The Prague Spring

Socialism with a human face

On 5 January 1968 the Czechoslovak Communist Party replaced its Stalinist leader, Antonin Novotny, with Alexander Dubcek, a Slovak who had spent his childhood in the Soviet Union and believed in the system. Dubcek did not want to leave the Warsaw Pact or end communism. He wanted, in the phrase that stuck, socialism with a human face: a party that people could argue with. In April his Action Programme promised freedom of speech and travel, a ten-year path to multi-party elections, and an economy with room for private business. In June censorship was abolished by law, and newspapers began to say what had happened in the show trials of the 1950s. On 27 June a writer published a manifesto called the Two Thousand Words, urging people to push the reforms faster than the party. Moscow read it as counter-revolution. On the night of 20 to 21 August 1968 around 250,000 troops from the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and East Germany crossed the border with 2,000 tanks. Dubcek told the country not to resist, and it mostly did not: fewer than 100 died. He was flown to Moscow, signed a protocol, and was gone within a year. In November Brezhnev explained why: no socialist country would be allowed to stop being one. The exam asks why it began, why it was crushed, and what the Brezhnev Doctrine changed.

Five words the examiners use

Each definition ends with the moment it mattered, because a bare definition earns nothing in an 8-mark answer.

The Prague Spring, in order

Put these six events of 1968 and 1969 in the order they happened.

• Dubcek replaces Novotny as First Secretary of the Czechoslovak party
• The Action Programme is adopted and censorship is ended
• Dubcek and Brezhnev meet at Cierna nad Tisou and sign a declaration at Bratislava
• Warsaw Pact forces invade on the night of 20 to 21 August and Dubcek is flown to Moscow
• Brezhnev states the doctrine that the socialist camp will intervene wherever socialism is threatened
• Jan Palach burns himself to death in Wenceslas Square, and Dubcek is replaced by Husak

Why did Czechoslovakia reform in 1968?

Czechoslovakia had been the most obedient satellite of the 1950s. Which explanation best accounts for the Prague Spring?

• The economy had stalled by the mid-1960s, with growth near zero in 1963 and shortages in a country that had been industrial before the war; Novotny had refused to de-Stalinise and the victims of the 1950s show trials were still unrehabilitated; Slovaks resented rule from Prague; and when the party chose Dubcek in January 1968 to fix the economy, students and writers used the opening to demand more, faster.
• The United States promised to support Czechoslovakia if it left the Warsaw Pact.
• Hungary had won its freedom in 1956 and Czechoslovakia copied it.
• Brezhnev ordered the reforms as an experiment.

Hungary 1956 and Czechoslovakia 1968

The examiners reward the comparison, because it shows what the Soviet limit was and how the two crises differed in everything except the outcome.

Why Brezhnev invaded

Five statements about the summer of 1968. Tap the TWO that give reasons why Brezhnev decided to invade, as opposed to describing the invasion or its results.

• Ulbricht of East Germany and Gomulka of Poland warned Brezhnev that a free press in Prague would spread to their own countries, and East German students were already reading Czech newspapers.
• Around 2,000 tanks and 250,000 troops crossed the border within hours of midnight on 20 August, and Prague airport was seized by Soviet paratroops.
• Czechoslovakia bordered West Germany, and Soviet generals argued that a neutral or unreliable Czechoslovakia would open a gap in the Pact defensive line that Hungary in 1956 had also threatened.
• On 26 August Dubcek signed the Moscow Protocol agreeing to reverse the reforms and accept Soviet troops on Czechoslovak soil.
• Albania left the Warsaw Pact in September 1968 in protest at the invasion.

Consequences of the invasion

Select the THREE statements that are true consequences of the invasion of Czechoslovakia.

• The Brezhnev Doctrine made intervention a rule: any move away from socialism in a bloc country was declared the business of all of them, and the doctrine stood until 1989.
• The communist parties of Italy and France condemned the invasion, and Romania and Yugoslavia refused to support it, so that the unity of world communism was visibly broken.
• The West condemned the invasion but did nothing: Johnson postponed a summit with Brezhnev on arms limitation, and within a year the talks that became SALT had begun anyway.
• NATO forces moved into Czechoslovakia to support Dubcek.
• Czechoslovakia held free elections in 1969.
• Dubcek was executed in Moscow.

What the Brezhnev Doctrine changed

The importance question on this bullet asks what Czechoslovakia shows about Soviet control or the Cold War. The answer is the doctrine, and what it did and did not change. What it changed. Before 1968 Moscow had invaded Hungary as an emergency. After 12 November 1968 it claimed the right to do so as a principle: sovereignty in the bloc was conditional on staying socialist, and the other Pact states had helped enforce it. Reform from inside the party, which Dubcek had thought safe, was now as dangerous as revolt from outside. Every reformer in the bloc for the next twenty years knew where the tanks were. What it did not change. The West had accepted the sphere in 1956 and accepted it again: Johnson delayed a summit, and SALT began in 1969. Superpower relations moved on to detente as if Prague had not happened. This meant that the doctrine hardened control inside the bloc while leaving relations between the blocs untouched, and that when a Soviet leader finally renounced it, in 1989, the whole system it protected fell in a year. A judgement that separates the effect inside the bloc from the effect between the blocs reaches the top level.

In the shoes of Dubcek and Brezhnev

Four decisions in 1968. Choose what was actually done, and notice what each choice led to.

• April 1968. You are Dubcek. The economy needs reform, the writers want freedom, and Moscow is watching. What do you announce?
• July 1968. The Warsaw Letter has arrived from five Pact leaders. Brezhnev wants to meet. What do you do?
• Mid-August 1968. You are Brezhnev. Dubcek has promised control at Bratislava but the Czech press is as free as ever, Ulbricht and Gomulka are demanding action, and the generals say the border with West Germany is at risk. What do you do?
• 21 August 1968. You are President Johnson, with half a million troops in Vietnam, a summit with Brezhnev planned for October, and an election in November you are not contesting. What do you do?

From cause to consequence

Because the economy had stalled and Novotny would not change, the party chose _____ in January 1968. Because the reforms ended censorship, the press printed the Two Thousand Words and the leaders of East Germany and _____ feared the example. Because Czechoslovakia bordered _____, the Soviet generals saw a military risk. Because Dubcek believed the Bratislava declaration of 3 August had settled matters, the invasion of 20 to 21 August found the country unprepared and it did not fight. And because Brezhnev stated in November that the whole camp would act wherever socialism was threatened, the invasion became a _____ that lasted until _____.

Compare 1956 and 1968

In Hungary in 1956 about 2,500 people were killed. In Czechoslovakia in 1968 about 100 died. Roughly how many times more people were killed in Hungary?

The 8-mark consequences question

Question 1 might read: Explain two consequences of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Each consequence is marked as a consequence plus supporting detail, for 4 marks. Which answer scores all four marks for ONE consequence?

• One consequence was the Brezhnev Doctrine. In a speech on 12 November 1968 Brezhnev declared that a threat to socialism in one country was the concern of all socialist countries, which turned the invasion into a standing rule, and it meant that no bloc government attempted reform of the kind Dubcek had tried until Gorbachev renounced the doctrine in 1989.
• One consequence was that the reforms were stopped and Czechoslovakia stayed communist.
• One consequence was that Dubcek had abolished censorship and Brezhnev feared the example would spread.
• On 20 August the tanks crossed the border, Prague airport was seized, and on 26 August Dubcek signed the Moscow Protocol.

A narrative paragraph, marked

Question 2: Write a narrative account analysing the key events in Czechoslovakia in 1968. You may use: the Action Programme; the Warsaw Pact invasion. The Prague Spring began on 5 January 1968 when the Czechoslovak party replaced Novotny with Dubcek, chosen to revive an economy that had stopped growing. Because Dubcek believed the party could survive criticism, the Action Programme of 5 April promised freedom of speech and travel, and in June censorship was abolished by law. This led to a flood of open debate, including the Two Thousand Words of 27 June, which called for faster change than the party wanted, and it was that manifesto which convinced Brezhnev that Dubcek had lost control. As a result, five Pact leaders sent the Warsaw Letter on 15 July, and Brezhnev met Dubcek at Cierna nad Tisou at the end of the month, where Dubcek promised to restore control and signed the Bratislava declaration on 3 August. The turning point came when the Czech press stayed free regardless, because that showed Moscow that promises from Prague could not be kept. What earned the marks: events in sequence with dates; each event linked to the next by because, this led to and as a result, so that the account analyses rather than lists; and the turning point named. One more paragraph, from the invasion of 20 to 21 August to the Moscow Protocol and the Brezhnev Doctrine, and the answer reaches the top level.

Write the narrative account

Write a narrative account analysing the key events in Czechoslovakia in 1968. You may use the following in your answer: the Action Programme; the Warsaw Pact invasion. You must also use information of your own.

• The span: from the appointment of Dubcek in January to the Moscow Protocol and the Brezhnev Doctrine
• Detail that counts: a name, a number or a place
• Events of your own: the Two Thousand Words, the Warsaw Letter, the talks at Cierna nad Tisou or the reaction of Ulbricht and Gomulka

The importance question

Question 3 might read: Explain the importance of the Prague Spring for Soviet control of Eastern Europe. Which answer best explains the importance, rather than describing the event?

• The Prague Spring was important because it showed that Soviet control did not depend on the satellites staying quiet but on their staying socialist as Moscow defined it: Dubcek kept Czechoslovakia in the Pact and the party in charge and was still invaded, and the Brezhnev Doctrine of November 1968 turned that into a rule enforced by the whole bloc. This meant that reform from inside the system was closed off for twenty years, and control lasted exactly as long as the doctrine did.
• The Prague Spring was important because Dubcek ended censorship in June 1968 and the Pact invaded on 20 August with 2,000 tanks.
• The Prague Spring was important because Czechoslovakia suffered twenty years of normalisation under Husak.
• The Prague Spring was important because it ended detente between the superpowers.