Let's say Novotný was a bit more far-sighted than IRL: he initiates some minor economic, cultural and political reforms and by the end of 1967 agrees to share power with a protégé (probably Jozef Lenárt or some such), holding onto the increasingly ceremonial title of President of the Republic. The intelligentsia is still irate but, whatever it's going to do in the future, its discontent is not going to rise at a fever pitch in 1967-68.
How much is history changed?
I can think of two things:
How much is history changed?
I can think of two things:
- The USSR's relations with the West European communist parties are better than IRL; Eurocommunism will still exist but the impetus caused by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia won't be there.
- China and Albania will, at least for a few more years, not denounce the USSR as a fascist state (and Albania will not de jure exit the Warsaw Treaty, which it had been excluded from de facto since 1961 and left in 1968 IRL due to Prague Spring.)