Monday, January 5, 2015

January 5, 1968 - Alexander Dubček succeeds Antonín Novotný as communist party leader of Czechoslovakia-History Channel

Like a lot of people, I was enraptured by "The Prague Spring." It seemed like a Socialist country could actually move away from Stalinism and allow its citizens basic freedoms-- to form free labor unions, to practice free speech, to mingle freely with foreigners and travel abroad as they wished-- while maintaining a society where there was Universal Health Care and a sense of pride in Nationhood independent from the Soviet Union.

Well, it didn't last very long, did it? Within a Year there was the Prague Winter, which started as a frost and then became a Polar Vortex when the Russians and their minions cracked down.

The Prague Spring was not popular everywhere. Leftists in NYC saw it as the beginning of Capitalism in what had been the Worker's Paradise and all part of a CIA Plot to undermine the Soviet Motherland.

People -I lived on the outskirts of Greenwich Village at the time and went in to that area often- argued the Czechs were provoking the Russians needlessly, and after all, they had everything anybody could want.

I travelled to Prague after the Russian crackdown and found people walking in to stores where they saw what they took as a foreigner and started telling me either tearfully or angrily" Let people in the West know what is happening here." One middle aged lady with a shopping bad accosted me in a record store with the young Czech woman I had taken up with ( let's call her Angelika) and was particularly heart rendering in her appeals.

Meanwhile, a bosomy young Swedish girl broke in and began flirting me with very aggressively. The whole scene was weird. Angelika and the other Czechs in the record shop just stood there transfixed..

It was some time before I knew who Vaclav Havel was, but I was very aware of the movies made during the Czech Spring, especially the gritty comedies "Loves of a Blonde," and "The Firemen's Ball" among them..

But I am digressing too much. Back to the simpler story:

January5

This Day in History

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Also on This Day

LEAD STORY: Golden Gate Bridge is born, 1933
AMERICAN REVOLUTION: Benedict Arnold captures and destroys Richmond,1781
AUTOMOTIVE: Construction begins on Golden Gate Bridge, 1933
CIVIL WAR: Star of the West leaves for Fort Sumter, 1861
COLD WAR: Eisenhower proposes new Middle East policy, 1957
CRIME: The United Mine Workers Killings, 1970
DISASTER: Landslides kill 33 in California, 1982
GENERAL INTEREST: First divorce in the colonies, 1643; Dreyfus Affair in France,1895; Kamikaze pilots get first order, 1945; Prague Spring begins in Czechoslovakia, 1968; Pol Pot renames Cambodia, 1976; Former Speaker Thomas P. Tip O'Neill dies, 1994
HOLLYWOOD: Sonny Bono killed in skiing accident, 1998
LITERARY: Alexandre Dumas pere fights a duel, 1825
MUSIC: The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" becomes hip-hop's first Top 40 hit, 1980
OLD WEST: House resolves to stop sharing Oregon, 1846
PRESIDENTIAL: Truman delivers his Fair Deal speech, 1949; Nixon launches the space shuttle program, 1972
SPORTS: New York Yankees announce purchase of Babe Ruth, 1920
VIETNAM WAR: Amphibious operations conducted in the Mekong Delta, 1967; Lodge succeeds Harriman as chief negotiator, 1969
WORLD WAR I: First conscription bill is introduced in British parliament, 1916
WORLD WAR II: Soviets recognize pro-Soviet Polish Provisional Government, 1945

General Interest

Jan 5, 1968:

Prague Spring begins in Czechoslovakia

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Antonin Novotny, the Stalinist ruler of Czechoslovakia, is succeeded as first secretary by Alexander Dubcek, a Slovak who supports liberal reforms. In the first few months of his rule, Dubcek introduced a series of far-reaching political and economic reforms, including increased freedom of speech and the rehabilitation of political dissidents. Dubcek's effort to establish "communism with a human face" was celebrated across the country, and the brief period of freedom became known as the "Prague Spring."

On August 20, 1968, the Soviet Union answered Dubcek's reforms with invasion of Czechoslovakia by 600,000 Warsaw Pact troops. Prague was not eager to give way, but scattered student resistance was no match for Soviet tanks. Dubcek's reforms were repealed, and the leader himself was replaced with the staunchly pro-Soviet Gustav Husak, who re-established an authoritarian Communist regime in the country.

In 1989, as Communist governments folded across Eastern Europe, Prague again became the scene of demonstrations for democratic reforms. In December 1989, Husak's government conceded to demands for a multiparty Parliament. Husak resigned, and for the first time in two decades Dubcek returned to politics as chairman of the new Parliament, which subsequently elected playwright Vaclav Havel as president of Czechoslovakia. Havel had come to fame during the Prague Spring, and after the Soviet crackdown his plays were banned and his passport confiscated.

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