Prague Spring: Implications for 2010
http://blogs.alternet.org/refugee/2010/12/25/prague-spring-implications-for-2010/
by Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall
December 25, 2010
For me the section on Prague spring and the student/intellectual
uprising in Czechoslovakia is one of the most valuable sections of
Mark Kurlansky's 1968: the Year that Rocked the World. With the
distressing level of FBI and police repression occurring in the US, I
find it heartening to learn that organized resistance occurred even
in the brutal totalitarian regimes of cold war Eastern Europe.
Moreover I feel it's important to understand the circumstances in
which resistance developed a well as it's significance in the
ultimate collapse of the Soviet bloc.
It's quite common for the US power elite to attribute the collapse of
the Soviet Union to the Soviet invasion and occupation of
Afghanistan, which ultimately bankrupted their economy. In, fact some
of them take credit it: Zbigniew Brzezinski brags that the US
ingeniously "lured" them into Afghanistan. Hopefully American
intellectuals are too sophisticated to be taken in by this simplistic
and jingoistic view of world history.
Prague Spring and the Collapse of the Soviet Empire
1968 author Mark Kurlansky believes the Soviet's 1968 invasion of
Czechoslovakia marks the beginning of the end of the Soviet empire.
The student/intellectual protest movement that brought Alexander
Dubcek to power in January 1968 became less public but didn't
disappear in the government repression that followed the Soviet
invasion in August. It also served to strengthen reform movements in
other Soviet Bloc countries especially Romania and Poland where
government leaders were under pressure to condemn the invasion. In
Kurlansky's view the appearance of Soviet tanks on Czech streets
killed the dream of eastern block reformers that socialism could be
made more democratic. Without that dream, they had no choice but to
turn to capitalism when they ultimately took power in the late
eighties (which many deeply regret at this point).
I was especially fascinated by Kurlansky's description of the
background and personality of Alexander Dubceck, the father of
"Prague Spring." Dubcek was clearly no wild-eyed radical seeking to
overthrow communism. In every respect Dubcek was the ultimate
communist bureaucrat: blindly loyal, dutiful, honest, and somewhat
bumbling. Dubcek, who had always believed in democratic reform, never
spoke openly about it because he was also very pro-Soviet. In fact,
he never imagined the Soviets would invade. Dubcek and his
subordinates considered the Soviets their friends and protectors. In
this respect, Czechoslovakia was unique among eastern bloc countries
in voting in a communist government at the end of World War II
(rather than having it forced on them).
Parallels Between Dubcek and Nixon
Dubcek was clearly more moderate than the students and intellectuals
in the street. As Kurlansky describes it, he was actually somewhat
dismayed at being suddenly thrust into power in January 1968 owing
to his predecessor's inability to contain the student protest
movement and the Slovak nationalist movement that exploded
simultaneously in late 1967. At the same time Dubcek was deeply
principled, unlike many Communist Party officials, and viewed violent
suppression of the protests as unthinkable. Aside from his refusal to
invoke military force against the students, his situation parallels
that of Richard Nixon's in some ways. Nixon was also forced to enact
a number of progressive initiatives (The Clean Air Act, the
Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Health and Safety
Administration, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Social
Security Supplemental Income) in response to a large and vocal
protest movement. There are some interesting essays in the Nixon
Library regarding the political pressures that led Nixon to embrace
to these reforms: http://www.nixonera.com/library/domestic.asp
In fact Dubcek had no real platform until April 1968, when he issued
an Action Program with three planks: 1) commitment to
Czechoslovakia's socialist political/economic system, 2) ending
secret police repression of personal and political beliefs, and 3)
ending the monopoly of power by the Communist Party.
The immediate result was liberalization of foreign travel, increased
access to foreign periodicals in Czechoslovakia, as well as an
increase in media exposes about Czech and Soviet corruption and
Stalin's notorious purges. Freedom of artistic expression also
increased, and everywhere Czech students wore blue jeans and long
hair, listened to rock and jazz, displayed psychedelic posters and
even held an international film festival.
Soviets Forced to Keep Dubcek in Power
Brezhnev, the Soviet prime minister, had been one of Stalin's
henchmen in several purges. For obvious reasons, he put extreme
pressure on Dubcek to crack down on these "excesses." Dubcek,
however, was also profoundly antiwar. Even as Russian tanks rolled
into Czechoslovakia, he explicitly ordered a robust, well-trained and
armed Czech military not to fire on them. As in Tienanmen Square in
China, the main opposition to the tanks was tens of thousands of
unarmed civilians, making it clear the Soviet invasion was extremely
unpopular and placing them in an extremely awkward position.
Kurlansky writes at length about an unsung hero of this period named
General Ludvik Svoboda, who the Soviets attempted to install in a
puppet government after imprisoning Dubcek and three members of his
cabinet. Though forced to agree to Soviet demands to gradually
reinstate censorship and foreign travel restrictions, Dubcek was
released and remained in power until April 1969, when he was forced
to resign following the Czech Hockey Riots. In 1970 he was expelled
from the Communist Party, which cost him his seat in the Slovak
Parliament and Federal Assembly.
.
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