Barnabit's, 1962–1963). Learning of the mechanisms of repression, Dubček would call this a watershed in his thinking that would dedicate him to reforms.
From 1960 to 1968, he also participated in the National Assembly.
In 1963, a power struggle in the leadership of the Slovak branch unseated
Karol Bacílek and Pavol David, hard-line allies of
Antonín Novotný
Antonín Josef Novotný (; 10 December 1904 – 28 January 1975) was a Czechoslovak politician who served as the President of Czechoslovakia from 1957 to 1968, and as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1953 to 1968. ...
, First Secretary of the KSČ and President of Czechoslovakia.
Bacílek was removed in response to the findings of the rehabilitation commissions, due to his role in crimes as Interior Minister in the 1950s.
In their place, a new generation of Slovak Communists took control of party and state organs in Slovakia, led by Dubček, who became First Secretary of the Slovak branch of the party.
Along with that title, Dubček became a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the KSČ.
Shortly after Dubček took his new position as head of the Slovak party in 1963, he personally oversaw complete rehabilitation of those earlier convicted of being Slovak "bourgeois nationalists". He promoted the return of historic cultural personalities to popular awareness within Slovak society.
This took the form of celebrations and commemorations, such as the 150th birthdays of 19th century leaders of the Slovak National Revival
Ľudovít Štúr
Ľudovít Štúr (; 28 October 1815 – 12 January 1856), also known as Ľudovít Velislav Štúr, was a Slovak revolutionary, politician, and writer. As a leader of the Slovak nationalism, Slovak national revival in the 19th century and the c ...
and
Jozef Miloslav Hurban
Jozef Miloslav Hurban (; pseudonyms ''Slavomil F. Kořennatý, Ľudovít Pavlovič, M. z Bohuslavíc, M. Selovský'', 19 March 1817 – 21 February 1888) was a leader of the Slovak National Council (1848-1849), Slovak National Council and the ...
, the centenary of the
Matica slovenská in 1963, and the twentieth anniversary of the Slovak National Uprising Dubček himself had taken part in. Even before this reformist take-over, the political and intellectual climate in Slovakia had been freer than that in the
Czech lands
The Czech lands or the Bohemian lands (, ) is a historical-geographical term which denotes the three historical regions of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia out of which Czechoslovakia, and later the Czech Republic and Slovakia, were formed. ...
.
Meanwhile, cultural weeklies such as ''Literarni Novinv'', ''Kultúrny život,'', and ''Kulturni Tvorba'' saw greatly expanded readership. Like many of the Slovak culture institutions, these publications were, however, engaged in a mostly indirect confrontation with the center, such as obvious ironic overstating of the party line. Political conflicts were commonly negotiated. This was complicated by exceptions, such as ''Kultúrny život,'' the weekly newspaper of the Union of Slovak Writers, which authorities considered politically unreliable. Such direct confrontations were spreading. In 1967, Vaclav Havel's play ''
The Memorandum'' and
Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera ( ; ; 1 April 1929 – 11 July 2023) was a Czech and French novelist. Kundera went into exile in France in 1975, acquiring citizenship in 1981. His Czechoslovak citizenship was revoked in 1979, but he was granted Czech citizenship ...
's novel ''
The Joke'', were seen by many writers as the beginnings of open rebellion.
Prague Spring
The Czechoslovak economy began to plateau in the early 1960s. The one-size-fits-all model of economic planning, better suited to the pre-industrialized Soviet Union of the 1930s, resulted in over-investment in heavy industry at the expense of light industry and consumer goods. Quantity was maximized regardless of costs, leading to poor quality and prices that were twice that of world prices. Along with other economists,
Ota Šik condemned the existing system of management as one that made further development impossible. Though production continued to grow, albeit slowly, in 1964 income began to fall. This forced then-president
Antonín Novotný
Antonín Josef Novotný (; 10 December 1904 – 28 January 1975) was a Czechoslovak politician who served as the President of Czechoslovakia from 1957 to 1968, and as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1953 to 1968. ...
to begin making limited concessions to liberalize the strictly planned economy. This included allowing greater freedom to companies in setting prices and wages.
Though the source of the immediate crisis was the now-pressing economic effects, Dubček's generation had spent the early 1960s engaged in travel, research, and study heavily supported by academia, the state, and the party. Their body of research and experience convinced the reformers that their self-isolated country had not simply reached a growth impasse but had fallen behind the rest of the world due to a generation of stagnation in all spheres of life.
Reforms only touched some sectors, and reforms were slow, which the regime tried to make up with increased imports. Liberalizing the centralized economy threatened those in the party bureaucracy who administered the old system, resulting in their sabotage and slowing of what reforms were voted. The cultural sphere liberalized the most completely and rapidly, but the economy and national autonomy remained heavily centralized.
Cultural intellectuals were able to achieve more, and gain greater leverage among the reformists because of a combination of a greater ability to connect with the public and a peculiarity of the system. Writers and publishers benefited from the autonomous profitability of the sectors they controlled, giving them fundamentally different interests than those tied to heavy industry or other sectors, who lacked financial independence.
[Perina, Rudolf Vilem. "Intellectuals and Political Change in Czechoslovakia: A History of Literarni Noviny and its Contributors, 1952-1969." Ph.D diss., Columbia University, 1977.]
The technocratic economic reformers, such as
Radoslav Selucký, who denounced the "cult of the plan", were only slightly less ideologically threatening.
In many ways they were just as dangerous to the interests of conservatives in the party, but they lacked the political leverage of the moral economists who bridged the gap with the writers and intellectuals. Ota Šik relied on an interdisciplinary approach and method. Writers and cultural intellectuals began to see themselves as holding the balance of power between the entrenched apparatus and reformers, which for many explains their enthusiasm for joining the party in disproportionate numbers, where their growing power could be expressed.
Regardless, the economic reforms touched on both the nationalities and the political question. Reforming how the economy operated was tied to how the party operated, and thinking evolved to recognize the need for a diversity of interests to be represented.
Cultural reform touched on economic reform, as the educated groups saw one of the principle resources the economy neglected was talent. Technical advance required abilities that were neither promoted nor respected among the conservatives, such as Novotný, who were mostly poorly educated and often lacked fundamental competency at their jobs. They did not call, however, for capitalism and class difference but democratic compensation for additional time and expense necessary for their education.
In May 1967, speaking before the Plenum of the Communist Party of Slovakia, Dubček represented this rising conviction among his generation that rejected the dictatorship of a single class of workers or party officials. Instead, he appealed to a universal all-inclusive human principle that had as much in common with sociology as Marxist–Leninism, in origins, practice, and aims, while still embracing both.
In September, 1967, Novotný's conservatives began to impose strict censorship on films and other culture products, institutions, and culture workers. This did not quiet opposition but only further provoked it. What followed was an unprecedented mobilization of solidarity among culture workers in both Czech and Slovak lands.
Following his presentation of grievances the month before, in October 1967 Dubček and
Ota Šik challenged First Secretary Novotný's leadership style at a Central Committee meeting. Dubček said he acted like a dictator.
Faced with lack of support at the central and local level of the party and large public demonstrations the last day of October that were badly mishandled, provoking further opposition, Novotný secretly invited Soviet leader
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (19 December 190610 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until Death and state funeral of Leonid Brezhnev, his death in 1982 as w ...
to visit to Prague in December 1967. He had hoped to shore up his own position.
In Prague, Brezhnev was stunned to learn of the extent of the opposition to Novotný. He decided not to interfere.
[D. Viney, "Alexander Dubcek", ''Studies in Comparative Communism'' 1 (1968) p. 26] Brezhnev was generally supportive of Novotny, but said he was not there to solve their problems. He was there to help restore party unity, while the KSC Presidium was deadlocked 5-5. In January, 1968, the questions of leadership and reform were turned over to the Czechoslovak Party Central Committee. They voted no confidence in Novotný by splitting the functions of the president and party leader. He remained president but was replaced by Dubček as First Secretary. Novotný resisted, attempting to mobilize elements of the army to prevent his loss of power. Ironically, investigation into this led to Novotný being completely removed from office a few months later. Investigations by officials and a newly freed media of his chief accomplice, General
Jan Šejna, exposed a corruption scandal involving his own and his sons' shady business dealings, which was known as the 'Clover Seed Scandal'.
Dubček, with his background and training in Russia, was seen by the USSR as a safe pair of hands. "Our Sasha", as Brezhnev called him. Aside from the immediate personal and professional animosity of Bulgarian leader,
Todor Zhivkov
Todor Hristov Zhivkov ( ; 7 September 1911 – 5 August 1998) was a Bulgarians, Bulgarian communist statesman who served as the ''de facto'' leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria (PRB) from 1954 until 1989 as General Secretary of the Cen ...
, who refused to acknowledge him directly, other Warsaw Pact leaders sent customary congratulations. Zhivkov received a protest for his snub from Soviet diplomats. Zhivkov's behavior was not motivated by opposition to Dubček's program of reforms but his discomfort at the manner in which his predecessor had been removed.
Making no secret where he was headed, in February, with Brezhnev present, Dubček pledged: "We shall have to remove everything that strangles artistic and scientific creativeness."
The period following Novotný's downfall became known as the
Prague Spring
The Prague Spring (; ) was a period of liberalization, political liberalization and mass protest in
the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected Secretary (title), First Secre ...
. During this time, Dubček and other reformers sought to liberalize the Communist government—creating "socialism with a human face". Dubček and his allies’ aim was not a return to capitalism, nor was it an end to the Communist Party's rule or its leading role in society. It was socialism marked by, "internal democracy, unlimited and unconditioned by the party, the strengthening of the faith of the people and the working class, and its transformation into a revolutionary force and the creative power of the party."
To that end, the Prague Spring sought to liberalize the existing regime. It continued a series of reforms that granted greater freedom of expression to the press and public, rehabilitated victims of Stalinist purges by Klement Gottwald, advanced economic decentralization, and supported fundamental human rights reforms that included an independent judiciary.
During the Prague Spring, he and other reform-minded Communists enhanced popular support for the Communist government by eliminating its repressive features, allowing greater freedom of expression, and tolerating political and social organizations not under Communist control. "Dubček!
Svoboda!" became the popular refrain of student demonstrations during this period, while a poll at home gave him 78-percent public support.
[B. Wasserstein, ''Civilisation and Barbarism'' (Oxford 2007) p. 601]
Dubček declared a 10-year program to implement reforms, but as reforms gained momentum he struggled to both maintain control and move with events. Dubček had been a compromise candidate between more radical reformers and hard-line conservatives. In power, Dubček was caught between a powerful hard-line minority in Czechoslovakia and their allies in other
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP), formally the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance (TFCMA), was a Collective security#Collective defense, collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Polish People's Republic, Poland, between the Sovi ...
countries who pressured Dubček to rein in the Prague Spring, and on the other hand, more radical reformers who demanded more far-reaching and immediate reforms. While still stressing the leading role of the Party and the centrality of the Warsaw Pact, Dubček also was open to redefining the duty of party members from obedience to more creative expression. According to a CIA assessment at the time, Dubček was seen as an adept politician who might pull the balancing act off at home, which if true made Soviet military intervention all the more urgently needed by the anti-reform faction. The Soviet politburo may not have shared this view of Dubček, but they interpreted events as demonstrating dishonesty as much as lack of ability. In a phone conversation between Dubček and Brezhnev on 13 August, Dubček complained that he was on the verge of quitting in frustration, having difficulty meeting his promises because he was operating in such a fluid situation that planning was difficult and any new promises could just cause Brezhnev greater distrust when those promises couldn't be fulfilled rapidly.
The Soviet leadership tried to rein in events in Czechoslovakia through a series of negotiations. The Soviet Union agreed to bilateral talks with Czechoslovakia in July at
Čierna nad Tisou railway station, near the Slovak-Soviet border.
At the meeting, Dubček defended the reform program but pledged his government's continued commitment to the Warsaw Pact and
Comecon
The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, often abbreviated as Comecon ( ) or CMEA, was an economic organization from 1949 to 1991 under the leadership of the Soviet Union that comprised the countries of the Eastern Bloc#List of states, Easter ...
. Dubček promised to curb the media and anti-socialist tendencies and prevent the reconstitution of the
Social Democratic Party. In return, the Soviets promised to withdraw troops that had been stationed in the country since exercises that June, where the Czechs had played the NATO team.
Despite Dubček's continuing efforts to stress these commitments afterward, Brezhnev and other Warsaw Pact leaders told Dubček they remained anxious.
Because so many motives were hidden behind clandestine activities, personal motives, and organizational biases, where even pro-intervention hard-liners had to make appearances so as not to be charged with treason, there was and remains confusion as to Soviet motives for the invasion that ended the Prague Spring.
Some believed that the Soviets saw even a partly free press as threatening an end to one-party rule in Czechoslovakia, and (by extension) elsewhere in Eastern Europe. This is contradicted by many eyewitnesses, such as
Ken Coates. According to Coates, the charge that the party was losing control or that counter-revolutionaries were misusing reforms, including press freedom, to undermine the party position was laughable, saying: "Anyone who was in Prague and lived in Czechoslovakia at that time knew that the Party's authority, the Party's position in the eyes of the nation had improved for the first time." Instead, he said that "The Party discredited itself."
However, the telephone conversation between Brezhnev and Dubček on 13 August suggests that media coverage was given high importance. Brezhnev had instructed Dubček to remove key people responsible for the media, specifically, "
Pelikán,
Císař,
Kriegel, and other scoundrels".
Dubček's unwillingness or inability to do so created distrust around certain statements circulated in the media, which may have made the issue more significant than it actually was in itself, as it gave credence to the coup plotters.
Press freedom began as an opening to reassessment of the Stalinist purges and the nation's historic past, but it grew into an abstract ideal as conservative criticism generalized and mounted. The question had been one more of truth-telling than of press freedom. The issues were more broad. Confusion was common. At the time of the invasion, events caught much of the world by surprise, despite widespread evidence of troop buildups and continued seeming arbitrary maneuvers on the country's borders. In an emergency meeting of the
United States National Security Council
The United States National Security Council (NSC) is the national security council used by the president of the United States for consideration of national security, military, and Foreign relations of the United States, foreign policy matter ...
called by President
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. He became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, under whom he had served a ...
on 20 August, Defense Secretary
Clark Clifford, along with the cabinet and president could not explain Soviet actions. The invasion also erupted alongside so many destabilizing changes that some have pointed to 'press freedom' serving as a short-cut explanation.
In a letter written in 1974 to the widow of
Josef Smrkovský, a close political ally who died in official political disgrace that January, Dubček said he remained unable to explain why the Soviet leadership believed "distorted reports" about the nature and aims of his socialist reforms. He said that these urgent warnings to the Soviet leadership were the result of party leaders and other conservatives who, "saw all that was happening solely from the angle of the loss of their leading role in the party."
Anti-reformist elements were a coalition of hard-liners in the Soviet Union, such as
Yuri Andropov
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov ( – 9 February 1984) was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from late 1982 until his death in 1984. He previously served as the List of Chairmen of t ...
, whose false reports of events in Hungary had also helped overcome Khrushchev's opposition to intervention, and Warsaw Pact leaders fearing for their own positions such as East German leader,
Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ernst Paul Ulbricht (; ; 30 June 18931 August 1973) was a German communist politician. Ulbricht played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar republic, Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and later in the early development ...
, and Polish leader,
Władysław Gomułka
Władysław Gomułka (; 6 February 1905 – 1 September 1982) was a Polish Communist politician. He was the ''de facto'' leader of Polish People's Republic, post-war Poland from 1947 until 1948, and again from 1956 to 1970.
Born in 1905 in ...
. Perhaps most significantly, false high-level reports included letters secretly passed directly to the
Soviet Politburo by those within the Czechoslovak regime who promoted intervention.
One such message was sent to Brezhnev at the time of the Čierna nad Tisou meeting. These letters and reports were sent by a group of anti-reformist hard-liners in the Czechoslovak Communist Party (KSČ), under the leadership of Slovak Communist Party chief,
Vasiľ Biľak, working with allies in the StB and Czechoslovak Army. Bil'ak later wrote in his own memoirs that what he and his colleagues feared most, right up until mid-August, was that Dubček would reach an accommodation of compromise with Moscow that would forestall or prevent an invasion. Bil’ak himself feared his own imminent departure from office with good reason. His hard deadlines were 26 August, the date of the Slovak Party Congress, and 20 August, a gathering of the reformist leadership. Both had been moved up to allow reformers to secure better positions. The warnings of Bil’ak and his supporters stoked deliberately exaggerated fears of violent "anti-socialist counter-revolution" as an "imminent threat". This was not only to prod the Soviets to quick action but to ensure that Dubček would be removed and not even a moderate reformist government would remain to frustrate their personal prerogatives.
Press freedom was only one of many reforms where no compromise at all could be tolerated.
"Fraternal Intervention"
On the night of 20–21 August 1968, military forces from several
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP), formally the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance (TFCMA), was a Collective security#Collective defense, collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Polish People's Republic, Poland, between the Sovi ...
member states (
Albania
Albania ( ; or ), officially the Republic of Albania (), is a country in Southeast Europe. It is located in the Balkans, on the Adriatic Sea, Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea, and shares land borders with Montenegro to ...
,
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...
and
East Germany
East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...
did not participate) invaded Czechoslovakia. Soviet media cited a call for help from unnamed representatives as the cause of the "fraternal intervention", publishing an unidentified appeal as proof on 22 August 1968; However, as it became clear from the first day that virtually the entire responsible leadership of the Czechoslovak government and communist parties, including Dubček, were being blamed as causes of the invasion, and even the Soviet-supported leadership fell into accusations against each other, most allied communist parties around the world rejected the Soviet pretext as a thin disguise for gross violation of national party autonomy. Even President
Ludvík Svoboda had publicly issued a statement calling on occupying forces to withdraw and for reforms to continue, while Czechoslovakia's UN representatives were calling for international support against the invasion.
The Soviets were only partly responsible for their confusion. Closely following a long telephone conversation between Bil’ak and Brezhnev on 10 August, two of Bil’ak's most important allies met with the Soviet ambassador to Czechoslovakia on 14–15 August:
Alois Indra, who along with Drahomir Kolder had previously been in direct contact with the Soviet Politburo, was accompanied by another KSC hard-liner,
Oldřich Pavlovský, in their meeting with ambassador
Stepan Chervonenko. They assured him that as soon as Soviet "troops move into action on the night of 20 August," the "healthy forces" in the KSC would carry out their "plan of action" to oust Dubček, setting up a "provisional revolutionary government of workers and peasants." Indra said he could "guarantee" that a majority of the KSC Presidium, the KSC Central Committee, the National Assembly, and the Czechoslovak government would join with the "healthy forces." He promised six of the eleven members of the KSC Presidium and 50 members of the KSC Central Committee as his supporters.
The Soviet Politburo received many such appeals for intervention, misleading them into confidence the viability of a hard-liner government in waiting. The KGB had also buried reports that the US and the Federal Republic of Germany were not behind the Prague Spring. KGB Station Chief in Washington DC,
Oleg Kalugin
Oleg Danilovich Kalugin (; born 6 September 1934) is a former KGB general (stripped of his rank and awards by a Russian Court decision in 2002). He was during a time, head of KGB political operations in the United States and later a critic of ...
, only discovered years later that the KGB leadership had ordered his reports destroyed and not shown to anyone after they received what Kalugin thought was a more balanced assessment. Meanwhile, KGB reports to the Soviet leadership went to lengths to support the official narrative and the claims of anti-reform hard-liners. They blamed everything negative that happened in Czechoslovakia on the Prague Spring, including in some cases traffic crashes, fires, and burglaries. The KGB even manufactured evidence, directing agents to plant caches of American-made weapons near the German border in order to be discovered. They instructed agents to hang posters calling for the overthrow of communism. This was to prove a western-sponsored network was active in Dubček's reform movement as part of an imminent insurrection or coup. The KGB was only further enraged when the Czechoslovak Interior Minister revealed it all to be a deliberate Soviet provocation.
The KGB had many reasons for their actions, but most important may have been its institutional bias. The Pillar Commission set up to investigate the show trials of the 1950s recommended the disbandment of the secret police, and Czechoslovak security services had already ceased most cooperation with the KGB, having a major impact on the KGBs operational effectiveness and influence. The Czech security services had been vital to their effective operations. Some suggest further that they may have feared eventual reprisals against their most active and loyal agents within the StB and Interior Ministry. This motive is partly supported by the guarantees against reprisals against pro-Soviet Czechoslovaks in the Moscow Protocols. The KGB was also upset when Czechoslovak Interior Minister
Josef Pavel revealed the existence of six KGB liaison agents within his office, implying that they would be removed.
In an atmosphere of conformity cultivated by Brezhnev, only a few in the Kremlin voiced skepticism, such as
Gennady Voronov, who asked, "Whom was it really so necessary for us to defend, and from whom?"
Bil’ak would join Indra in reassuring the Soviets, promising that Kolder would be ready to be voted the KSC First Secretary when Soviet troops arrived. When two of their promised allies on the Presidium,
Jan Piller and
František Barbírek, opposed the invasion and supported Dubček, Soviet plans had to be abandoned. This forced them to retain Dubček and his government until the following year,
when Dubček's government could no longer contain growing pressure to advance reforms once again, coming both from within and without the party.
The day of the invasion, occupying armies quickly seized control of Prague and the Central Committee's building, taking Dubček and other reformers into Soviet custody. But, before they were arrested, Dubček urged the people not to resist militarily, on the grounds that "presenting a military defense would have meant exposing the Czech and Slovak peoples to a senseless bloodbath". Already the previous month, when officers under General
Václav Prchlík, head of the KSC's military department, began preparing contingency plans for a Soviet/Warsaw Pact invasion, Dubček had immediately vetoed its implementation.
In the early hours of the attack, Czechoslovak radio broadcast an appeal to citizens not to resist. The presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia asked, "all citizens of the Republic to keep the peace (and remain at their posts but) not resist the advancing armies, because the defense of our state borders is now impossible". By making this official declaration before Soviet troops could preempt functioning of the official government, the Czechoslovak leadership ensured that both the invasion and Soviet invitation would be seen as illegitimate but also established the political and strategic framework for the resistance as symbolic and moral, where their opponent would have less control.
Controversy at that time and since has arisen as to whether Dubček knew of the invasion and hid the fact for his own reasons, perhaps explaining some of the world's surprise. Some point to the telephone conversation between Brezhnev and Dubček on 13 August where Dubček is recorded to say, "If you on the Soviet Politburo believe we're deceiving you, you should take the measure you regard as appropriate." Brezhnev is recorded to respond, "Such measures would be easier for us to adopt if you and your comrades would more openly say that these are the measures you're expecting of us."
Historians have never accepted Dubček's foreknowledge, and Dubček has always denied it, but Czech resistance was somewhat unconventional and much is shrouded in ambiguity that created an open question for some.
The non-violent resistance of the Czech and Slovak population, which helped delay pacification by Warsaw Pact forces for over eight months (in contrast to the Soviet military's estimate of four days), became an example of
civilian-based defense. A latter-day ''
The Good Soldier Švejk'' (referring to an early-20th-century Czech satirical novel) wrote of "the comradely pranks of changing street names and road signs, of pretending not to understand Russian, and of putting out a great variety of humorous welcoming posters". Meanwhile, for a short time government radio stations called for the invaders to return home: "Long live freedom, Svoboda, Dubček".
Dubček was arrested before dawn when 3 security officers, revolvers in hand and accompanied by several soldiers with machine guns bust into his office. One of them cut the telephone wires while another began to cuff him. When Dubček protested, he was beaten. His driver attempted to intervene and was immediately shot. Dubček was told, "We will kill, if necessary, a million Czechs, threatened one of the officers, to put an end to your counter-revolution."
Later on the day of the invasion, Dubček, along with Premier
Oldřich Černík, Jozef Smrkovsky and Frantisek Kriegel were taken to the Soviet Union. At first, Dubček was taken to a mountain cottage in Ukraine; However, upon encountering massive popular resistance to their planned coup, and President Svoboda and other Czech representatives who were still in Prague refusing to accept any agreement made without approval of the official representatives of the party, the Soviets changed tactics and sent him to Moscow for negotiations.
On 24 August, Soviet representatives presented the
Moscow Protocol. Rejecting a counter-proposal offered by Dubček's aides, they said it was non-negotiable. The only alternative was Soviet imposition of a military dictatorship now that their illusions of being welcomed as liberators proved false. Dubček and other detainees were repeatedly beaten during their detention, and Dubček reports he was drugged with sedatives to make him more compliant. Resisting nonetheless, Dubček's team gained minor but significant concessions, including refusing to accept Soviet justifications for the invasion or the right of the Soviet Union or any other country to decide their country's future, as well as not agreeing to the immediate reversal of all reforms. In the end, Dubček said they were forced to sign in order to avoid bloodshed in the room and back at home, with only
František Kriegel refusing to sign.
This ended the Prague Spring and set the stage for a Moscow-directed reversal of reforms that Dubček was compelled to sell and implement.
Dubček and most of the reformers were returned to Prague on 27 August. At the time, the Moscow Protocol was intended to be a secret document. It was revealed to party members the subsequent week and then leaked to the New York Times. Throughout the rest of the year, Dubček and other senior leaders were called back to Moscow repeatedly to receive new demands, which they returned home to deliver to their people. This led Dubček to consider quitting under extreme duress at times, but he always recovered. The Soviets made no attempt to hide their contempt. When Dubček protested that he had already met the terms of the Moscow Protocol, he is reported to have been told to 'shut up' by Soviet President
Nikolai Podgorny. The Czechoslovak team were told that the Soviets would continue to turn the screws harder, undeterred by the protests of other communist parties; They dismissed them saying, "For the next 30 or 40 years, socialism has no chance in the capitalist West." Gustav Husák reported they were treated as "scoundrels"
In January 1969, Dubček was hospitalized in Bratislava complaining of a cold and had to cancel a speech. Rumors sprang up that his illness was
radiation sickness
Acute radiation syndrome (ARS), also known as radiation sickness or radiation poisoning, is a collection of health effects that are caused by being exposed to high amounts of ionizing radiation in a short period of time. Symptoms can start wit ...
and that it was caused by radioactive
strontium
Strontium is a chemical element; it has symbol Sr and atomic number 38. An alkaline earth metal, it is a soft silver-white yellowish metallic element that is highly chemically reactive. The metal forms a dark oxide layer when it is exposed to ...
being placed in his soup during his stay in Moscow in an attempt to kill him. However, a U.S. intelligence report discounted this for lack of evidence. Also that month, following the self-immolation of
Jan Palach, reformers renewed their offensive against conservative hardliners. Dubček pledged to hold the line against both reformers and neo-Stalinists, but opposition was moving outside the party for tactical reasons.
Dubček was forced to resign as First Secretary in April 1969, following the
Czechoslovak Hockey Riots. The Soviets were not only alarmed by Dubček's failure to contain growing pressure to resume reforms but at their own failures to consolidate a neo-Stalinist regime under Indra or their other allies. Dubček was replaced by former reformer Gustav Husák, beginning a process of 'normalization' that would eventually purge two-thirds of the party and de-politicize the country. At the time, Leonid Brezhnev is supposed to have said: 'If we cannot find the puppets, then we will tie the strings to the leaders.'
Though no longer party leader, Dubček had been re-elected to the
Federal Assembly (as the federal parliament was renamed in 1969); Dubček became chairman on 28 April. Following the violent suppression of protests by new domestic Czech security forces, Dubček signed the 'baton law' into effect in August. Husák had sent this to the Federal Assembly to expand legal powers of suppression of dissent. Dubček would later call this the gravest mistake of his life.
The baton law was widely seen as the end of hope for successful resistance. Despite his continued cooperation, Dubček was removed from parliamentary office on 15 October under Prime Minister Cernik's new government. Though Cernik tried to placate reformists, the new government's extreme anti-reformist faction, led by Deputy Party Chief
Lubomír Štrougal, wanted to put Dubček on trial. Husák, who styled himself as a post-ideological 'realist', as well as Moscow, wanted to avoid a destabilizing return to Stalinism.
Instead, Dubček was sent into diplomatic exile to Turkey. From head of a nation of millions and leader of 1.6 million party members, he went to heading a 7-person staff; This left him conveniently out of the country while more aggressive purges began in earnest. Some suggested at the time it would be too dangerous to post him anywhere within the Soviet bloc, where he was widely regarded as a hero. Husák was also said to have feared that direct persecution of Dubček might stir more instability than it would promote.
Some thought that Husák's reluctance to trials and executions was because of his own experiences as a prisoner, though he thought his own imprisonment was wrong, he had no problem with imprisoning state enemies on general principle or personal feeling. Others suggest that it was the hard-liners themselves who wanted Dubček out of the country to isolate him from the public and to prevent him becoming a martyr, as trials had never helped the communist regime either within the country or internationally.
Alan Levy, a journalist who witnessed the Prague Spring, explained Husák's reluctance with a comparison. Hungary was able to relax its repressive grip within less than 5 years after the Soviet invasion, but Czechoslovakia and its former leaders remained in a state of limbo rather than hell that would eventually last for decades. This he explained as because unlike Hungary, Czechoslovakia had no real revolt to liquidate. Instead, he and the Soviets had to invent a counter-revolution, not prosecute it.
However, in June of that same year, Dubček was dismissed from his ambassadorial post and recalled from Turkey after being suspended from the party pending an investigation by hard-liners. This was read as a signal that Husák had lost a behind-the-scenes power struggle against the hard-line faction led by Štrougal, Indra, and Balik. They had taken control of the Presidium by a margin of 7 to 4, voting to prepare a series of trials against reformers on charges of espionage, sedition, and slander of the republic. At the time, some suggested that Dubček's and his reformer allies' fates may have been spared by the chance drunk-driving crash that saved Husák from removal himself. The resulting investigation uncovered a conspiracy by ultra-conservatives to remove Husák who were themselves removed.
Others said that this threat was part of an attempt to force Dubček to defect to the west, using his wife and children as hostages in Ankara. The only debate within ruling circles was how best to isolate Dubček from the public by some form of character assassination. They wanted him reassigned to a position as a senior officer in the Pension Insurance Research Institute to entrap him in a scandal after having failed to pressure Dubček to leave under a cloud as a defector, which would discredit him as a loyal party member.
Dubček found himself a permanent free-range prisoner, along with many others purged from the party and blacklisted from work. The purge of the party resulted in a general decline in membership from 1.6 million at the time that Dubček rose to power to 880,000 by the end of 1970. More purges would follow as loyalists replaced the able careerists. Those who otherwise cooperated to advance their careers. Even among those who remained members by the end of 1970, many either refused their cards or had not paid their dues. The reduction in numbers was accompanied by a qualitative change in the party, where the party that Dubček headed as leader of the post-Stalinist generation of idealists was gone. The majority of members were over 60 years old, and ideology had virtually disappeared, even among conservatives. Dubček and his communist reformers had proven so popular that the only way to root them out of the political fabric of the nation was to eradicate communist ideology. To do so required to virtually remove an entire generation from the party. Even Czechoslovak universities ceased to teach Marxism for lack of 'reliable' instructors. Any kind of political belief, in rapid succession, would be grounds for suspicion, leaving a disaffected population.
For Dubček and many others, this did not mean a return to private life but a different kind of political life, where in Dubček's case, his career in high politics would be deferred at home while he served as an inspirational symbol of Eurocommunist ideals abroad. Meanwhile, he struggled to personally survive repressions at home. Outwardly, he shifted to menial work that many educated reformers were forced to take. Turning down a post at a Slovak social security agency that could be used to implicate him in the misappropriation of funds, he instead requested to work as a forester. This was refused, but he was eventually given a clerical job with the state forestry agency in Bratislava.
He was still investigated at work, but wrong-doing could never be found.
Exile in Bratislava
After his expulsion from the party, Dubček became a "nonperson" whose very mention was banned. In 1988 he told
Voice of America
Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is an international broadcasting network funded by the federal government of the United States that by law has editorial independence from the government. It is the largest and oldest of the American internation ...
that, "what he had been through could not be described as 'life' in the normal sense of the word, but rather a matter of survival."
While the first news reports during the normalization period, 1970–74, show a man who actively avoided attention and was shifting uncertainly between insecure employment, telling a West German photographer: "Please, sir. Please, sir, if you like to help me come not to me." School girls giggled, saying all they were told at school was that he had done something bad. Other reports saw him as a man living securely but anonymously with his wife and children in a comfortable villa in a nice neighborhood in
Bratislava
Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...
. This seems to have been the official fable, as no evidence suggests this being a wholly accurate picture. When in 1975, authorities turned to prosecute his wife, Anna, she presented evidence of the insecure position of the entire family and personal friends denied proper medical care, her sons denied apartments, the armed guards posted at their home that made them fear its seizure, and her own nervous condition and health problems from constant surveillance and persecution. An entire politics arose around the false portrayal of the stability, security, and privilege of the Dubčeks' "private" life, in part to make plausible that Dubček was at liberty to be heavily involved in counter-revolutionary activities. Dubček was described as variously a spy-master, or when proven not to be or when misrepresented by either the regime or others, as a self-absorbed and simple-minded marionette of powerful external forces living a self-indulgent private life insulated from political participation and understanding.
Complaints, such as that Dubček's sons were given high marks and admitted to university were described by one writer as, "self-righteous vengefulness of the Soviet sycophants" within the regime.
Dubček would say he first broke his silence by publishing letters he smuggled out of the country after he was denied the right to bury his mother in daylight in 1974, for fear it would provoke an anti-government demonstration.
Dubček's public letters to other parties and to the National Assembly were part of a larger international 'campaign' by purged members gradually being joined by many high-profile figures outside Czechoslovakia and other domestic activists. This campaign was spurred by international publication of the "memoirs" of
Josef Smrkovský, as well as the sometimes described 'hysterical' reaction of Husak to Dubček's both real and invented transgressions and writings. This ultimately gave Dubček a greater voice through anti-regime allies and provoked Dubček further in self-preservation.
When in September 1975, as Husak intensified repressions following his consolidation of leadership positions, Dubček reacted to interrogation by refusing to deny the information being leaked or protesting the false use of his name, counter-threatening to act "decisively" if "repressive measures" were taken against him.
The former leader of the Prague Spring in fact had much in common with Eurocommunist tendencies. There were common challenges in the countries of the east and west caught between the superpowers, but seeking to both heal the division of Europe and gain autonomy from the influence of great power politics. Eurocommunism sought to unify the European labor movement and participate fully in parliamentary and internal democracy, decentralize, and steer an independent course. Not only did this bring them into direct conflict with the Soviet Union during the crackdown against the Solidarity trade union, but they had been in open disagreement with Moscow over the invasion of Czechoslovakia.
In 1968, the clash was less public but just as clear. In a restricted meeting of the
Italian Communist Party
The Italian Communist Party (, PCI) was a communist and democratic socialist political party in Italy. It was established in Livorno as the Communist Party of Italy (, PCd'I) on 21 January 1921, when it seceded from the Italian Socialist Part ...
,
Enrico Berlinguer
Enrico Berlinguer (; 25 May 1922 – 11 June 1984) was an Italian politician and statesman. Considered the most popular leader of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), he led the PCI as the national secretary from 1972 until his death during a te ...
told members to prepare their base for a clash with the Soviet leadership over the invasion.
Dubček had a long history of contact with not only the Italian Communist Party but with its newspaper ''l'Unita'' and its journalists. A highly favorable article about him in ''
L'Unità'', on 29 June 1970, reporting his expulsion from the party, portrayed him as a
social democratic
Social democracy is a Social philosophy, social, Economic ideology, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achi ...
communist seeking to change the ruling style of the party. He struck a chord with Italian audiences and remained a popular symbol of shared ideals.
Under constant surveillance and separated from his domestic contacts, it was in many ways easier for him to make contact with western communist media and parties than with his own party and people. He saw this use of intermediaries as the natural course of action, stating in a letter to the Italian Communist Party:
"Since the matter of the political path in the Communist Party has become international, it cannot remain internal at this time. After the expulsion of almost 600,000 communists from the party and their civil and social disenfranchisement to our laws and the Constitution of Czechoslovakia, the crisis in the party deepened even more. A gradual starting point can only come with the help of other communist parties of socialist countries and other communist parties, especially European ones...Helping other communist parties cannot be understood as interfering in the internal affairs of another communist party, because it has long since become an international matter."
Dubček's relationship with Italian communists would lead to his first direct public interview, which prodded the
University of Bologna
The University of Bologna (, abbreviated Unibo) is a Public university, public research university in Bologna, Italy. Teaching began around 1088, with the university becoming organised as guilds of students () by the late 12th century. It is the ...
into offering him an honorary doctorate as a man who could bridge the differences between the east and west. His trip to Italy in 1988, and the public recognition he gained from both the timing and prestige of an award he shared with
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela ( , ; born Rolihlahla Mandela; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served as the first president of South Africa f ...
, marked his return to high politics. This was at a time when perestroika was finally breaking through to the Soviet bloc nations outside the Soviet Union.
This led directly to his partial rehabilitation as well as a return to public life. Immediately after receiving the award, Dubček was congratulated by Rudolf Slansky Jr., son of
Rudolf Slánský
Rudolf Slánský (31 July 1901 – 3 December 1952) was a leading Czech Communist politician. Holding the post of the party's General Secretary after World War II, he was one of the leading creators and organizers of Communist rule in Czechoslova ...
, who pointed to his importance as, "not only a symbol of the Prague Spring, but also a symbol of inevitable changes in Czechoslovakia and a real political alternative."
In 1989, he was awarded the annual
Sakharov Prize in its second year of existence.
Velvet Revolution
In 1989, before the anniversary of the Warsaw Pact invasion, the Slovak members of the Movement for Civil Freedoms (
HOS) decided to commemorate the event by laying flowers as the locations of those in Slovakia who had been killed. Five of the organizers signed the letter announcing it. They were promptly arrested and came to be known as the 'Bratislava Five'.
On 14 November 1989, the final day of the trial of the 'Bratislava Five', a crowd gathered in front of the Bratislava Justice Palace. As
Miroslav Kusý recollects,
On 17 November, Dubček attended the students' march at Albertov, in the
Prague 2 municipal district. Fearing he would give a speech, the StB arrested Dubček, releasing him the next morning. This was said to mark the last arrest of an opposition leader.
Martin Bútora, one of the founders of
Public Against Violence (VPN) recounted Dubček's appearance at
Slovak National Uprising Square on 23 November as,
On 19 November, the Civic Forum, headed by Charter 77 member Václav Havel, was established to oppose the communist government. Several hundred thousand individuals demonstrated against the communist government in Prague on 20–28 November 1989.
The night after his appearance at Slovak National Uprising Square, on 24 November, Dubček appeared with Havel on a balcony overlooking
Wenceslas Square
Wenceslas Square (Czech language, Czech: , colloquially ''Václavák'' ; German language, German: ''Wenzelsplatz'') is one of the main city squares and the centre of the business and cultural communities in the New Town, Prague, New Town of Pr ...
, where he was greeted with tremendous applause from the throngs of protesters below and embraced as a symbol of democratic freedom. Several onlookers even chanted, "''Dubček na
hrad!''" ("Dubček to
the Castle"—i.e., Dubček for
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film and television
*'' Præsident ...
). The crowd was divided by his calling this new revolution a chance to continue the work he had started 20 years earlier and prune out what was wrong with communism. By this time, most of the protesters wanted nothing to do with communism of any sort. Later that night, Dubček was on stage with Havel at the
Laterna Magika theatre, the headquarters of Civic Forum, when the entire leadership of the Communist Party resigned. This resignation in effect ended communist rule in Czechoslovakia.
While the show of a united front was necessary for the revolution of 1989, it would later prove a political embarrassment for some who vied for power against later regime opponents. They dismissed Dubček as a symbol of the past rather than the future. This reflected a division between the youth movements (sometimes called the Jacobins) that wanted nothing to do with the past and the older generation that was seen by them as too lenient and accommodating. Many of these arguments are obscured by politics.
The political rivalry between Husák and Dubček, which also was said to have features of personal animosity stemming from Husák's conviction that Dubček was personally to blame for the Warsaw Pact invasion, continued to have repercussions even after the fall of the regime in November 1989. By appointing the Slovak Marián Čalfa as prime minister of the federal government the day before his abdication from the office of president of the republic, which took place on 10 December 1989, some charge that Husák deliberately pre-empted Dubček by indirectly enabling the election of Václav Havel for the office of Czechoslovak president. Dubček's popularity throughout Czechoslovakia was high, giving him a very good chance of winning direct election for president. However, he lacked support from the prominent figures in the November revolution. They supported Charter 77 member Havel and a new generation of leaders.
When Dubček himself was asked to explain this division, he said that the younger generation were unable to distinguish between his generation of reformist communists and the generation of communists who came before. He saw the consequence of this, post-Velvet Revolution, as creating a weakened democratic front against the narrow-minded and dogmatic. Dubček said this was not the first nor the last time in history when, "any revolution reaches a certain stage, it starts devouring its own children." According to a member of Charter 77,
Petruška Šustrová, the younger generation had not forgotten that it was Dubček who signed the 'baton law' and his fellow reformers who assisted in pacification of the country. She explains that a culture of trust had been lost. It was, "politically and economically impossible to continue where we had left off in 1968; the times had changed, and so had the people".
While Havel became president, on 28 December 1989, Dubček was elected chairman of the Federal Assembly, holding this position until the parliamentary elections in June 1992. True to his past dedication to Eurocommunism, prior to this on 16 December, he welcomed the delegation of the Italian Socialist Party headed by its chairman
Bettino Craxi
Benedetto "Bettino" Craxi ( ; ; ; 24 February 1934 – 19 January 2000) was an Italian politician and statesman, leader of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) from 1976 to 1993, and the 45th Prime Minister of Italy, prime minister of Italy from 1 ...
in Prague. He also met
Luciano Antonetti, as a journalist and an old friend. Antonetti interviewed Dubček for the newspaper l'Unita on the eve of the presidential election. In the interview Dubček said, "This time with the European left, I am thinking of the next spring." But he emphasized that "I will remain outside the Communist Party, even if it is renewed". Throughout 1990–92, Dubček continued "intensive contacts" with Italian communists and socialists, including visits to Italy where he was awarded honorary citizenship in many Italian cities.
In 1990, Dubček gave the commencement address to the College of Arts and Sciences at the
American University School of International Service in the United States. He called Czechoslovakia's fight against the Soviet invasion a "moral victory". Gorbachev would have agreed, when he said, "We thought that we had strangled the Prague Spring while in reality we had strangled ourselves."
In 1992, after long serving as an independent, he became leader of the
Social Democratic Party of Slovakia and represented that party in the Federal Assembly. At that time, Dubček ambiguously supported the federal union between Czechs and Slovaks against the ultimately successful
push towards an independent Slovak state. However, once it was clear that an independent Slovak Republic had become inevitable, at the same time historically as the breakup of Yugoslavia and other events, many assumed Dubček would become its first president.
Its work completed, the Charter 77 Movement disbanded on 3 November 1992, four days before Dubček died of injuries from a car crash. The Federal Assembly voted for the dissolution of Czechoslovakia on 25 November 1992. Czechoslovakia was formally dissolved on 31 December 1992; With that, Slovakia became an independent republic.
Death
Dubček died on 7 November 1992, as a result of injuries sustained in a car crash that took place on 1 September on the
Czech D1 motorway, near
Humpolec
Humpolec (; ) is a town in Pelhřimov District in the Vysočina Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 12,000 inhabitants.
Administrative division
Humpolec consists of 12 municipal parts (in brackets population according to the 2021 census): ...
, 20 days short of his 71st birthday. He was buried in
Slávičie údolie cemetery in
Bratislava
Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...
,
Slovakia
Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...
. His death remained an open question to some, with allegations of involvement by either then–
Prime Minister of Slovakia
The prime minister of Slovakia, officially the chairman of the government of the Slovak Republic (Slovak language, Slovak: ''Predseda vlády Slovenskej republiky''), commonly referred to in Slovakia as ''Predseda vlády'' or informally as ''Prem ...
Vladimír Mečiar or the
KGB
The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...
. An investigation was reopened when some members of his Social Democratic Party demanded it. A second investigation ruled that the death was due to aquaplaning at excessive speed in rainy weather. The driver was reportedly given a 12-month sentence for speeding.
However, his son, Pavol Dubček, said afterward he remained skeptical, saying there were still many "unclear things" about his father's death that he does not understand. In an interview, he said he still remained skeptical in 2019, as he would remain for the rest of his life.
Alexander Dubček's wife, Anna, died in 1990. They were survived by three sons: Pavol, who became a surgeon and traumatologist; Peter, who became an economist; and Milan. Alexander and Anna's first son was still-born.
Legacy and cultural representations
Without Dubček, Czechoslovak reforms may have taken a more technocratic form that didn't include revival of Slovak culture and the opening of arts to more fluid and interdisciplinary forms that were exported by joint ventures and the diaspora of artists after the Soviet crackdown. Politically, the Prague Spring may have been more contained to Czechoslovakia.
Many Soviet reformers, such as Sakharov, would have lacked the concrete inspiration that came from the reforms Dubček guided, particularly the revolt against stagnation. "The invasion of Prague started the true dissident movement in Russia. An abyss opened up between them and the system, which was a catastrophic harbinger of change. Without Prague, there would have been no perestroika."
Dubček's style of leadership, and the ultimate frustration of his program by Soviet intervention, also had a deep impact on the development and orientation of communist and socialist parties and thinkers in the west.
Dubček also left a legacy of might-have-beens and what-ifs. Historians and the public will continue to speculate what may have happened had he not died from a car crash or had his time in leadership of the Prague Spring not been interrupted by Soviet intervention. One obituary speculates that had he become the Slovak president, his influence over the new country would have charted a more immediately inclusive course toward Europe.
Dubček himself has been remembered in artistic representations in many cultures and times.
In 1984,
French singer and songwriter
Alice Dona had released a song named ''Le Jardinier de Bratislava'' with the lyrics written by
Claude Lemesle, as an apolitical song about love and longing for freedom. The song was inspired by a trip of a French television crew to visit Dubček in his villa near
Slavín,
Bratislava
Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...
. They were denied the access by the
ŠtB secret police. The sole footage collected of Dubček was of him attending to his garden.
In 1990, the film ''Invasion'', a dramatization of the Soviet invasion, was edited by producers to include translated commentary by Alexander Dubček responding to their interview about the events it portrays.
The movie
''Dubček'', released in 2018, is the first film based on the life of Alexander Dubček. It is a Slovak
historical movie whose main plot revolves around events related to the Warsaw Pact invasion.
References
External links
Alexander Dubček profile on the Sakharov Prize Network* ''Dubček: Dubček and Czechoslovakia 1918–1968'' by William Shawcross (1970)
* ''Hope Dies Last'' The Autobiography of Alexander Dubček by Alexander Dubček (Author), Jiří Hochman (Editor, Translator), Kodansha Europe (1993), .
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dubcek, Alexander
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