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20 - Slovakia's position within the Czecho-Slovak federation, 1968–1970

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 October 2011

Mikuláš Teich
Affiliation:
Robinson College, Cambridge
Dušan Kováč
Affiliation:
Slovak Academy of Sciences
Martin D. Brown
Affiliation:
Richmond: The American International University in London
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Summary

In 1968, a series of social reforms began in Czechoslovakia with the aim of creating a democratic form of socialism. This process has since been variously described as ‘socialism with a human face’, the ‘Prague Spring’ or the ‘regeneration process’. The reform movement was directed ‘from above’, because it was implemented by reformist representatives of the Communist Party. But both the Czech and Slovak halves of the country supported these reforms. In January 1968, Alexander Dubček, the Slovak politician, was elected first secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPC), and this event is commonly regarded as the beginning of this process; other reformist Communists also secured a range of further political and state positions.

Slovakia's role in the social reforms

The basis of the constitutional settlement between the Czech and Slovak nations was the concept of the mutual recognition of expressions of their national sovereignty. The settlement of relations between the Slovak and Czech nations was predicated upon the principle of national equality (rovný s rovným, or ‘like with like’), but this principle of recognition of Slovak self-rule was not applied after 1945. As a result, many Slovaks demanded that this situation should be corrected by means of the federalisation of the state.

Federalisation soon became one of the constituent components of the wider reform process, and settling the constitutional relations between the Czech and Slovak nations thus became a priority. This process not only presupposed a sense of political symmetry, but also (state) equality, equal rights and self-determination of both nations.

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Slovakia in History , pp. 315 - 329
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

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