By the mid-60s, the proclamations could no longer mask the true scale of economic decline. Some prominent Party members, including Alexander Dubcek, were prepared to acknowledge the problems and urged reform. Novotny opposed such moves but could not muster support from party colleagues when he needed it. His antagonistic attitude to the Slovaks meant even ideological hardliners there were unwilling to offer support. Leonid Brezhnev, the new Soviet leader also declined to offer Novotny his support, commenting only that "it's your business,"  when asked to pass judgment on the rival party factions. In January 1968 Dubcek replaced Novotny as First Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. His open, approachable manner and easy smile contrasted with the austere severity of previous Party bosses and made him the personification of "socialism with a human face". The reformists had gained the upper hand and in April articulated their political aims in an Action Programme. This was a key moment in what became known as the Prague Spring. The document called for increased democratisation including more open debate with representatives of other groups in society, the use of opinion polls to inform policy, a relaxation of censorship, the freedom to travel abroad and greater autonomy for Slovakia. The economy was to be guided towards a socialist market in which businesses would remain state-owned but would compete with each other and be subjected to the forces of supply and demand. This was not to be an attempt to dismantle the system but simply to improve it.

As spring turned to summer, it seemed as if events had taken on a momentum beyond Dubcek's control. Neighbouring regimes, fearing a domino effect, became nervous at the prospect that their own populations might demand similar freedoms. East Germany's Walter Ulbricht and Poland's Wladislaw Gomulka urged Soviet intervention. Brezhnev took steps to bring Czechoslovakia back into line. Previously arranged Warsaw Pact military manouvres in Czechoslovakia were brought forward and extended, a not so subtle reminder of Soviet power. At a series of meetings through the summer, Dubcek was warned of the dangers of deviating from the Soviet approved version of socialism but steadfastly stuck to his principles. Finally, in August, the Prague Spring ended as Soviet and other Warsaw Pact forces invaded Czechoslovakia. 

The Action Programme recognised the need for the Communist Party to strive constantly to earn the people's consent but fudged the obvious question of what happens when that consent is withdrawn? The expectation that rival groups in a multi-party system would remain content with a subordinate role also seems unrealistic. Certainly, Brezhnev viewed events as a step towards capitalism and a threat to Soviet hegemony in the region. The Brezhnev Doctrine made clear what should already have been obvious from previous challenges such as the Hungarian Uprising in 1956, that the Soviet Union would intervene to enforce its own interpretation of socialism whenever it felt threatened. 

Dubcek's reforms had been immensely popular in Czechoslovakia, but lead to demands for even more radical change that threatened the Party's leading role. A lifetime within the Party had denied Dubcek the perspective of those on the outside. In the same way, Dubcek's natural inclination towards an idealistic view of the Soviet Union made the invasion of 1968 a revelation and a crushing blow. Hungary's Janos Kadar, unsure whether Dubcek was being brave or foolish, asked him, "Do you really not know the kind of people you're dealing with?"  The Czechoslovak Army, as in 1939, was ordered not to confront the invading forces though many citizens fought back in brave but ultimately futile acts of resistance. Clandestine radio stations managed to remain on air long enough to refute the Soviet depiction of the invasion as 'fraternal assistance' requested by the Czechoslovaks themselves to confront 'counter-revolutionaries'. A final free meeting of Party members reaffirmed the ideals of Prague Spring even as Dubcek and his colleagues were removed at gunpoint to Moscow. There Dubcek and his colleagues were threatened and bullied until they signed a document of capitulation agreeing with the Soviet version of events.

As Gorbachev's later experience shows, dictatorships are at their most vulnerable when attempting reform. However, the invasion also crushed a genuine attempt by a communist party to adapt to new political and economic challenges. Was this a missed opportunity for the Soviet Empire to regenerate? Or simply another doomed attempt at divining a Third Way? As it was, the reimposition of rigid Soviet control established a regime that could do little more than manage decline. Without change in Moscow there was little prospect of any change to this grim reality in the satellite states. 

Normalisation 

Gustav Husak led Czechoslovakia through the next twenty years of 'normalisation'. The Party was purged of those associated with the Prague Spring, censorship was restored, travel restrictions reimposed, the maximum period of detention without trial was extended, and there was a return to centralised economic control. The state demanded at least an outward appearance of compliance. As the wayward satellite returned to disciplined loyalty, tens of thousands of its citizens left the country. The new government had been undemocratically imposed from Moscow, was clearly dependent on the continued Soviet military presence and therefore could not attain popular legitimacy. In these unpromising circumstances Husak had to consolidate his rule and achieve some form of social contract with the people. The state proved able to provide basic economic security; full employment, free universal health care, subsidised holidays, and pensions were guaranteed. Workers' wages were lower than their western counterparts' but the average Czechoslovak could afford a modest supply of consumer goods and by the late 1980s, Czechoslovakia ranked second in the world in the number of country cottages per capita; as much as 80% of families had access to these second homes.  In these ways a form of consent existed and the police state retained all the apparatus of coercion (prison, loss of career) where this proved insufficient. For many the lesson of 1968 was that rebellion was futile. 

Despite the risks, there were those who rebelled. In contrast to the mass workers' movement in Poland, Czechoslovak opposition was based around small groups of intellectuals typified by the playwright, Vaclav Havel. Under the strict repression of the 'normalisation' years it proved difficult to broaden the opposition movement. Change from within the Party had been tried and had failed, many potential reformers had left the country, others, satisfied that the state could provide the basics retreated into an apolitical tolerance of the status quo. Government propaganda strove to portray dissidents such as Havel as self-indulgent, bourgeois dilettantes out of touch with the real concerns of the working class. Havel's opposition is summarised by his moral exhortation to "live in truth." The conviction that if the state is sustained by lies the greatest threat to it is to speak the truth. Havel's background shaped his principles. He was born into a prominent, wealthy family in 1936 and as a child experienced the disasters of the Nazi occupation. To the post-war communist regime, families such as Havel's were class enemies and were made to suffer the confiscation of property, exclusion from education and harassment. Nevertheless, Havel carved out a career as a playwright, using membership of officially sanctioned writers' groups to push the bounds of censorship. His plays often contained thinly veiled criticisms of the absurdities of Communism and in 1971 they were banned. 

A more sustained challenge developed in 1977 when Havel and other dissidents formed Charter '77, an opposition group based around a petition calling on the government to respect its own commitment to the 1975 Helsinki Agreement on human rights. The Soviet Union, the US and most of Europe had agreed to respect the fundamental freedoms of thought, conscience, religion and belief. Czechoslovakia clearly did not respect these freedoms but, as the agreement had been signed, Helsinki gave the dissidents a legalistic avenue of opposition. They accepted the futility of open revolt against a well armed regime, which itself was backed by an interventionist Soviet Empire, but believed that the system could be undermined by spreading the truth and defending human rights. The resulting persecution suffered by those brave enough to sign the Charter, (arrest, interrogation, imprisonment), highlighted the reality of totalitarian rule and attracted publicity abroad. In Hungary, groups within the Communist Party were again taking tentative steps towards reform. In Poland, the trade union Solidarity attracted mass support, but in Czechoslovakia, the Charter '77 remained a narrow group of intellectuals with only 241 signatures in January 1977 and even by 1988 no more than 2,000  However, the movements encouraged each other. Lech Walesa acknowledges the significance of Havel's writings to Solidarity, "it (Havel's work) gave us the theoretical underpinnings for our activity. It maintained our spirits...when I look at the victories of Solidarity and Charter 77; I see in them an astonishing fulfilment of the prophecies and knowledge contained in Havel's essay."  Even when imprisoned Havel maintained his opposition to normalisation. The consistency of Havel's moral campaign would leave him well placed when external events began to undermine Soviet control of the region. 

Any exercise of the right to "seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print" or "in the form of art" specified in Article 19 is followed by sanctions, often in the form of criminal charges, as in the recent trial of young musicians. Freedom of expression is inhibited by the centralized control of all the communication media and of publishing and cultural institutions. No philosophical, political or scientific view or artistic activity that departs ever so slightly from the narrow bounds of official ideology or aesthetics is allowed to be published; no open criticism can be made of abnormal social phenomena; no public defence is possible against false and insulting charges made in official propaganda. 

Article 12 of the covenant, guaranteeing every citizen the right to leave the country, is consistently violated. The granting of entry visas to foreigners is also treated arbitrarily, and many are unable to visit Czechoslovakia. Responsibility for the maintenance of rights in our country naturally devolves in the first place on the political and state authorities. Yet not only on them: everyone bears his share of responsibility for the conditions that prevail and accordingly also for the observance of legally enshrined agreements, binding upon all individuals as well as upon governments. It is this sense of co-responsibility, our belief in the importance of its conscious public acceptance and the general need to give it new and more effective expression that led us to the idea of creating Charter 77, whose inception we today publicly announce. Charter 77 is a loose, informal and open association of people of various shades of opinion, faiths and professions united by the will to strive individually and collectively for the respecting of human rights in our country and throughout the world -- rights accorded to all men by the Final Act of the Helsinki conference laid down in the U.N. Universal Charter of Human Rights. Charter 77 is not an organisation; it has no rules, permanent bodies or formal membership. It embraces everyone who agrees with its ideas and participates in its work. It does not form the basis for any oppositional political activity. Like many similar citizen initiatives in various countries, West and East, it seeks to promote the general public interest.