“An elderly, slightly stooping figure, with white hair and a gentle smile, Alexander Dubĉek waited for the chanting to subside. Then he uttered the slogan that had inspired millions of his countrymen in 1968 and caused a panic-stricken Soviet Politburo to send tanks rumbling into Czechoslovakia.“Long live socialism with a human face!”90More chants of “Freedom, freedom!” and “Long live Dubĉek.” The long, narrow square echoed with the sound of people jangling key chains, their way of telling Dubĉe...k’s Stalinist successors that the time had come to quit.For more than two decades Czechoslovakia’s hard-line Stalinist regime had done its best to turn Dubĉek into a nonperson. When the state-controlled news media deigned to mention him at all, it was only to ridicule him. After being forced to resign as first secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party in April 1969, he had been given a series of low-level jobs, each one more degrading than the last. For most of his countrymen, Dubĉek’s weary face evoked a bygone age.MoreLessRead More Read Less
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