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Conflict and Tension Between East and West, 1945–1972

Czechoslovakia and the Prague Spring

  • 3 things to know
  • Paper 1 section B

Overview

Discontent under Novotný, Dubček and socialism with a human face, the reforms of the Prague Spring, the Warsaw Pact invasion of August 1968 and passive resistance, Jan Palach, Dubček's fall, the Brezhnev Doctrine, and what the crushing of the reforms meant for the Warsaw Pact and East–West relations.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Why was there discontent in Czechoslovakia by the later 1960s?

Key term

Who became leader of the Czechoslovak Communist Party in January 1968?

Key term

Name four of the reforms of the Prague Spring.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Why was there discontent in Czechoslovakia by the later 1960s?

    Model answer

    Novotný's hardline government censored the press and jailed critics while living standards and industrial output fell behind those of the West.

  2. 2

    Who became leader of the Czechoslovak Communist Party in January 1968?

    Model answer

    Alexander Dubček, a lifelong communist who had been trained in Moscow and was trusted there.

  3. 3

    What did Dubček mean by socialism with a human face?

    Model answer

    Keeping communism but making it freer and less brutal, so that people could speak and travel without fear rather than being ruled by the secret police.

  4. 4

    Name four of the reforms of the Prague Spring.

    Model answer

    Censorship was ended, criticism of the government allowed, restrictions on travel to the West lifted, and factory managers given more freedom from central control.

  5. 5

    What did Dubček promise Moscow in order to reassure it?

    Model answer

    That his country would remain a loyal ally and stay inside the Warsaw Pact, unlike Hungary twelve years earlier.

  6. 6

    Why did the USSR feel threatened despite that promise?

    Model answer

    A free press was already criticising Soviet policy, the reforms were being watched hopefully in Poland and East Germany, and the country sat at the strategic centre of the eastern bloc.

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