Tanks in the streets of Prague

Y

ou are studying in Prague in 1968. In the

spring there is much excitement because

the leader of the Communist Party (CP)

argues that Czech socialism is crying out for

reform. Although you feel that the changes

proposed are rather modest, you see them as

steps in the right direction. Novotny had been

replaced in January 1968 by Dubcˇek as the party

leader, who pledges to remove everything that

‘strangles scientific and artistic creativeness’.

Censorship is abolished and citizens given the

right to criticise the government. With the Action

Programme, passed in 1968, a much freer elec-

toral system is proposed. There is no question,

however, of opposition parties being permitted.

The economy is to be more responsive to the

market and the consumer, and workers’ councils

are to be established to assist in decentralisation.

However, you are understandably alarmed by

the claims by the USSR that in September West

Germany is planning to invade Czechoslovakia,

and you are concerned that some communists

regard the new proposals as dangerously

‘revisionist’. In August of the same year, tanks

roll into Prague from other countries in the

Warsaw Pact (of which Czechoslovakia is a

member) led by the USSR. Following the

invasion, Dubcˇek and the new president Svoboda

are taken to Moscow and after ‘free comradely

discussion’, they announce that Czechoslovakia

will be abandoning its reform programme. In

April 1969 Dubcˇek is replaced as party secretary

by a hardliner, Husak; the following year he is

expelled from the party, and for the next 18

years works as a clerk in a lumber-yard in

Slovakia.

The claim is made that Dubcˇek intended to

take his country out of the Warsaw Pact and

reintroduce a capitalist society. Half a million

members of the Czech Communist Party are

expelled, and large numbers of writers, scientists

and artists lose their jobs. About 120,000

leave the country. The secret police become

particularly active. It is estimated that only 2 per

cent of the population support the invasion.

Confronted with a collision of this kind:

• Would you see one side as socialist and the
  other side as not?


• Or would you feel that two different kinds of
  socialism had come into opposition?
  Are the members of the Warsaw Pact who invade
  Czechoslovakia:


• Betraying their commitment to socialism?


• Or is this the kind of action that flows from
  their commitment to Marxist principles?


• Is Dubcˇek being naive to consider himself as
  a communist at all? Would the notion of
  change that he is proposing undermine not
  only Soviet control over Eastern Europe but
  lead to the development of market forces that
  would necessarily destroy socialism itself and
  lead to the introduction of capitalism?

Soviet troops in Prague, 1968

© Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis