Uprisings of Soviet Union Satellite Countries Essay

Uprisings of Soviet Union Satellite Countries - Essay Example In the 1960s Czechoslovakia, though still a satellite of the Soviet Union was starting to display a certain degree of independence from the Soviet Union. By early 1968, the reformers had gained sufficient strength in the political apparatus to install Ludvik Svoboda as President and Alexander Dubcek as head of the Communist Party. These two took Czechoslovakia onto a path of economic reforms and provided greater press and travel freedoms, and as a result, Czechoslovakia became the most liberal Communist state in the world, with the people enjoying the newly available freedoms. This state of affairs was not to remain for long, as this state of affairs in Czechoslovakia, was alarming to the Soviet Union. Through negotiations, an agreement was reached between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union to slow down the pace of reforms in the country, in an attempt to reduce the alarm of the Soviet Union. However, on August 20, 1968, the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries of East Germany , Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria struck with lightening speed and massive force, so that within a week there more than half a million of these forces spread all over Czechoslovakia. Against this massive military might, the people of Czechoslovakia responded not through military means, but through nonviolent resistance. The Soviets responded with political manipulation and economic pressure that saw the Czechoslovakian leadership gradually give way. The intense initial resistance against the Soviet Union slowly eroded to a disgruntled complacency.