An Unexpected Dawn: The Prague Spring and the Mechanism of Change in State Socialism

Dieter Segert

Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe, 2008, vol. 16, issue 2, 203-211

Abstract: From the perspective of post-1989, Soviet-style state socialism is seen as a historical dead end. This account of the attempt to reform state socialism in the Prague Spring of 1968 attempts a different interpretation. The reforms in Prague were a remarkable attempt to live up to the original Marxist ideal of a just and politically free modern society. What were the policies of the reformers around Alexander Dubček? How were these reforms at all possible in the first place? Why were they carried out and who were the main actors? When did this development begin that later blossomed into the Prague Spring? Finally, what does the emergence of this practical transformation have to say about state socialism and its power structure: in view of the reforms that actually happened, is it meaningful to describe it still as a totalitarian dictatorship?

Date: 2008
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DOI: 10.1080/09651560802318754

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