Blackwell Reference Online

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Alexander Dubček, a one-time member of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party, was a reformer who served as prime minister of the country in 1968. Born in 1921, Dubček became a member of the Communist Party of Slovakia in the late 1930s. By 1955, he was a member of the Central Committee, attended Moscow Political College, and graduated in 1958. In 1960 he moved to Prague from Bratislava, and was appointed secretary of the Czechoslovak Central Committee. Two years later, in 1962, he was chosen to serve on the party presidium. Shortly thereafter, he was appointed to the highest post in the Slovak Communist Party. Dubček and democratic reform seemed synonymous. As leader of the Slovak Party, he negotiated a deal with Slovak writers and intellectuals that granted them greater freedom of expression, embraced new economic theories, and expressed his vocal criticism of the administration and policies of Antonín Novotny, a hardline party boss and president of Czechoslovakia. Sporting the theme of nationalism for Slovakia, Dubček galvanized dissidents and the intelligentsia, who wanted more freedom from their repressed status. Their alliance forced Novotny's resignation in January 1968, and Dubček was voted to serve as his replacement as party secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. As the Communist Party leader of Czechoslovakia, Dubček took several bold and unprecedented actions by ... log in or subscribe to read full text