The Polish and Czech opposition movements had their roots in the events of 1968
What was the Prague Spring, or the events of 1968 more generally? Their meaning, it seems, has become more, not less, debatable with the passage of time. My generation was forged by protests & police truncheons, by the hopes generated not only by the Prague Spring, but also by the Polish student movement that March, the Paris events of May, and first signs of Russian democracy voiced in the early books of Sakharov & Solzhenitsyn. For those of us imprisoned in Poland, the Prague Spring was a harbinger of hope.
So I remember my shock when I learned about the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August, and the trauma that lingered long after. On the tenth anniversary of that invasion, Václav Havel, Jacek Kuron, and I, along with other dissidents, met on the Czech-Polish border. These encounters were an extension of the climate of the Prague Spring. We all felt that we were creating something new, something that might, one day, turn out to be an important component of democracy in our countries.
And so it was. In August 1989, I proposed in the Polish Diet a draft resolution apologising to the Czechs & Slovaks for Polish involvement in the 1968 invasion. I felt that a historical circle was being closed: the ideas of the Polish March and the Prague Spring, the ideas of our mountain meetings, were becoming political facts. Three months later, the Velvet Revolution began in Prague.
The main difference between the Prague Spring and the Velvet Revolution was that the former was mostly the work of Communist Party members and others who wanted to bring about “socialism with a human face.” As a result, some people dismiss the Prague Spring as a power struggle between communists. Communism was attractive for the idea of universal justice & humanised social relations; a response to the great spiritual crisis after World War I and, later, to the Nazis’ genocide; and the conviction that Western dominance of the world was nearing its end.
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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
What was the Prague Spring, or the events of 1968 more generally? Their meaning, it seems, has become more, not less, debatable with the passage of time. My generation was forged by protests & police truncheons, by the hopes generated not only by the Prague Spring, but also by the Polish student movement that March, the Paris events of May, and first signs of Russian democracy voiced in the early books of Sakharov & Solzhenitsyn. For those of us imprisoned in Poland, the Prague Spring was a harbinger of hope.
So I remember my shock when I learned about the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August, and the trauma that lingered long after. On the tenth anniversary of that invasion, Václav Havel, Jacek Kuron, and I, along with other dissidents, met on the Czech-Polish border. These encounters were an extension of the climate of the Prague Spring. We all felt that we were creating something new, something that might, one day, turn out to be an important component of democracy in our countries.
And so it was. In August 1989, I proposed in the Polish Diet a draft resolution apologising to the Czechs & Slovaks for Polish involvement in the 1968 invasion. I felt that a historical circle was being closed: the ideas of the Polish March and the Prague Spring, the ideas of our mountain meetings, were becoming political facts. Three months later, the Velvet Revolution began in Prague.
The main difference between the Prague Spring and the Velvet Revolution was that the former was mostly the work of Communist Party members and others who wanted to bring about “socialism with a human face.” As a result, some people dismiss the Prague Spring as a power struggle between communists. Communism was attractive for the idea of universal justice & humanised social relations; a response to the great spiritual crisis after World War I and, later, to the Nazis’ genocide; and the conviction that Western dominance of the world was nearing its end.
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
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