The Prague Spring

[Some Red Guy]

As you probably know, it was the attempted reforms in Czechoslovakia during the late 60's that ended in Soviet (Warsaw Pact) occupation. It was described as Socialism with a human face by the guys behind it. What are your views on it? Was it reactionary / counter-revolutionary or something that should have succeeded? Was it right to invade and occupy the country? Were the ideas behind the reforms good or are all reforms bad? I searched but found no other threads on the subject.

[Die Neue Zeit]

A lot of Trots have talked about Hungary, but not about the Prague Spring. Also, while Maoists and "Marxist-Leninists" have gone all the way to denounce "the Brezhnev doctrine," I will say that a lot of the "reforms" were quite in fact reactionary. Heck, the only beef I have with the "tankie" position is that there was no advocacy of sending tanks into Poland during its petit-bourgeois unrest in the 1950s!

[Melbourne Lefty]

I will say that a lot of the "reforms" were quite in fact reactionary.


Have you got any details?

I dont know much about it.

[Lamanov]

...into Poland during its petit-bourgeois unrest in the 1950s!

Again, what the hell are you talking about?

[Os Cangaceiros]

Heck, the only beef I have with the "tankie" position is that there was no advocacy of sending tanks into Poland during its petit-bourgeois unrest in the 1950s!

The same "petit-bourgeoisie" unrest that organized the wildcat strikes in Poland and was placated when Wladyslaw Gomulka came back into power? That "petit-bourgeoisie" unrest?

[Die Neue Zeit]

I was under the impression that the nationalist authorities of that rather agrarian country had a slight hand in the unrest to wring concessions from the "revisionists" in Moscow. Remember: Poland's agriculture, up until now, never had a well-developed co-op/collective or state farming system.

[Os Cangaceiros]

See, I think that's one of the biggest problems I have with Marxism-Leninism: the ability of Marxist-Leninists enamoured with the "Russian experience" and consequent "socialist regimes" that popped up after WW2 to see sinister machinations in every spot of social unrest in aforementioned "socialist regimes". I'm not implying that you're that way, of course...;)

There was quite a bit of manipulation involved in what happened in Poland, and no small amount of that came from the Communist Party...I tend to view what happened there as a legitimate struggle against something awful which was successfully co-opted into support for another thuggish (and in this case anti-Semitic) power figure in the form of Wladyslaw Gomulka.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Meh, if the tanks had been sent into Poland, perhaps the Hungarian fascists would've been marginalized from their role in the anti-Soviet uprising (thus my skepticism regarding the "revolutionary" elements in the Hungarian revolution).

[KurtFF8]

I certainly don't think the Prague Spring was reactionary, but Slajov Zizek made a good point on his Democracy Now! interview that it would have just ended with (if successful) Czechoslovakia joining the West as a Social Democratic Welfare State like Sweden. But I think the movement itself was indeed an attempt to bring a "human face" to socialism in a country that had become quite brutal with its state appratus.

[Lamanov]

Meh, if the tanks had been sent into Poland, perhaps the Hungarian fascists would've been marginalized from their role in the anti-Soviet uprising (thus my skepticism regarding the "revolutionary" elements in the Hungarian revolution).

What fascists in Hungary?

What "petit-bourgeois unrest" in Poland?

[Pogue]

It was a socialist revolution against a beurecratic state-capitalist society, in that period which saw some of the last few major revolutionary socialist attempts on a large scale. It was naturally crushed by the ruling classes who always fear democratic worker control and revolution.