Alexander Dubček
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Alexander Dubek
(born Nov. 27, 1921, Uhrovec, Czech.died Nov. 7, 1992, Prague) Czech politician. In World War II he took part in the underground resistance to Nazi occupation. After the war he rose in Communist Party ranks to become a member of the Presidium of the party's Central Committee (1962). In 1968 he forced Antonn Novotn (190475) to resign and replaced him as head of the Communist Party. He introduced liberal reforms in the brief period known as the Prague Spring, which ended when the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia in August 1968. Demoted to lesser posts, he was expelled from the party in 1970. He returned to prominence in 1989 after the Communist Party had given up its monopoly on power, and was elected speaker of the Czech parliament.
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Oxford Dictionary of Political Biography:
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Alexander Dubček
(b. Uhrovec, western Slovakia, 27 Nov. 1921; d. Prague, 7 Nov. 1992) Slovak; leader of the Slovak Communist Party 1963 – 8, leader of the Czechoslovak Party 1968 – 9. The son of a Communist carpenter, Dubček spent his childhood from 1925 to 1938 in the Soviet Union. He joined the illegal Slovak Communist Party in 1939. In August 1944 he participated in the Slovak National Uprising and was wounded. Until 1949 Dubček held a variety of menial and factory jobs. He then entered the party apparatus full-time, working in Trenčin, and was appointed to the Slovak Central Committee in 1951. Early in 1953 he was promoted to post of regional secretary of the Banská Bystrica area in central Slovakia. In 1958 he was made regional secretary for Bratislava and member of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Party. In 1960 he made his only trip to the West, visiting Finland. In June 1960 he became a secretary of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Party and entered the Czechoslovak Party Presidium in 1963. In May 1963 he replaced Karol Bacílek as Slovak Party leader, defeating Novotný's candidate, Michal Chudík. In June 1966 Chudík and Novotný failed to oust Dubček from leadership of the Slovak Party. In October 1967 Dubček led the revolt against Novotný of reformists and Slovak nationalists within the Czechoslovak Central Committee and replaced Novotný as First Secretary of the Czechoslovak Party in January 1968. Impelled by economic crisis and popular expectations, Dubček's regime enacted a series of far-reaching measures intended to create "socialism with a human face". The culmination was the "Action Programme" of April 1968, by which the party announced reforms including basic civil rights, an independent judiciary, and economic decentralization. From 29 July to 2 August Dubček met the Soviet leaders at Čierna-nad-Tisou in Slovakia. He promised to maintain the one-party system and to keep Czechoslovakia within the Warsaw Pact. On the night of 20 – 1 August 1968 the forces of the Warsaw Pact intervened in Czechoslovakia. Dubček and five other leaders were arrested and taken to Moscow, but were soon returned to Prague. In 1969 Husák replaced Dubček as party leader and he became President of the Federal Assembly. In 1970 he was removed from office and expelled from the party. From then until 1989 he worked as a forest warden in Slovakia. He sided with the democratic opposition during the "Velvet Revolution" of 1989 which brought down the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, but did not play a significant political role thereafter. He died after a car crash in 1992.
Gale Encyclopedia of Biography:
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Alexander Dubček
The Czechoslovak politician Alexander Dubček (1921-1992) served briefly as head of his country's Communist party. His attempts to liberalize political life led to the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet army and his dismissal from office, only to be vindicated years later when the Communist regime fell.
Alexander Dubček was born on Nov. 27, 1921, the son of a cabinetmaker who had just returned from the United States. His family lived in the U.S.S.R. from 1925 to 1938, and it was there that he received his education. During World War II he was an active member of the underground resistance to the Germans in Slovakia.
After the war Dubček made his career as a functionary of the Communist party. He was elected to the Presidium of the Slovakian and then of the Czechoslovakian Communist party in 1962, and in the following year he became first secretary of the Slovakian party's Central Committee. Yet when he succeeded Antonin Novotny in January 1968 as first secretary of the Czechoslovakian Communist party, he was not well known in his own country and was hardly known at all outside it.
Pressure for the relaxation of the rigid dogma prevailing in political life had been mounting in Czechoslovakia for a considerable time and had been strengthened by economic discontent. Dubček became the personification of this movement and promised to introduce "socialism with a human face." After coming to power, censorship was relaxed and plans were made for a new federal constitution, for new legislation to provide for a greater degree of civil liberty, and for a new electoral law to give greater freedom to non-Communist parties.
The Soviet government became increasingly alarmed by these developments and throughout the spring and summer of 1968 issued a series of warnings to Dubček and his colleagues. Dubček had attempted to steer a middle course between liberal and conservative extremes, and at a midsummer confrontation with the Soviet leaders he stood firm against their demands for a reversal of his policies.
It was thought that Dubček had won his point on this occasion, but on August 20 armies of the U.S.S.R. and the other Warsaw Pact countries occupied Czechoslovakia. Some historians believe that the immediate cause of the Soviet invasion was the Action Program, initiated by Dubcek the previous year. Mass demonstrations of support for Dubček kept him in power for the time being, but his liberal political program was abandoned.
Over the next 2 years Dubček was gradually removed from power. In April 1969 he resigned as first secretary of the party, to be replaced by the orthodox Dr. Gustav Husak. That September he was dismissed from the Presidium, and in January 1970 from the Central Committee. In December 1969 he was sent to Turkey as ambassador. The final blow came on June 27, 1970, when he was expelled from the Communist party, and shortly afterward he was dismissed from his ambassadorial post. From there he was confined for almost twenty years to a forestry camp in Bratislava, with little contact with the outside world and constant and intense supervision by the secret police.
Meanwhile, the attitudes that Dubček had set in motion continued under their own power. A small underground movement known as Charter 77, named after its inaugural declaration on January 1, 1977, grew to 2,000 members over the next twelve years. Influenced by the movement in neighboring Poland for greater openness and human rights, Charter 77 was created by a broad spectrum of leaders, including former Communists and religious activists. They were constantly hounded and persecuted by the Communist government, but did not relent. Police arrested ten of the group's leaders, including Vaclav Havel and Jiri Dienstbier, who became, respectively, President and Foreign Minister of the new Czechoslovak government in 1989. Charter 77 continued until 1995, when it became apparent it had fulfilled its function.
Dubček highly approved of Russian prime minister Mikhail Gorbachev's progressive policy of glasnost, and eventually its successor of perestroika. While he noted there were some fundamental differences, he believed it came from the same ethic he had tried to promote in the Prague Spring. After Gorbachev visited Czechoslovakia in 1987, the secret police started leaving Dubček alone.
On November 17, 1989, a student commemoration of a Nazi atrocity in 1939 was brutally assaulted by riot police with little provocation. The factionalized oppositions to the government became united to a single purpose by the event, and formed the Civic Forum, led by Havel. He obtained video of the riot, interviewed victims, and had thousands of copies distributed across the country that were surreptitiously played on available televisions. The people became inflamed, and larger and larger demonstrating crowds filled Wenceslas Square. This rapid yet peaceful movement came to be known as the Velvet Revolution. Just a week after the riot, Havel and Dubček appeared together to the throng, who in one voice demanded the latter's restoration.
At first, Havel, the playwright, insisted on standing in the shadow of Dubček; by the time of the federal elections in 1990, it had been decided that Dubček would become chairman of the federal parliament. Dubček then proposed Havel for the presidency, which was accepted unanimously.
In his last years, Dubček aligned himself with the ideas of European Social Democracy and especially with German chancellor Willy Brandt. In 1992, Dubček became leader of the Social Democratic party in Slovakia. By that time he was already sick, having worked virtually around the clock for over two years as chairman of the Czechoslovak assembly. A huge shock, one he did not get over, was the death of his wife, Anna, in September 1991. A year later, Dubček was in a car accident, and barely escaped immediate death. Physicians diagnosed him with with a broken spine, as well as other serious illnesses. He passed away on November 1, 1992. Shortly thereafter, Czechoslovakia peacefully separated into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, an event known as the Velvet Divorce.
Further Reading
The best biography of Dubček, and a successful attempt to relate his career to developments within Czechoslovakia as a whole, is William Shawcross, Dubček (1990). The best book on the 1968 crisis itself is Philip Windsor and Adam Roberts, Czechoslovakia, 1968 (1969). The best way to see these events through the eyes of the man who lived them is in Dubček's autobiography, Hope Dies Last (1993), edited by Jiri Hochman. Valuable background is provided by Edward Taborsky, Communism in Czechoslovakia, 1948-1960 (1961). The cultural and political climate of Eastern Europe in the late 1980's is decsribed in Lighting the Night: Revolutions in Eastern Europe (1990) by William Echikson.
Columbia Encyclopedia:
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Alexander Dubček
Dubček, Alexander (ä'lĕksän'dĕr dʊb'chĕk), 1921-92, Czechoslovakian political leader. A member of the Slovakian national minority, he was active in the Communist underground in World War II and rose in the party hierarchy after the war, becoming head of the Slovakian Communist party and a member of the presidium of the Communist party's central committee. In 1967 he led the liberal opposition to the party's first secretary, Antonín Novotný. In Jan., 1968, Novotný was forced to resign; Dubček succeeded him. In Dubček's brief term in office he relaxed censorship, placed liberal Communists in leading state posts, began to pursue an independent foreign policy, and promised a gradual democratization of Czech political life. This period is known as the Prague Spring. The USSR became increasingly alarmed at Dubček's policies, and in Aug., 1968, Soviet and other Warsaw Pact armies invaded Czechoslovakia. Dubček was arrested along with other leaders, taken to Moscow, and forced to consent to the cancellation of key reforms. He retained his post as first secretary, but pro-Soviet elements in the Czech party soon (1969) removed him. After serving briefly as ambassador to Turkey (1969-70), he fell into official disgrace. He returned to public view in the late 1980s as a supporter of the Civic Reform opposition party led by Václav Havel. From 1989 to 1992, Dubček served as speaker of the Czechoslovak parliament, where his presence provided a direct connection between the new government and the reforms of the Prague Spring.
Bibliography
See K. Dawisha, The Kremlin and the Prague Spring (1984).
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Alexander Dubček
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| Alexander Dubček | |
|---|---|
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| Dubček during speech with other politicians | |
| First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia | |
| In office 5 January 1968 – 17 April 1969 |
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| Preceded by | Antonín Novotný |
| Succeeded by | Gustáv Husák |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 27 November 1921 Uhrovec, Czechoslovakia (present day Slovakia) |
| Died | 7 November 1992 (aged 70) Prague, Czechoslovakia (present day Czech Republic) |
| Nationality | Slovak |
| Political party | Communist Party of Slovakia (1939-1948) Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (1948–1970) |
| Signature |  |
Alexander Dubček (Slovak pronunciation: [ˈalɛksandɛr ˈduptʃɛk]; 27 November 1921 – 7 November 1992) was a Slovak politician and briefly leader of Czechoslovakia (1968–1969), famous for his attempt to reform the communist regime during the Prague Spring. Later, after the overthrow of the government in 1989, he was Chairman of the federal Czecho-Slovak parliament.
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Early life
Dubček was born in Uhrovec, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), and raised in the Kyrgyz SSR of the Soviet Union (now Kyrgyzstan) as a member of the Esperantist industrial cooperative Interhelpo. His father, Štefan, moved from Chicago to Czechoslovakia after World War I, when he refused to serve in the military for his pacifism. Alexander Dubček was conceived in Chicago, but born after the family relocated to Czechoslovakia. When Alexander Dubček was three, the family moved to the Soviet Union, in part to help build socialism and in part because jobs were scarce in Czechoslovakia. In 1938 the family returned to Czechoslovakia.
During the Second World War, Alexander Dubček joined the underground resistance against the wartime pro-German Slovak state headed by Jozef Tiso. In August 1944, Dubček fought in the Slovak National Uprising and was wounded. His brother, Július, was killed.
Political career
During the war, Alexander Dubček joined the Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS), which had been created after the formation of the Slovak state and in 1948 was transformed into the Slovak branch of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ).
After the war, he steadily rose through the ranks in Communist Czechoslovakia. From 1951 to 1955 he was a member of the National Assembly, the parliament of Czechoslovakia. In 1953, he was sent to the Moscow Political College, where he graduated in 1958. In 1955 joined the Central Committee of the Slovak branch and in 1962 became a member of the presidium. In 1958 he also joined the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, which he served as a secretary from 1960 to 1962 and as a member of the presidium after 1962. From 1960 to 1968 he once more was a member of the federal parliament.
In 1963, a power struggle in the leadership of the Slovak branch unseated Karol Bacílek and Pavol David, hard-line allies of Antonín Novotný, First Secretary of the KSČ and president of Czechoslovakia. In their place, a new generation of Slovak Communists took control of party and state organs in Slovakia, led by Alexander Dubček, who became First Secretary of the Slovak branch of the party.
Under Dubček's leadership, Slovakia began to evolve toward political liberalization. Because Novotný and his Stalinist predecessors had denigrated Slovak "bourgeois nationalists", most notably Gustáv Husák and Vladimír Clementis, in the 1950s, the Slovak branch worked to promote Slovak identity. This mainly took the form of celebrations and commemorations, such as the 150th birthdays of 19th century leaders of the Slovak National Revival Ľudovít Štúr and Jozef Miloslav Hurban, the centennial of the Matica slovenská in 1963, and the twentieth anniversary of the Slovak National Uprising. At the same time, the political and intellectual climate in Slovakia became freer than that in the Czech Lands. This was exemplified by the rising readership of Kultúrny život, the weekly newspaper of the Union of Slovak Writers, which published frank discussions of liberalization, federalization and democratization, written by the most progressive or controversial writers – both Slovak and Czech. Kultúrny život consequently became the first Slovak publication to gain a wide following among Czechs.
Prague Spring
Main article: Prague Spring
Under Communism, the Czechoslovak economy in the 1960s was in serious decline and the imposition of central control from Prague disappointed local Communists while the destalinization program caused further disquiet. In October 1967, a number of reformers, most notably Ota Šik and Alexander Dubček, took action: they challenged First Secretary Antonín Novotný at a Central Committee meeting. Novotný faced a mutiny in the Central Committee, so he secretly invited Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet leader, to make a whirlwind visit to Prague in December 1967 in order to shore up the embattled Novotný. When Brezhnev arrived in Prague and met with the Central Committee members, he was stunned to learn of the extent of the opposition to Novotný, leading Brezhnev to withhold support and paving the way for the Central Committee to remove Novotný. Dubček became the new First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on 5 January 1968.
The period following Novotný's downfall became known as the Prague Spring. During this time, Dubček and other reformers sought to liberalize the Communist regime, creating "socialism with a human face". Though this loosened the party's grip on the country, Dubček remained a devoted Communist and intended to preserve the party's rule. However, during the Prague Spring, he and other reform-minded Communists sought to win popular support for the Communist regime by eliminating its worst, most repressive features, allowing greater freedom of expression and tolerating political and social organizations not under Communist control. "Dubcek! Svoboda!" became the popular refrain of student demonstrations during this period. Yet Dubček found himself in an increasingly untenable position. The program of reform gained momentum, leading to pressures for further liberalization and democratization. At the same time, hard-line Communists in Czechoslovakia and the leaders of other Warsaw Pact countries pressured Dubček to rein in the Prague Spring. Though Dubček wanted to keep control of the reform movement, he refused to resort to any draconian measures to do so.
The Soviet leadership tried to stop or limit the changes in the ČSSR through a series of negotiations. The Soviet Union agreed to bilateral talks with Czechoslovakia in July at Čierna nad Tisou, near the Slovak-Soviet border. At the meeting, Dubček tried to reassure the Soviets and the Warsaw Pact leaders that he was still friendly to Moscow, arguing that the reforms were an internal matter. He thought he had learned an important lesson from the failing of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, believing the Kremlin would allow him a free hand in pursuing domestic reform as long as Czechoslovakia remained a faithful ally of the Soviet Union, under Communist rule. Despite Dubček's continuing efforts to stress these commitments, Brezhnev and other Warsaw Pact leaders remained wary.
Downfall
On the night of 20–21 August 1968, Warsaw Pact forces entered Czechoslovakia. The occupying armies quickly seized control of Prague and the Central Committee's building, taking Dubček and other reformers into Soviet custody. But before they were arrested, Dubček urged the people not to resist. Later in the day, Dubček and the others were taken to Moscow on a Soviet military transport aircraft (reportedly one of the aircraft used in the Soviet invasion).
Despite the inspired nonviolent resistance of the Czech and Slovak population, the reformers had little hope of holding out against Soviet pressure and ultimately were forced to accede to Soviet demands, signing the Moscow protocols. (Only František Kriegel refused to sign.)
Dubček and most of the reformers were returned to Prague on 27 August and Dubček retained his post as the party's first secretary for a while. Indeed, the achievements of the Prague Spring were not reversed overnight, but over a period of several months.
In January 1969, Dubček was hospitalized in Bratislava complaining of a cold and had to cancel a speech. Rumours sprang up that his illness was radiation sickness and that it was caused by radioactive strontium being placed in his soup during his stay in Moscow in an attempt to kill him. However, a U.S. intelligence report discounted this for lack of evidence.[1]
Dubček was forced to resign as first secretary in April 1969 following the Czechoslovak Hockey Riots. He was re-elected to the Federal Assembly (as the federal parliament was now called) and became its Speaker. He was later sent as ambassador to Turkey (1969–70), allegedly in the hope that he would defect to the West, which however did not occur. In 1970, he was expelled from the Communist party and lost his seats in the Slovak parliament (which he had held continuously since 1964) and the Federal Assembly.
Private citizen
After his expulsion from the party, Dubček worked in the Forestry Service in Slovakia. He remained a popular figure among the Slovaks and Czechs he encountered on the job, using this reverence to procure scarce and hard-to-find materials for his workplace. Dubček and his wife, Anna, continued to live in a comfortable villa in a nice neighborhood in Bratislava. In 1988, Dubček was allowed to travel to Italy to accept an honorary doctorate from Bologna University, and while there he gave an interview with Italian newspaper L'Unità, his first public remarks to the press since 1970. Dubček's appearance and interview helped to return him to international prominence.
In 1989, he was awarded the annual Sakharov Prize in its second year of existence.[2]
Velvet Revolution
During the Velvet Revolution of 1989, he supported the Public against Violence (VPN) and the Civic Forum. On the night of 24 November, Dubček appeared with Václav Havel on a balcony overlooking Wenceslas Square, He was greeted with uproarious applause from the throngs of protesters below, embraced as a symbol of democratic freedom. He disappointed the crowd somewhat by calling the revolution a chance to continue the work he started 20 years earlier and prune out what was wrong with Communism. By this time, however, the demonstrators in Prague wanted nothing to do with Communism of any sort. Later that night, Dubček was on stage with Havel at the Laterna Magika theater, the headquarters of Civic Forum, when the entire leadership of the Communist Party resigned—in effect, ending Communist rule in Czechoslovakia.[3]
Dubček was elected Chairman of the Federal Assembly (the Czechoslovak Parliament) on 28 December 1989, and re-elected in 1990 and 1992.
At the time of the overthrow of Communist party rule, Dubček described the Velvet Revolution as a victory for his humanistic socialist outlook. In 1990, he received the International Humanist Award from the International Humanist and Ethical Union.
In 1992, he became leader of the Social Democratic Party of Slovakia and represented that party in the Federal Assembly. At that time, Dubček passively supported the union between Czechs and Slovaks in a single Czecho-Slovak federation against the (ultimately successful) push towards an independent Slovak state.
Death
Dubček died on 7 November 1992, as a result of injuries sustained in car crash that took place on 1 September on the Czech D1 highway, near Humpolec.[4][5] He was buried in Slávičie údolie cemetery in Bratislava, Slovakia.
References
- ^ Radiation Sickness or Death Caused by Surreptitious Administration of Ionizing Radiation to an Individual. Report No. 4 of The Molecular Biology Working Group to The Biomedical Intelligence Subcommittee of The Scientific Intelligence Committee of USIB, 27 August 1969. Retrieved on 5 May 2007.
- ^ "Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought: List of prize winners", European Parliament webpage.
- ^ Sebetsyen, Victor (2009). Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire. New York City: Pantheon Books. ISBN 0-375-42532-2.
- ^ Alexander Dubcek, 70, Dies in Prague (New York Times, 8 November 1992)
- ^ Kopanic, Michael J Jr, "Case closed: Dubček's death declared an accident, not murder", Central Europe Review (Vol 2, No 8), 28 February 2000.
External links
- Works by or about Alexander Dubček in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Hope Dies Last The Autobiography of Alexander Dubcek by Alexander Dubcek (Author), Jiří Hochman (Editor, Translator), Kodansha Europe (1993), ISBN 1-56836-000-2.
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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2012 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more
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A Dictionary of Political Biography. Copyright © 1998, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
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Gale Encyclopedia of Biography. © 2006 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/.
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