Alexander Dubček was a Slovak politician and, briefly, leader of Czechoslovakia (1968–1969).
Background
Alexander Dubcek was born on 27 November 1921 in Uhrovec, Czechoslovakia. His father, Stefan Dubček, was a member of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. His family moved to the Soviet Union when he was three and returned to Czechoslovakia after a few years.
Education
His family lived in the U. S. S. R. from 1925 to 1938, and it was there that he received his education.
In 1953, he was sent to the Moscow Political College, where he graduated in 1958.
In 1988, Dubček was allowed to travel to Italy to accept an honorary doctorate from Bologna University,
Career
During World War II he was an active member of the underground resistance to the Germans in Slovakia.
After the war Dubček made his career as a functionary of the Communist party. He was elected to the Presidium of the Slovakian and then of the Czechoslovakian Communist party in 1962, and in the following year he became first secretary of the Slovakian party's Central Committee. Yet when he succeeded Antonin Novotny in January 1968 as first secretary of the Czechoslovakian Communist party, he was not well known in his own country and was hardly known at all outside it.
Pressure for the relaxation of the rigid dogma prevailing in political life had been mounting in Czechoslovakia for a considerable time and had been strengthened by economic discontent. Dubček became the personification of this movement and promised to introduce "socialism with a human face. " After coming to power, censorship was relaxed and plans were made for a new federal constitution, for new legislation to provide for a greater degree of civil liberty, and for a new electoral law to give greater freedom to non-Communist parties.
The Soviet government became increasingly alarmed by these developments and throughout the spring and summer of 1968 issued a series of warnings to Dubček and his colleagues. Dubček had attempted to steer a middle course between liberal and conservative extremes, and at a midsummer confrontation with the Soviet leaders he stood firm against their demands for a reversal of his policies.
It was thought that Dubček had won his point on this occasion, but on August 20 armies of the U. S. S. R. and the other Warsaw Pact countries occupied Czechoslovakia. Some historians believe that the immediate cause of the Soviet invasion was the Action Program, initiated by Dubcek the previous year. Mass demonstrations of support for Dubček kept him in power for the time being, but his liberal political program was abandoned.
Over the next 2 years Dubček was gradually removed from power. In April 1969 he resigned as first secretary of the party, to be replaced by the orthodox Dr. Gustav Husak. That September he was dismissed from the Presidium, and in January 1970 from the Central Committee. In December 1969 he was sent to Turkey as ambassador. The final blow came on June 27, 1970, when he was expelled from the Communist party, and shortly afterward he was dismissed from his ambassadorial post. From there he was confined for almost twenty years to a forestry camp in Bratislava, with little contact with the outside world and constant and intense supervision by the secret police.
Meanwhile, the attitudes that Dubček had set in motion continued under their own power. A small underground movement known as Charter 77, named after its inaugural declaration on January 1, 1977, grew to 2, 000 members over the next twelve years. Influenced by the movement in neighboring Poland for greater openness and human rights, Charter 77 was created by a broad spectrum of leaders, including former Communists and religious activists. They were constantly hounded and persecuted by the Communist government, but did not relent. Police arrested ten of the group's leaders, including Vaclav Havel and Jiri Dienstbier, who became, respectively, President and Foreign Minister of the new Czechoslovak government in 1989. Charter 77 continued until 1995, when it became apparent it had fulfilled its function.
On November 17, 1989, a student commemoration of a Nazi atrocity in 1939 was brutally assaulted by riot police with little provocation. The factionalized oppositions to the government became united to a single purpose by the event, and formed the Civic Forum, led by Havel. He obtained video of the riot, interviewed victims, and had thousands of copies distributed across the country that were surreptitiously played on available televisions. The people became inflamed, and larger and larger demonstrating crowds filled Wenceslas Square. This rapid yet peaceful movement came to be known as the Velvet Revolution. Just a week after the riot, Havel and Dubček appeared together to the throng, who in one voice demanded the latter's restoration.
At first, Havel, the playwright, insisted on standing in the shadow of Dubček; by the time of the federal elections in 1990, it had been decided that Dubček would become chairman of the federal parliament. Dubček then proposed Havel for the presidency, which was accepted unanimously.
In his last years, Dubček aligned himself with the ideas of European Social Democracy and especially with German chancellor Willy Brandt. In 1992, Dubček became leader of the Social Democratic party in Slovakia. By that time he was already sick, having worked virtually around the clock for over two years as chairman of the Czechoslovak assembly. A huge shock, one he did not get over, was the death of his wife, Anna, in September 1991. A year later, Dubček was in a car accident, and barely escaped immediate death. Physicians diagnosed him with with a broken spine, as well as other serious illnesses. He passed away on November 1, 1992. Shortly thereafter, Czechoslovakia peacefully separated into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, an event known as the Velvet Divorce.
During the war, Alexander Dubček joined the Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS), which had been created after the formation of the Slovak state and in 1948 was transformed into the Slovak branch of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ).
After the war, he steadily rose through the ranks in Communist Czechoslovakia. From 1951 to 1955 he was a member of the National Assembly, the parliament of Czechoslovakia. In 1955 he joined the Central Committee of the Slovak branch and in 1962 became a member of the presidium. In 1958 he also joined the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, which he served as a secretary from 1960 to 1962 and as a member of the presidium after 1962. From 1960 to 1968 he once more was a member of the federal parliament.
In 1963, a power struggle in the leadership of the Slovak branch unseated Karol Bacílek and Pavol David, hard-line allies of Antonín Novotný, First Secretary of the KSČ and President of Czechoslovakia. In their place, a new generation of Slovak Communists took control of party and state organs in Slovakia, led by Alexander Dubček, who became First Secretary of the Slovak branch of the party.
Under Dubček's leadership, Slovakia began to evolve toward political liberalization. Because Novotný and his Stalinist predecessors had denigrated Slovak "bourgeois nationalists", most notably Gustáv Husák and Vladimír Clementis, in the 1950s, the Slovak branch worked to promote Slovak identity. This mainly took the form of celebrations and commemorations, such as the 150th birthdays of 19th century leaders of the Slovak National Revival Ľudovít Štúr and Jozef Miloslav Hurban, the centenary of the Matica slovenská in 1963, and the twentieth anniversary of the Slovak National Uprising. At the same time, the political and intellectual climate in Slovakia became freer than that in the Czech Lands. This was exemplified by the rising readership of Kultúrny život, the weekly newspaper of the Union of Slovak Writers, which published frank discussions of liberalization, federalization and democratization, written by the most progressive or controversial writers – both Slovak and Czech. Kultúrny život consequently became the first Slovak publication to gain a wide following among Czechs.
Dubček highly approved of Russian prime minister Mikhail Gorbachev's progressive policy of glasnost, and eventually its successor of perestroika. While he noted there were some fundamental differences, he believed it came from the same ethic he had tried to promote in the Prague Spring. After Gorbachev visited Czechoslovakia in 1987, the secret police started leaving Dubček alone.
He attempted to reform the communist government during the Prague Spring but he was forced to resign following the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.
Connections
Alexander Dubcek was married to Anna and they had three sons, Paul, Peter and Milan. His wife died in 1990.
Dubček and his wife, Anna lived in a comfortable villa in a nice neighbourhood in Bratislava.