Sakharov Prize 1989

Aleksander Dubček

Dubček was born in Slovakia in 1921.

When he was a child his family moved to the Soviet Union. He returned to Czechoslovakia at the outbreak of the Second World War and, as a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ),he fought in the resistance movement against the German Army.

After the war Dubček gradually rose in the party hierarchy. From 1951 to 1955 he was a member of the National Assembly, the federal parliament of Czechoslovakia. In 1963 he became First Secretary of the Slovak branch of the KSČ.

In the early 1960 Czechoslovakia suffered an economic recession In the early 1960 Czechoslovakia suffered an economic recession. Antoni Novonty, First Secretary of the KSČ and president of Czechoslovakia, was forced to make liberal concessions and in 1965 he introduced a programme of decentralization. These reforms were slow to make an impact on the Czech economy and in September 1967, Dubček presented a long list of grievances against the government. The following month there were large demonstrations against Novotny. In Jenuary 1968 the Czechoslovak Party Central Committee passed a vote of no confidence in Novotny and he was replaced by Dubček as First Secretary of the KSČ. The period following Novotny’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”. The measures adopted included: the abolition of censorship; the right of citizens to criticize the government; the recognition of political and social organizations not under Communist control; the creation of works councils in industry; the increase of rights for trade unions to bargain on behalf of its members; the right of farmers to form independent co-operatives.

Fearing changes in the pro-Soviet foreign policy of the Czechoslovakia, the Soviet leadership tried to stop or limit the program of reform through a series of negotiations. On 21 August 1968, Czechoslovakia was invaded by members of the Warsaw Pact, the military alliance of communist states in Central and Eastern Europe. In order to avoid bloodshed, the Czech government ordered its armed forces not to resist the invasion. Dubček and other reformers were taken to Moscow and after meetings with Leonid Brezhnev, the then General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (and thus political leader of the U.S.S.R.), announced after “free comradely discussion” that Czechoslovakia would be abandoning its reform programme.

In 1970 he was expelled from the Communist party and for the next 18 years he worked in a Forest Service in Slovakia.

After the collapse of communist government in November 1989, he became leader of the Social Democratic Party of Slovakia and represented that party in the Federal Assembly.

Dubček died as a result of a car accident in 1992.

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