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The Rise and Fall of Alexander Dubček*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Josef Kalvoda
Josef Kalvoda*
Affiliation:
Saint Joseph College
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Extract

Very few people outside Slovakia ever heard of Alexander Dubček prior to his elevation to the position of the First Secretary of the Communist party of Czechoslovakia in January 1968. A few years later, after a shortlived prominence, his name fell into oblivion, appearing only occasionally as a symbol of the “Prague Spring” and “socialism with a human face.”

The amount of writing relevant to the short career of Dubček and the developments in Czechoslovakia in 1968 is tremendous; yet it is not possible to write a “definitive” study on the “Prague Spring” and Dubček's role in it, for the story of those events is still unfolding. Also, interpretations of the Dubček phenomenon will continue to vary due to bias of authors and the lack of hard evidence. Finally, the archives of the Communist parties of the Soviet bloc countries and private papers of Communist party officials are not accessible. It is not possible, for political, personal, security or other reasons, to obtain the one particular piece of evidence — the one vital letter, memorandum of conversation, revealing diary, or a note of personal communication — which would explain conclusively why Dubček rose and fell.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , Fall 1980 , pp. 211 - 218
Copyright
Copyright © 1980 Association for the Study of Nationalities of Eastern Europe 

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References

Notes

1. Without implying that those not listed here are of lesser relevance, among the several hundred books and articles the following may be mentioned: Aptheker, Herbert, Czechoslovakia and Counter-Revolution (New York, 1969); Vasil Bil'ak, Pravda zůstala pravdou: Projevy a články, říjen 1967-prosinec 1970 (Prague, 1971); Dubcek, Alexander, Komunisti a národné dedičtvo (Bratislava, November 1968); Kusin, Vladimir V., Political Groupings in the Czechoslovak Reform Movement (London, 1972), and The Intellectual Origins of the Prague Spring (Cambridge, 1971); Isaac Don Levine, Intervention: The Causes and Consequences of the Invasion of Czechoslovakia (New York, 1969); Antonin Ostrý, Československý problém (Cologne, 1972); Robin Remington, ed., Winter in Prague: Documents on Czechoslovak Communism in Crisis (Cambridge, Mass., 1969); H. Gordon Skilling, Czechoslovakia's Interrupted Revolution (Princeton, N.J., 1976); Tigrid, Pavel, Why Dubček Fell (London, 1971); Otto Ulč, Politics in Czechoslovakia (San Francisco, 1974); Ivan Sviták, The Czechoslovak Experiment, 1968–1969 (New York, 1971); and Philip Windsor and Adam Roberts, Czechoslovakia, 1968 (London, 1969).Google Scholar

2. Kalvoda, Josef, “The Soviet Bloc: An Appraisal,” a paper presented at the November 1968 annual meeting of Southern Political Science Association, Gatlinburg, , Tenn., published in International Behavioural Scientist (Meerut, India, vol. 1, No. 2, June 1969).Google Scholar

3. “Gustav Husák's Address to Meeting of Party Activists in Prague”, Information Bulletin. Issued by World Marxist Review Publishers, No. 17, September 17, 1969.Google Scholar

4. “Czechoslovakia: Lessons of the Crisis”, Information Bulletin. Issued by World Marxist Review Publishers, No. 2, March 11, 1971.Google Scholar

5. Ibid.Google Scholar

6. Ibid.Google Scholar

7. Ibid., p. 12.Google Scholar

8. Windsor, and Roberts, , Czechoslovakia, 1968, p. 8; Paris-Match, August 14, 1971 quoting Major-General Jan Šejna who defected after the selection of Dubček as First Secretary of the Communist party of Czechoslovakia; ‘Moravus’, “Shawcross' Dubček”, Survey, XVII (Autumn 1971); Levine, Intervention, pp. 7, 80 and 83; and the article by Erickson, John, Sunday Times (September 1, 1971) and his paper “The ‘Military Factor’ and the Czechoslovak Reform Movement: 1967–1968”, in The Czechoslovak Reform Movement, 1968, ed. by Kusin, Vladimir V. (London, 1973); also in Czech, , Svědectví, 11, No. 42, 1971.Google Scholar

9. Winter in Prague, ed. Remington, p. 397.Google Scholar

10. “The Soviet Bloc: An Appraisal”, op. cit. New York Times and The Washington Post, September 2, 1968.Google Scholar

11. XIII. sjezd Komunistické strany Československa (Prague, 1966), pp. 165–172.Google Scholar

12. Rudé právo, February 23, 1968.Google Scholar

13. Pravda, May 8, 1968; Rudé právo, May 7, 1968; Václav Král, Československo a Sovětský svaz 1917–1971 (Prague, 1971) p. 76. Král corroborates a report by Vasil Bil'ak, at the September 1969 plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist party of Czechoslovakia, according to which the Soviets requested the stationing of their troops in Western Czechoslovakia during their conversations with Dubček in May 1968. See also Pfaff, Ivan, “Mohli jsme se bránit?”, Proměny (Vol. XII, No. 3, July 1975), pp. 6–23.Google Scholar

14. Rudé právo, May 23, 1968.Google Scholar

15. Pravda, July 18, 1968.Google Scholar

16. Svědectví, 10, No. 38, 1970.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17. Winter in Prague, ed. Remington, pp. 214 ff.Google Scholar

18. Ibid., pp. 220 ff.Google Scholar

19. Kalvoda, Josef, “Případ generála Václava Prchlíka”, Narod (Chicago, June 12, 1971).Google Scholar

20. Pravda, October 5, 1968.Google Scholar

21. Král, Československo a Sovětský svaz, p. 92.Google Scholar