Alexander Dubček

Alexander Dubček (Slovak pronunciation: [ˈalɛksandɛr ˈduptʃɛk]; 27 November 1921 – 7 November 1992) was a Czechoslovak and Slovak politician who served as the First Secretary of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) (de facto leader of Czechoslovakia) from January 1968 to April 1969. He attempted to reform the communist government during the Prague Spring but was forced to resign following the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968. He later returned as Chairman of the National Federal Assembly after the Velvet Revolution.

The role of the party is to recognize people’s understanding, to raise it to a higher plain, to support progressive thinking and acts.

Quotes

• What has made this whole process so special is that above all - especially in terms of the pace of change – it has been determined by the creative and spontaneous activity of the broad mass of the people, with the communists in the vanguard. In this spirit and in accord with the plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, people have acted without the slightest manipulation and without being given commands from above. The role of the party is to recognize people’s understanding, to raise it to a higher plane, to support progressive thinking and acts.
  • Speech to a meeting of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia's Central Committee outlining the reforms known as Socialism with a human face, April 1, 1968. Quoted in Alexander Dubček: hope and despair in 1968 (January 22, 2009) by David Vaughan, Radio Prague

• My problem was not having a crystal ball to foresee the Russian invasion. At no point between January and August 20, in fact, did I believe that it would happen.
  • As quoted in "Hope Dies Last: The Autobiography of Alexander Dubcek" (1993) by Jiri Hochman, Kodansha International, pp. 128

Quotes about

• With the wall breached, everything was possible. On November 10th, Todor Zhivkov, Bulgaria's ruler since 1954, announced that he was stepping down; soon the Bulgarian Communist Party was negotiating with the opposition and promising free elections. On November 17th, demonstrations broke out in Prague and quickly spread throughout Czechoslovakia. Within weeks, a coalition government had ousted the communists, and by the end of the year Alexander Dubcek, who had presided over the 1968 "Prague spring," was installed as chairman of the national assembly, reporting to the new president of Czechoslovakia—Václav Havel.
  • John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (2005), p. 246
• Dubcek, the bureaucrat with a pleasant smile, was a confusing blend of contradictions. He spent his entire career as the cog in a totalitarian machine and then, when he emerged on top, declared himself a democrat. He was a pragmatist and a dreamer. He could be a skilled maneuverer in the baroque labyrinth of communist politics. But in the end even he admitted that he could be incredibly naïve.
  • Mark Kurlansky, 1968: The Year that Rocked the World (2004), ISBN 0-345-45581-9

External links

• Alexander Dubček profile on the Sakharov Prize Network
• Dubcek: Dubcek and Czechoslovakia 1918–1968 by William Shawcross (1970)
• 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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