Alexander Dubček is an extraordinary figure in Slovak and Czechoslovak history of the 20th century. The fate of this man embodies all the main hopes and dramas, illusions and disillusions, joys and sufferings of the past century. And not only in Czechoslovakia but also in the context of Europe and the whole world.
As the main political representative of the reformist Czechoslovak Spring of 1968 and the attempt at socialism with a human face, he became a part of history books. This authentic Slovak-Czech political initiative, despite all doubts, was an original contribution to the exceptional year of 1968, when a spontaneous spirit of rebellion and deep resistance to authoritarianism spread across the world in any and all forms. Never before or after were Czechs and Slovaks the subject of such global political attention and admiration. And Slovaks never had a politician who was so well-known, respected, and revered not only in Europe but also around the world.
Held in isolation
For humanism, the struggle for freedom, human rights, and democracy, the European Parliament awarded Dubček the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought on November 10, 1989, even before the Velvet Revolution - making him the second politician after Nelson Mandela to receive this honor. It signified great recognition of the reform process of 1968 and was a signal that the normalization regime in Czechoslovakia had lost its legitimacy. It also recognized Dubček’s courageous stance, as he was held in isolation in Bratislava for 20 years, where there were no Western embassies from which he could receive any form of support, as the most hated, feared, and guarded prisoner of the regime.
A key actor
Dubček being silent is a myth. Despite being essentially under house arrest, he protested. Above all, he did so through about 30 letters. Three years before Charter 77 and a year before the Helsinki Conference, in a letter addressed to the Federal Assembly and the Slovak National Council, which was also reported by the world media, he criticized the violation of human rights in Czechoslovakia. In January 1988, he gave an interview to the Italian Communist Party’s newspaper, l’Unità, in which he criticized the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia for its unwillingness to engage in dialogue with the public and to reassess the events of 1968. He also proposed the building of a common European home. Through these actions, not just the reform process, Dubček opened the doors to November 1989 and became one of the key actors in the peaceful but fundamental political change in what was then Czechoslovakia.
Return to social democracy
Dubček expressed his disagreement with some aspects of the chosen concept of transformation and political development by publicly aligning himself with social democracy, aiming to contribute to the balance of the political landscape and to establish this standard movement in European politics in both Slovak and Czech political life. His joining the Slovak Social Democratic Party in March 1992 as a former reformist communist, along with becoming chairman of the party, symbolized a sort of culmination of the development of the Slovak leftist movement and concurrently marked the completion of his personal political evolution - Alexander Dubček returned to where his father started out in politics, to social democracy. Thus, he became part of the social democratic tradition not only in Slovakia but also in Europe.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peter Weiss (born July 7, 1952) is a former Slovak ambassador to the Czech Republic.
He graduated from the Faculty of Arts of Comenius University. From 1975 to 1989 he worked at the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. From 1984 he was the scientific secretary.
After November 1989, he became chairman of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 1990 he was one of the main initiators of its transformation into the Social Democratically oriented Party of the Democratic Left and was its chairman until 1996. In 2005, he left the SDL and founded the Social Democratic Alternative (SDA). Two years later, merged with SMER.
From 1990 to 2002 he was a member of the Slovak National Council, renamed the National Council of the Slovak Republic after 1992. Since 2009 he has been ambassador to Hungary, in 2013 he occupied this post in the Czech Republic and served there for seven years.
