Talk:Prague Spring

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I do not think the military role of Czechoslovakia was that hight, neither was fear of Germany. There were no Soviet soldiers stationed here during height of Cold War, until they come in 1968.

However should Czechoslovakia go away from old model this would encourage other (quite unstable) countries in the region and that would be end of Soviet domination here. Pavel Vozenilek 05:43, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 Role of the West 2 Help for Hitler 3 Soviet Union army or Warshaw Pact 4 Information about reaction on Finland 5 Music - 10,000 times 6 Merging the socialism with human face 7 Cunhal 8 Anti-Communism category? 9 References and sources

[edit] Role of the West

While the West didn't went into global or limited war over Czechoslovakia they did help in certain way.

After Soviet occupation countries of Western Europe, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, etc allowed emigrants from Czechoslovakia to get work permit immediatelly and automatically. This was really great help for over 100,000 of emigrants. The border between Czechoslovakia and the West was de-facto open for several months and many people used this opportunity. Those were usually high qualified and active: Czechoslovakia had lost a lot of potential in this brain drain.

Such openess was not seen before and got stopped later. Pavel Vozenilek 08:27, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Help for Hitler

This cannot be written here; it is a lear-cut speculation. Some Soviet idiot could have said that, but it was hardly a serious reason. mikka (t) 01:33, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

From what I read Soviet Union really did offer support in 1938, knowing it is just gesture (and with possible hope of keeping those capitalists one against another longer). Problems of logistics were so severe that even plans of army of Czechoslovakia to move into mountains in Slovakia, to fight from there, has shown impossible.

About keeping defense line: I think worries about /political/ development were far more important than military ones. Pavel Vozenilek 02:47, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What you are talking about is a cabaret joke, I think. Some comedian made a stage reference to the slowness of soviet bureaucracy alleging that the 1968 prague invasion was in fact the realization of a 1938 czech plea that the soviets help them against the nazi german invasion - but it took 30 years for the soviet authorities to process and approve the request... 195.70.32.136 10:54, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Soviet Union army or Warshaw Pact

Just FYI: wast majority of armed forced were Soviet. Hungarians, East Germans and Poles sent some units to border areas, activity of Bulgarians was only symbolical. I could dig the numbers. Pavel Vozenilek 08:09, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

If you would be so kind, I am sure many would appreciate just that. Especially the numbers, unit names and their assignments from East Germany. Kar98 21:35, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, troops came from East Germany, but they were Soviet and not East German. Research done 1995 proved that no German troops crossed the border, even though the East German leadership stated something else 1968. - Alureiter 01:14, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the objectivity of this article would greatly benefit from some numerical breakdown of force strength. I suspect sources relating to this article may be in short supply but if someone has some information they would be greatly appreciated. JRWalko 20:16, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Information about reaction on Finland

Taken from: Eino Jutikkala, Kauko Pirinen: Dějiny Finska (Czech: History of Finland), translation by Lenka Fárová, 2001 ISBN 80-7106-406-8. Original: Suomen historia (Finnish: History of Finland), 1999.

Part Česko-Finské vztahy během 20. století (Czech: Czech-Finnish relations during 20th century) written by Luboš Švec.

Please, use it, when you create a list of sources and the mention about the reaction in Finland will be

[edit] Music - 10,000 times

"It has been played over 10,000 times since its creation." - Does this have any verifiability; also, is the number of times a composition has been played really relevant anyway? Krupo 14:58, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merging the socialism with human face

I support merging absolute majority of content, keeping the "human face ..." article with short sentence what it means and link to main article (here). This article should be also splitted to Prague Spring period itself, the occupation and the post-occupation parts to avoid current clutter. Pavel Vozenilek 17:26, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. From what I can find, Dubcek used the phrase for the first time on July 27, 1968, in K otázkam obrodzovacieho procesu v KSČ. We could also include the November student strike slogan/jab at Husak - "socialism with goose-flesh."

As for splitting, are you thinking Prague Spring (reform period), Prague Spring (occupation) and Prague Spring (post-occupation) with Prague Spring as a summary and disambiguation page? Also sounds fine. I'm sure it won't be difficult to fill three pages. Can you think of any sources for more Public Domain photos?-- TheMightyQuill 10:36, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I do not know origin of the phrase but it became popular in newspapers (sometimes used in satirical context) and freely used in political speeches (always as serious term). Later, during normalisation official documents called it "tzv. Pražské jaro" ("so called Prague Spring").

Husák's joke is just one among thousands - having no other venue to express opinion the students turned to jokes regularly. Such jokes are of no encyclopedical value, IMHO.

Prague Sping denotes (how I understand it) the period until occupation, later it was just rear-guard battle to preserve or conquer positions. I would use Occupation of Czechoslovakia (1968) (just for the event - numbers, timeline of the first week, tanks, planes, resistance, ...) and something as "Suppresion of Prague Spring reforms" or "Aftermath of Prague Spring" or "Change of political course after Prague Spring" or something less clumsy.

I do not know public domain photos. All I have are newspapers from the period and these are not PD. Pavel Vozenilek 13:36, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I was under the impression that the "swahf" slogan wasn't used until fairly late in the reform period, but I could be wrong. Anyway, plug it in wherever you think it fits best, and we can redirect Socialism with a human face here.

As far as organisation - there's already a Normalization (Czechoslovakia) article, so the aftermath would only need to describe September-April. It might make sense, for now at least, to keep this article, but have a separate article dealing with the invasion in greater detail. This page would describe the spring, give a short summar of the invasion with a main link to Occupation of Czechoslovakia (1968), then continue with details of the aftermath. The article can always be split further if it gets too long, but at present, I don't think the aftermath requires its own article. -- TheMightyQuill 13:52, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cunhal

A portuguese wikipedian blanked the true informations that Álvaro Cunhal was the only western Europe secretary-general to suport the soviet 1968 invasion. This isn´t correct, as you can see by the book "A Guerra de África" cronology, by José Freire Antunes, and many other sources. User:Mistico

[edit] Anti-Communism category?

I'm not entirely sure that the Prague Spring should be categorised as Anti-Communist. I don't believe that Dubcek, or even majority of the masses were entirely opposed to communism. Any thoughts on this? -- TheMightyQuill 01:01, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References and sources

I do not understand why there is one section for references and one section for sources, and they refer to the same, well with the exception of one, but the rest is all the same. And then one section is incomplete, just a name of the author, and it comes before the second section that is complete, this is very confusing Pernambuco 21:36, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

well for a start , I just switch the order of the two sections, so the full section comes first, with the details, then it is more understandable. But if it is possible, I think maybe they should just be merged into one ,and called Notes or called References, like on other wiki-pedia articles Pernambuco 23:03, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

the changes that Themightyquill just made, they are perfect, I like it more now Pernambuco 17:28, 21 January 2007 (UTC)