Can you guys tell me what was the endgame of the Prague Spring

Social democracy with greater civil liberties and an independent foreign policy?

>>3254514
By social democracy you mean capitalism, but with a powerful state regulating it all, right?

>>3254468
Basically goulash communism plus degenerate western art, with Dubcek as the head honcho. My grandfather knew Dubcek personally and according to him he was the most butthurt, narcissistic faggot he's ever seen. When he realized he won't get to be president after the Velvet Revolution his levels of asspain could've powered a small city.

>>3254468

Probably just wanted more political independence than the USSR was willing to tolerate. The basic footnotes of the program do seem to imply that they wanted a greater emphasis on individual rights, including economic freedoms. The end result probably would have resembled something like Lenin's NEP.

>>3254537
Was your grandfather a Stalinist? All Dubcek wanted was power or the guy was legit?

Also, please define "degenerate art". What was happening with the artists there?

>>3254541
Yeah, but was the USSR concerned about this new economical approach or it was just the obvious possible change in the foreign policy?
At that high time, I believe it was quite obvious that some economical changes were necessary in the socialist bloc.

>>3254586
>Was your grandfather a Stalinist?
Not really a Stalinist. Remember the guys behind normalization of the 1970s were not Stalinists as people like Husak were in prison during the hardcore Stalinist period (1948 to 1960 or so).
>All Dubcek wanted was power or the guy was legit?
He felt like a worshipped celebrity ever since he became the darling actors, artists and the western press. Became butthurt when other people didn't share that sentiment. He was also the first person to pussy out to Moscow and sign the Baton Law which persecuted protesters against the invasion, colossal faggot. Western media elevated him into a martyr the same way they did to Havel, and he assumed he should be automatically given the presidency once communism ended. Well too bad.
>Also, please define "degenerate art".
The art of 1960s Czechoslovakia was pretty much identical to art in the USA, France or West Germany, it was very different from the rest of the Eastern block with hardline socialist realism.

>>3254468
>Would it lead the country back to capitalism?

Yes. Why do you think the Soviet system was so repressive and stagnant? You can't have central planning and state socialism when you're next door to one of the cores of global capitalism. The exposure to commerce, consumerism, and western culture would be utterly overwhelming

Human-faced socialism was basically democratic socialism: more civil liberties, more freedoms, more autonomy (in relation to Moscow), with all signs pointing to eventual multi-partisanship (at first just factions of the party openly expressing views against the 'party line')...and once the doors of democracy are open, there's no way you're gonna maintain communist/socialist control. At some point, the people will get tired of the system and vote in some liberal capitalists.

that's not to say that Czechoslovakia would become capitalist immediately like in the '90s. it would be somewhat gradual, especially considering the economic slowdown of the '70s in western countries

maybe aspects of the socialist state would become intrinsic if not constitutional. thus, I can see Czechoslovakia looking more like Nordic social democracies (or the 'social market capitalism' of Germany/Austria) than what's there today - i.e. less oligarchs, more power to unions, more of a welfare state, more regulation of the economy/corporations

>>3254468
The Soviets were right to crush this so called "Socialism with a human face" nonsense. This was a Soros backed movement meant to steer Prague away from socialism and back to capitalist trash.

>>3254613
this post was quite informative.

now, about art... well, I hope what you call "degenerate" doesn't include the Czechoslovakian New Wave of cinema. Because that is fine art.

>>3254679
and you are probably right, and I think that this "soft-transition" to capitalism would happen and it would possibly do good.
For a moment I wonder if people could "rethink" socialism then, if only the Red Army allowed all those reforming socialists states to go on.