Assess The Importance Of The P

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in the essay.
When in the winter of 1967 Novotny invited Brezhnev to help him against opposition within Czechoslovakia, Brezhnev washed his hands off the affair, saying: “It’s your business” . The relaxed attitude at this stage suggests that Moscow felt it was time to introduce some reforms in Czechoslovakia in order to modernize the country where, under Novotny “the economy had atrophied and the morale had sunk” . A few days after Brezhnev’s visit the revolt against Novotny’s regime came into the open at a Czech Central Committee plenum. Shortly thereafter, at the plenum of January 3-5, 1968, Alexander Dubcek replaced Novotny as party secretary. It is interesting to look at the question of new leadership in Czechoslovakia, to what extent did USSR support it?
Alexander Dubcek was an obscure forty-six-year-old Slovak party functionary, brought up and educated in USSR . According to P.J. Mooney “Dubcek’s pedigree was ...

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the new regime would not go too far.
On the 23rd of March the Soviet concern at the trend of events was expressed to Dubcek and his colleagues at the Dresden conference. This was an emergency meeting of the Warsaw Pact members (excluding Rumania), as the allies felt the threat of Czechoslovak reforms to the common policies of the Warsaw bloc. One of the factors that especially alarmed USSR was that Dubcek hinted at more Czechoslovak independence in foreign affairs, which meant that Prague would seek better relations with West Germany. USSR also expressed concern over the following developments: the call for modification of censorship, an increase in the role of Parliament; talk of a ...

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