Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The attempt by Dubček and other reformers to establish ‘socialism with a human face’ in Czechoslovakia. The reform movement originated within the Czechoslovak Communist Party (CCP) in the early 1960s as the economy was declining: in 1963 there was a negative growth rate. Reformers such as Ota Šik persuaded the Party Congress in 1966 to combine central planning with features of the free market but the nomenklatura dragged their heels and little was done. This convinced some that economic reform was impossible without political reform. Slovaks too wanted change, as they felt that nearly all key positions in the republic went to Czechs. In January 1968 Novotny was replaced as head of the CCP by Alexander Dubček, First Secretary of the Slovak CP, though Novotny retained his post as President of Czechoslovakia. Censorship ended in March, so free expression was possible for the first time in 20 years; the victims of gottwald 's purges of the 1950s were rehabilitated and Novotny gave up his remaining post as President. The CCP published its Action Programme in April, which talked of ‘a new, profoundly democratic model of Czechoslovak socialism’. Dubček's ideas drew on those of Nagy in Hungary and anticipated those of gorbachev . The CCP should retain its leading role but it had to justify this by ‘winning over all workers by persuasion and example’. Instead of unthinking obedience ... log in or subscribe to read full text