The Irrelevance of Perestroika in Czechoslovakia

Abstract

Abstract During the 1968 Prague Spring, some Czech reformers really believed their experiment would result in a system which could serve as a model for the rest of Europe — both East and West. This belief relied upon a combination of a democratic polity with a self-managed economy. As a theoretical construction, the model was appealing to a significant segment of Czechoslovak society. As it happened, the reform based on that model was not given a chance to prove itself. The Soviet invasion interrupted the test and helped create the myth that a genuine system of “socialism with a human face” was nearly completed.