Word: czechoslovakias
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...CZECHOSLOVAKIA, the little country that is trying the difficult and perhaps impossible task of combining Communism with freedom, is continuing to stir up resentment and alarm in its Communist neighbors. Russia and the more orthodox Communist states of Eastern Europe, in turn, are putting enormous pressure on the Czechoslovaks to restrain their liberating zeal. It is a conflict that could lead to tragedy...
...Their troika partner, Aleksei Kosygin, cut short a state visit to Sweden to join them there for talks with party leaders from Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria and East Germany. The Communist summit, the third of its kind in four months, was the Soviet response to the onrush of reform in Czechoslovakia, and its convening was the climax of a week of ominous moves against the Czechoslovaks. It was also proof of an increasingly apparent fact: however tolerant it may seem to be in its relations with other Communist states-and in spite of considerable liberalization at home-Russia still cannot abide...
...Elite Sign. The Kremlin's pressure on Czechoslovakia ranged from attacks on the most liberal proponents of reform to an ill-concealed attempt to intimidate the government by delaying the departure of Soviet troops, which had been conducting maneuvers on Czechoslovak soil. The most ominous Russian warning came from the official Communist Party newspaper Pravda, which for the first time compared the Czechoslovak situation to the Hungarian uprising of 1956. It spoke of Czechoslovakia's "counterrevolutionary activity"-the worst swear word in the Communist lexicon-and charged that the progressives in Prague were "more treacherous and sinister" than...
What so excited the Russians was a growing number of democratic measures in Czechoslovakia that are unheard of in most other Communist countries (see following story). The Russians apparently decided that matters had got out of hand when Prague newspapers printed a manifesto demanding that hard-line and usually pro-Soviet Communists be driven from high government and party posts, and urging the public to use strikes, boycotts and demonstrations to force them out. Known as "the 2,000 words," the manifesto was originally signed by 70 members of the country's elite, including artists, film directors and athletes...
...were supposed to withdraw by the end of June, but did not. Throughout the week, Dubček was reportedly on the phone to Moscow to find out why. One report had Brezhnev bluntly telling him that the Soviet troops were needed to prevent the overthrow of Communism in Czechoslovakia...