DBWI: The USSR removes Dubcek in 1968

Today marks the 43rd anniversary of the end of the Czechoslovak-Russian War which began in August 1968 when the Soviet Union attempted to remove Alexander Dubcek as First Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. That failed miserably. The Czechs and Slovaks won their freedom and the rest is (democratic history).

In 1972, Dubcek founded the Slovak Social Democratic Party and was elected Prime Minister of Slovakia and served until his retirement in 1982. He became a respected elder statesman in Europe and helped broker the peaceful breakup of Yugoslavia with the signing of the Split Accords in 1989.

As for the Russians, the sheet hit the fan.

Had the USSR been successful at removing Dubcek from power, would Communism in the Iron Curtain have survived past 1974? How much different would Czechoslovakia have been if it became a Soviet lackey?
 
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