Student Web Activity Lesson Plans

Chapter 27: Cold War and Postwar Changes

The Prague Spring

Introduction

In 1968 Czechoslovakia began a brief period of loosening Communist control. However, the Prague Spring, as this period is known, ended swiftly with the Soviet invasion in August 1968. In this activity students will learn about the developments leading up to the invasion by reading the transcript of an important telephone conversation that took place one week before the invasion.

Lesson Description
Students will go to a Web site to read a transcript of an important conversation between Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and Czechoslovakia’s Communist Party leader Alexander Dubcek on August 13, 1968. After answering four questions about the conversation, students will interpret the intentions of Brezhnev and Dubcek. Each student will compile important statements from the conversation and then offer an interpretation of the two leaders' statements.

Instructional Objectives

The learner will analyze transcripts of a telephone conversation between Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and Czechoslovakia’s Communist Party leader Alexander Dubcek.

The learner will evaluate the significance of various statements in the telephone conversation.

Student Web Activity Answers

Brezhnev's main concern is the "anti–Sovietism and anti–socialist ideas" depicted in the mass media of Czechoslovakia.

Brezhnev's main accusation is that Dubcek is intentionally deceiving him and the Soviet leadership.

Cierna, Tisou, and Bratislava were the locations of previous discussions between Dubcek and the Soviet leadership at which Dubcek agreed to halt the anti-Soviet reformist movement in Czechoslovakia.

According to Brezhnev, Dubcek promised at Cierna and Tisou to crack down on the media and to remove certain reformist, or "rightist," officials from their posts within the Czechoslovakia government.

Students' examples and explanations will vary. Possible answer: Dubcek was clearly stalling for time, and perhaps he would rather blame the media crackdown on the Soviets instead of performing the crackdown himself.