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Wen 丨 Ye
Editor丨Law
"We know that this is not an honorable return... We lost the war... I realized that when the plane slowly landed, we were faced with the most difficult question to answer, what if we didn't lie and at the same time didn't tell the truth? ”
In the early morning of August 27, 1968, First Secretary of Czechoslovakia, Dubcek, sat with the delegation on a plane to Prague.
He had just experienced the most powerless 7 days of his life, his country was invaded, and as the person in the highest authority, he was invited by the KGB to Moscow for a meaningless negotiation.
This sense of suffocation oppressed by great fatalism, for Dubcek, may have disappeared completely only after the "velvet revolution".
The beginning of the tragedy
Dubcek was born in November 1921 to a poor family in Ukhrowicc, a mountainous region of western Slovakia. His father, Dubcek Sr., had become a Communist Party member in the United States long before he was born.
At the age of 4, Dubcek followed his father and responded to the Soviet Union's call to build socialism to Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan near China.
When they arrived in Bishkek, Dubcek recalled that when they arrived in Bishkek, he saw members of International Aid selflessly helping locals improve housing conditions, build brick factories, prevent fires and promote the use of machinery, while simple residents entertained them with hunted game.
Since then, Dubcek has developed his own understanding and yearning for true communism.
However, with the defeat of moderates in Moscow in 1928, Stalin began to pursue a radical collectivization policy, which reached Bishkek in 1930.
Perhaps the change of atmosphere affected the elder Dubcek, who in 1933 took advantage of training in Moscow to move his entire family from Kyrgyzstan to the city of Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod). It was precisely because of his father's decision that Dubcek, who was only a teenager, witnessed the horror of the red country.
The "Great Purge" began, and the heroes of what were once textbooks suddenly became defeated counter-revolutionaries. This sudden and violent political turmoil left an extremely deep impression on Dubcek's heart.
In 1938, Stalin's anxiety about the Nazis reached its peak when the Sudetenland events took its toll on foreigners in its borders: they demanded either Soviet citizenship or return. Out of love for his country, the elder Dubcek returned to his hometown with 17-year-old Dubcek to reunite with his loved ones.
In this way, the young man who grew up in the Soviet Red regime began a new course with a love for the nation, a belief in socialist ideals and a questioning of Stalin's policies, three factors that were also decisive factors in his tragic political career.
Reformers are born
In 1939, at the age of 18, Dubcek joined the Communist Party of Slovakia and participated in the liberation of the Slovak nation along the way.
In 1946, the Czech Republic merged with Slovakia and began socialist transformation.
At this time, Dubcek chose to go to the political fringes and became a worker in a yeast factory. It was not until three years later that he was appointed secretary of the county party committee in Trencan.
Compared to most people, Dubcek's political career was undoubtedly smooth. At the end of 1954, due to his fluent Russian speaking, good family background, firm faith and lack of political enemies, Dubcek was selected to study at the Higher School of Political Science of the Central Committee of the CPSU in Moscow, which was the beginning of Dubcek's gradual rise to the peak of power and the maturity of his socialist ideas.
During his studies, Dubcek read extensively the works of Karl Marx and Lenin in Moscow. This made him more aware of reality and more confused.
He found a clear contradiction between Marx's exposition and Lenin's, and the dictatorship of the proletariat conceived by Marx was much more democratic than the dictatorship of the proletariat practiced by Lenin.
In addition, Khrushchev's outright criticism of Stalin at the Twentieth Congress, and the Soviet Union's conciliatory attitude towards Tito, who had never been a traitor to socialism in Dubcek's mind, resonated with Dubcek's rejection of the Stalinist model and socialist reforms.
Once the seeds of change are planted, they will one day take root and sprout.
On the other hand, with the promotion of the party and the improvement of political ideology, Dubcek also welcomed his political opponent - the first secretary of the Communist Party of the Czech Republic and president of the country, Novotini.
In 1960, Czechoslovakia, under the leadership of Novotini, amended its constitution.
The new constitution strengthened the centralization of power in Prague, abolished the institutions governing Slovak national affairs and the Social Security Administration, and streamlined the Slovak National Assembly into a regional parliament, an arrogant neglect of the interests of the Slovak nation, which hurt Dubcek's national feelings.
Since then, Dubcek has had a clear political goal, to oppose Novotini and to lead the implementation of his understanding and reform of socialism from the highest position.
After several rounds of power struggle, Novotini was removed from the post of First Secretary and replaced by Dubcek. In January 1968, Dubcek finally stood at the peak of power in Czechoslovakia, and the "Prague Spring" slowly began.
Seven days of darkness
Before Dubcek took office, he had begun to draft the Program of Action of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on how to implement socialist reforms in Czechoslovakia, which he brought to the Kremlin.
Although Dubcek repeatedly used words such as "restoration" and "enlivening" to avoid the use of sensitive words such as "reform" and "correction", the dull and gloomy face of the Soviet Politburo made Dubcek understand that there was no way to find identification here.
In fact, for the socialist camp, the Programme of Action is a little too big. The first is to democratize the life of the party and avoid defending its leadership in public discussion; Second, it is necessary to separate the party from the government and limit the party's power and scope of activities.
These two points already smell of liberalism vigorously promoted by Western countries, but combined with Dubcek's upbringing and his firm beliefs, it can only be said that Dubcek is a very practical person.
In addition, this kind of seeking truth from facts is also reflected in the proposal in the Programme of Action to break egalitarianism and develop a commodity economy. The other articles in the Programme of Action, namely the independent development of science, art, culture and education, the need for contacts with capitalist countries, and the enhancement of diplomatic autonomy, are an impact and struggle against the Soviet model.
It has to be said that among the socialist reforms in the post-war Eastern European countries, Dubcek's Program of Action went the farthest, the most vigorous, and at the same time the most difficult to accept.
Not only Brezhnev, but even Polish leader Gomulka and Hungarian leader Kadar, who experienced the catastrophic struggle and started reforms early, remained silent and evasive after hearing this, because any of these reform measures can be foreseen to be bloody.
Dubcek was deeply disappointed with them, but he was even more disappointed that in the Politburo, groups that came together because of the toppling of Novotini were divided in the face of reforms, making many initiatives difficult to implement.
However, an incident in March became the key to Dubcek's breakthrough. It was revealed that Novotini had attempted a military coup after being dismissed as First Secretary, but failed to persuade the army's leaders.
The impact was huge, with Dubcek using the familiar public opinion battle to create a good political atmosphere for his governing measures, with the April meeting in which the reform opposition resigned under public pressure and Novotini was expelled from the party.
The Programme of Action was officially launched, which, according to Dubcek's ideas, was extremely communist, yet so deviant.
Dubcek believed that through the Programme of Action, the ultimate blow to dictatorship and bureaucracy would be achieved, and socialist democracy would be achieved once and for all.
Dubcek was full of confidence, and under his willow-like tossing and turning, he won himself a seemingly independent opportunity to govern. As a result, Dubcek was equally unprepared for the invasion of 20 August 1968.
In fact, it was Dubcek's long-term abuse of public opinion that made Brezhnev tremble, and although he himself was a supporter of perestroika, the Soviet Union also carried out a series of reforms under his leadership, with certain results.
But Brezhnev immediately became conservative when confronted with the shortcomings of the reforms, and every time the news in Czechoslovakia was overwhelming, he was always uneasy.
By the time Dubcek used public opinion to completely oust Novotini and appoint new members of the government, Brezhnev had already determined that there had been a "counter-revolution" in Czechoslovakia, and the seeds of armed intervention had been planted from that point on.
Beginning in May, Brezhnev transferred troops from the GDR, Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria into Czechoslovakia under various pretexts, and Czechoslovak scientists and workers used freedom of the press to publicly express their condemnation of the Soviet Union and slander of socialism, which intensified the contradictions among the people.
In July, the Warsaw Pact asked Dubcek to attend a meeting and report on the situation in the country, but Dubcek considered this a normal phenomenon in humanist socialism and ignored it and did not attend the meeting.
On August 3, the two sides met again, but this time it went surprisingly smoothly, so smooth that the leaders of Czechoslovakia thought they had the upper hand. But this is just a trick for countries like the Soviet Union, which are plotting bigger moves.
By the end of the conference, both sides had stepped up their pace, Dubcek's reforms had taken even further, and the Soviet Union had decided to send troops to Czechoslovakia to defend the gains of socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
In the middle of the night on August 20, the roar of aircraft cut through the quiet Prague, and the Soviet Union and the five Warsaw Pact countries began to formally occupy Czechoslovakia, due to the disparity of strength between the forces, coupled with the suddenness of the incident, Czechoslovakia was occupied before it had time to resist.
Dubcek was presiding over a meeting of the Presidium when Czech Defense Minister Chul reported to the Presidium just before midnight that Soviet troops had crossed the border and invaded in a big way.
Although there were indications in advance that an invasion could occur. But the news still shocked everyone like a thunderbolt, and even those who wrote letters asking the Soviet Union to send troops were overwhelmed for a while.
Dubcek said with tears in his eyes angrily: "I assure you with the honor of a Communist Party member that I did not suspect or expect that someone would use such means against us... It was the greatest tragedy of my life that I had dedicated my life to working with the Soviet Union, and they treated me like this. ”
In the early morning of the 21st, Dubcek and others were arrested, and then put on a plane with cold handcuffs to a military airport in Slovakia, where they were put in a barn for the night under the constant shouting and the blows of the butt.
After daybreak, Soviet officers arbitrarily escorted them to the Soviet Union and held them in Lviv to await processing, creating an appalling armed kidnapping of the leader of another by one country, which was the beginning of Dubcek's dark seven days.
On August 23, Dubcek, who had been isolated for two days, was taken to Moscow as a political prisoner to meet Brezhnev in the Kremlin, the last time he came to Dubcek was the first secretary of the spirit, and in just 8 and a half months, fate played such a big joke on him.
The Soviets demanded that Dubcek acknowledge the counter-revolutionary events in Czechoslovakia and sign a series of documents legalizing armed invasion.
The five men who were taken away, although some had the idea of compromise, refused to sign the surrender documents, and Dubcek insisted on refusing to negotiate.
On August 25, the Politburo of the Central Committee of Czechoslovakia submitted to the Central Committee of the CPSU a draft on the consideration of convening a final conference, which reiterated its rejection of the existence of counter-revolution in Czechoslovakia and firmly defended the program of action.
The CPC considered the invasion a "tragic misunderstanding" or "tragic mistake" and demanded a decision by the Soviet Union to withdraw its garrisons, which was considered an ultimatum by the Soviets.
However, at this time, opportunists arose within Czechoslovakia, and Gustav Husak, who had previously been restored by Dubcek with all his best efforts, departed from his original position, supported all the demands of the Soviet Union, and declared the 14th Party Congress null and void. This split the ranks and eventually led to the fact that the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was forced to accept Soviet conditions.
To make matters worse, however, on August 26, when most of the people except Dubcek agreed to sign the document, the Soviets came up with a new text containing more conditions and requirements.
Faced with this situation, Dubcek decided to participate in a consultative meeting with the Soviet leadership on the evening of August 26 to tell the truth about the Prague Spring in its original form.
When Dubcek finished his emotional speech in Russian about his reforms and what had happened in Czechoslovakia, everyone present fell silent, and this silence lasted for five minutes, perhaps emotionally recognized by Dubcek.
But Brezhnev broke this lull, and he began to speak of his considerations, which were different from the previous revolutionary friendship, comrades, etc., and were completely motivated by practical policy considerations.
He said that since the end of the last war, Czechoslovakia has been an integral part of the Soviet security zone, and the Soviet Union has not
Being able to abandon it, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU feared that Czechoslovakia, led by Dubcek, would slide in the direction of independence.
Dubcek realized that there was no point in talking about anything here, not even the ideologies and feelings that had been recognized, even the treaties concluded and the international organizations of which Czechoslovakia was an integral part of the USSR.
Brezhnev then suddenly stood up, blushing, thick eyebrows erected, and shouted to Dubcek: "All our negotiations are clearly useless!" Then he turned around and slowly left the room, followed by all the members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU.
In the end, Dubcek weakly signed his name on the document, which meant a major blow to his faith for the rest of his life.
The vigorous "Prague Spring" ended in this way. After returning home, Dubcek resigned as first secretary and was subsequently expelled from the party, choosing to return to the forest farm as a clerk.
In 1989, the CPC gradually lost its status as the ruling party, the Velvet Revolution took place in Czechoslovakia, and the social system changed. In June 1992, the Czech Republic and Slovakia separated into two states by agreement, and the Czechoslovak Republic became history.
Dubcek made a political comeback in 1990 and was expected to become the first Slovak president in 1993, but at the end of 1992, Dubcek suffered a car accident and his life came to an end with the socialist history of Czechoslovakia.
Despite such a blow to his faith, Dubcek remained adamantly opposed to proposals to ban Communist Party activities and the spread of socialism late in his career.
For him, it was not socialism or communist ideals that failed, but dogmatic Marxism, and the wanton tampering with ideals by the Soviet Union of the Red Empire.
Perhaps before Dubcek's death, what he saw was still the time when he was a child playing with local children in the International Aid Society in Kyrgyzstan, and the pure mutual help scene was the most beautiful flower of communist thought.