A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

1190 Ch. 29 • Democracy and the Collapse of Communism

break up in 1991, leaving communism behind. However, the euphoria that
arose from the realization that the Cold War had suddenly ended proved to
be brief. New challenges and problems, among them those that had beset
Europe for centuries, presented themselves. Decades of Communist rule
had prevented the emergence of parliamentary political structures. Civic
society in most Communist countries remained seriously undeveloped.
Changing from planned economies with varying degrees of collectivization
to free-market economies would prove extremely difficult. In Yugoslavia,
ethnic conflicts exploded, and ethnic divisions also complicated the fall of
communism in Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria.

Resistance to Soviet Domination

Calls for change echoed loudly in Communist Czechoslovakia in 1968.

Intellectuals and writers accused the leadership of the Communist Party of

clinging to Stalinism. The party leadership also acknowledged the need for

change. In January 1968, party leaders named Alexander Dubcek (1921­

1992), a liberal Slovak, to be first secretary of the Communist Party, and

thus head of state. During the “Prague Spring,” Dubcek tried to imple­

ment “socialism with a human face” by instituting reforms, but as he did so

he glanced anxiously over his shoulder toward Leonid Brezhnevs Soviet

Union. Crucial to these reforms was a democratization of decision making

and greater freedom of expression. But, as in the case of Hungary in 1956,

the Soviet leadership feared that, despite Dubcek’s assurances to the con­

trary, Czechoslovakia might attempt to move away from the Warsaw Pact.

On August 21, 1968, Soviet tanks and troops moved rapidly across the bor­

der and rolled into Prague, ending the Prague Spring.

The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia initiated another chill in Soviet­

Western relations. Moreover, the Communist parties of Italy and France

denounced the invasion. In the mid-1970s, Western Communist leaders, par­

ticularly in Spain and Italy, began to call themselves “Euro-Communists.”

They stressed their independence—for example, by collaborating with Social­

ists and other left-wing parties. However, Euro-Communism proved unable

to slow the decline in membership in the Communist parties of Western

Europe.

Under the “Brezhnev Doctrine,” the Soviet leadership tried to justify the

invasion of Czechoslovakia and left open the possibility of future interven­

tion in any of the satellite states of Eastern Europe. With the exception of

Albania, which remained closed to virtually all foreign contact during the

rigid dictatorship of Enver Hoxha, only Yugoslavia retained real indepen­

dence. The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia disenchanted liberal Com­

munists in Eastern European countries. Many no longer believed that

communism could be reformed.

Opposition to Communist rule and Russian influence grew in all of the

Eastern European states during the 1980s. The overwhelming economic