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PRAGUE SPRING AND BREZHNEV DOCTRINE - Coggle Diagram
PRAGUE SPRING AND BREZHNEV DOCTRINE
BACKGROUND
Brezhnev (elected 1964) wanted stability in Eastern Europe where some nations had been experiencing economic downturn and/or were reconsidering socialism
Czech economist Ota Sik proposed reforms to end economic depression in Czechoslovakia
end centralised economic targets
Communist Party responsive to public opinion
PRAGUE SPRING
CAUSES
USSR placed Alexandr Dubcek in charge 5 jan supposedly as Party bureaucrat to stabilise the country, actually was reformist - replaced key officials in govt without consulting Soviets
Dubcek advocated 'new start' for socialism that included free speech and free press - BUT assured USSR that he was still part of Warsaw Pact
USSR RESPONSE
20-21 August Warsaw Pact nations invaded - criticised by China and Romania, some of the rest of the Eastern Bloc
failed to persuade Dubcek to revoke his reforms in various meeting in summer 1968
Thousands of people kept protesting in Prague in late 1968, then new conformist government put in place in April 1969
SIGNIFICANCE
NATO were unthreatened by Red Army action, didn't do anything
invasion appeared to undermine the sovereignty of Czechoslovakia and the potential for party-led reform
BREZHNEV DOCTRINE
Justified intervention to uphold socialism in the Communist Bloc
'each Communist Bloc member is responsible for the entire Communist movement
Thousands of Slovaks still protested in Prague despite Brezhnev Doctrine
CONCLUSIONS
The destabilisation of Communism prevalent in Czechoslovakia convinced the USSR of the need to militarily enforce socialism and carefully open up to Western trade in order to increase the happiness of its people
The Prague Spring and the ruthless crushing of it by USSR increased the Sino-Soviet split
Brezhnev Doctrine and military reaction to Prague Spring showed that party-led reform was basically impossible