II
CZECHOSLOVAKIA, THE SOVIET UNION, AND THE “PRAGUE SPRING”
3
Reforms in the Communist Party: The Prague Spring and Apprehension about a Soviet Invasion
Oldřich Tůma
For many contemporary observers, the events in Czechoslovakia in 1968 were already directly linked at the time to one symbolic figure: Alexander Dubček. This was undoubtedly even more the case for observers from abroad (and to a certain extent also for Slovak observers). Factors that contributed to this impression were photos, sound recordings, and even mere ideas: Dubček smiling, with an enthusiastic crowd milling around him in spring 1968; Dubček anxious, talking to Leonid Brezhnev at the end of July in Čierná nad Tisou;1 Dubček on his way to an uncertain future on 21 August, as he is being deported from the country (perhaps handcuffed) by Soviet military personnel;2 Dubček on 27 August, addressing Czechs and Slovaks on the radio and explaining with a faltering voice the necessity of reaching a compromise with the Kremlin and appealing to the population to end their resistance to the intervention.3 In the memories of 1968, Dubček does indeed play the role of an icon of the “Prague Spring,” and these events also signaled, in a certain sense, his own breakthrough: Dubček the reformer of socialism, Dubček the defender of Czechoslovak sovereignty and independence, Dubček the precursor of Mikhail Gorbachev.4
A certain simplification in the interpretation of past events and their identification with the most significant actors are not unusual in connection with historical memory, all the more so in the case of a memory that relies above all on the media reportage of the period: headlines, photos, and TV material. In all of them it is, unsurprisingly enough, people and their names that play a key role and that eclipse to some extent the continuum or the changes and developments in the attitudes and the reactions of the public, the hidden interdependencies, the decision making, and all the rest that tends to get lost in day-to-day reporting. These were the decisive factors shaping the information about the events of 1968 in Czechoslovakia that was brought to the attention of a non-Czechoslovak public, which—according to the rules applicable at the time—was a Western one. The “Dubček myth”—the idea that, first, the Prague Spring amounted to a single-handed attempt by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (Komunistická strana Československa or KSČ) to reform the Communist regime and that, second, the initiator and at the same time the political leader responsible for that attempt was Alexander Dubček—is erroneous twice over. This myth is, moreover, decidedly unhelpful if we want to understand what actually happened in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and complicates the interpretation of the Soviet decision and of the reasons for the military intervention even further. By the same logic, this myth will prevent us from fully appreciating the lessons to be learned from the Prague Spring and its consequences for the following decades.
It must be borne in mind that the Prague Spring was not only an attempt to reform the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, it was a major crisis of the regime as such. For an understanding of what was at stake in Czechoslovakia in 1968, we must not content ourselves with an analysis of the reforms that the KSČ leadership sought to implement. It is not enough to focus on “socialism with a human face,” and it would be a great mistake to analyze the motives behind the Soviet decision to intervene purely in terms of the Soviet determination to put a stop to the Czechoslovak reforms.
If we are to understand the dynamics and the meaning of the events of 1968, we must proceed from the fact that the developments of the spring and summer were not exclusively (and not even primarily) masterminded by the reformers within the leadership of the KSČ. We must assume that the reforms were not the outcome of some political strategy that had been devised in detail in advance and that was backed by a unified and clearly defined group of reformers. Even less were they the work of one key player, that is, Alexander Dubček. In Czechoslovak society, other forces were at work as well, forces whose strivings for reform influenced each other, which took turns in the role of pioneers, which took inspiration from each other, but which were at the same time far from identical in terms of their objectives, their political platforms, and their orientation.
The majority of Czech and Slovak society hoped for much more in terms of freedom and democracy than the reform agenda of the KSČ attempted; their desires, if played out to their logical conclusion, were incompatible in principle with any Communist program, including that of the reform Communists. Saying that here was a movement that was incompatible with communism by its very nature does not necessarily imply that it was not also supported by people who chose to remain members of the KSČ. These people even had considerable clout in some of the party organizations, most notably in the city committees in Prague and Brno as well as among Communist artists and intellectuals. Yet the far greater part of the movement had no truck with the Communist Party, and it is important to remember that this movement or societal force had neither one leader nor a clearly formulated program. These handicaps were compensated for by the existence of specific groups, such as journalists, artists, and, increasingly, students, who were the group with the clearest political profile.5 On the whole, one opted for noncommittal discussions of a whole range of political programs and visions rather than for serious and conscientious political preparations. Prototypical in a way were Václav Havel’s musings in the first issue of the Writers’ Association’s revived weekly Literární listy at the beginning of April on the possibility of the implementation of a political system that had as its basis the competition between two parties, the Communists and the Democratic Party.6 Yet deliberations on democracy, pluralism, civil society, basic civic rights, and the sovereignty of state and nation were definitely part of the societal discourse as well. Deliberations proved by no means the end of it; very soon a clamoring for their gradual realization arose. An almost unrestricted freedom of speech existed, and several organizations (including youth organizations, cultural organizations, some trade unions, and the like) emancipated themselves from the tutelage of the KSČ. Openly political groupings took shape and became active, such as the Association of Former Political Prisoners K231 or the Club of Committed Non-Partisans (KAN), the attempt to relaunch social democracy,7 the establishment of an independent student organization (Association of University Assistants), and the existence of critical public opinion.8 All this amounted already to a de facto pluralistic environment: a state of affairs, in other words, that the KSČ reformists’ program did not take into account but that was nevertheless an indisputable fact. These “protodemocratic” forces did not succeed in gaining a sufficiently strong foothold in public before August. Their activities were confined to discussions of a theoretical nature in the press or in various debating shops. They preferred this to voicing their demands in the streets. Nevertheless, it was clear that the movement had potential, and it was, therefore, eyed with apprehension by Moscow. In the eyes of the Kremlin, it was clearly an antisocialist and counterrevolutionary movement. The reform Communists, too, felt displeasure at the existence of such societal forces. Under certain conditions, if it had not been thrown off course by external pressure and, subsequently, by the intervention, such a “protodemocratic” movement could have flourished and would—if we follow this line of thought through for a moment—necessarily have had to engage in conflict with the reform Communists. This is, of course, a matter of pure speculation and cannot be decided one way or another.