'The Spring of Prague'

The 'Spring of Prague'—the revolution which took place in Czechoslovakia in the spring of 1968—is among the most momentous events in the history of the Communist movement. A Communist party in full possession of state power had revoked the Communist system of government and had decided to change the institutions of society, on which rested the dictatorship of the party, and to create a 'new model of Socialist democracy'. The Czech Communists had felt that it was the stage of development which had been reached in their country. The material foundation for a Socialist order of society had been laid, the means of production had become common property and the resistance of the capitalist classes to Socialist change had indeed been broken. In the eyes of Slovak Communists, Clementis, Husak and Novomcsky were national martyrs, while Novotny, who had unleashed the wave of persecution against the Slovaks in 1952, was the arch-enemy of their national aspirations.