The Prague Spring and Socialism - Could it Have Lasted?

Could Soviet-style communism be reconciled with the dignity and freedom of the individual? In 1968, the question was put to the test when the leader of Czechoslovakia’s Communist Party, Alexander Dubcek, initiated a project of liberalization that he said would offer “socialism with a human face.” What followed was a rebirth of political and cultural freedom long denied by party leaders loyal to Moscow. The free press flourished, artists and writers spoke their minds, and Mr. Dubcek stunned Moscow by proclaiming that he wanted to create “a free, modern and profoundly humane society.”
A season when hope and optimism were in bloom, it became known as the Prague Spring. But nearly as soon as the movement came to life, it was crushed under the treads of Soviet T-54 tanks.
---50 Years After Prague Spring, Lessons on Freedom (and a Broken Spirit)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/20/world/europe/prague-spring-communism.html

Here's another interesting take on socialism in the NY Times that fits my recent theme of: Can socialism with a liberal face actually work? Given the realities of the times, there is no way the Soviets could have allowed it -- we saw 20 years later how quickly the virus spread and tore down the iron curtain in no time.

The article speculates about the liberalization in Czechoslovakia in the spring and summer of 1968 - before the Soviet tanks came. Could Dubcek have ushered in a different version of socialism? Hard to say as long as there was a one party system - the Communist Party. I don't remember if there was even talk of open elections --- I doubt it -- but would have to do more research.

I was a history major and was still going for my masters at Brooklyn College in history at that time and had done some serious work in studying eastern Europe Soviet domination as an undergrad in 1966 under  in my a senior thesis under the guidance of Bela Kiraly, Hungarian revolution fighter against the Soviets in 1956 who was my teacher.

I wrote about an encounter with Kiraly on our visit to Hungry in October 2006 (A Memorable Evening with General Bela Kiraly)
- a coincidence in that we were there a few days before the 50th celebration. He was in his mid-90s and died a few years later.

I certainly remember the hope for the Czech Spring in a year of so many major events. Remember the Democratic convention in Chicago and the election of Nixon a few months later?

......the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia killed the dreams of the reformers, broke the spirit of a nation and ushered in an era of oppression whose effects are still felt today. Moscow succeeded in restoring the supremacy of the state, but the ultimate cost of victory was high. Perhaps more than any other event during the Cold War, the invasion laid bare for the world to see the totalitarian nature of the Soviet regime.

As the article in the Times points out, hope for some half way liberalization in the Soviet block was dashed. I don't hold that things were totally better when the entire communist block fell -- that free reigning capitalism is better than a liberal and moderated socialist system. And I think current events are proving that unfettered capitalism is ultimately destructive --- actually just think of our former beloved chancellor Joel Klein's  comments about his creative destruction of our school system. How has free-market capitalism as applied to education worked out?

Afterburn:
My mom was born in Belarus and came here in 1920 as a 15 year old and my dad's father was from Odessa - and my mom's older and only brother went off to join the Bolsheviks (and they never heard any more from him), so I do have some roots in Eastern Europe.