Prague Spring, Détente and SALT

Czechoslovakia was a Soviet satellite state and a member of the Warsaw Pact, the Communist military alliance. By the mid-1960s, many Czechoslovaks were frustrated: the economy was weak, censorship was heavy, and the hardline Communist government was unpopular.

In January 1968, a reformer, Alexander Dubček, became leader of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. He believed communism could be made more open and popular. His slogan was "socialism with a human face".

Dubček was not trying to overthrow communism or leave the Soviet bloc. He wanted to reform communism from within, keeping Czechoslovakia in the Warsaw Pact.

This distinction matters. The reforms that followed — known as the Prague Spring — alarmed the USSR precisely because they made communism look reformable, which could spread to other satellite states.

During the spring and summer of 1968, Dubček introduced a series of liberal reforms:

Reform	What it meant
Relaxing censorship	Newspapers and broadcasters could criticise the government
Greater freedom of speech	Open political debate was allowed
More economic freedom	Some private enterprise and trade with the West
Legalising opposition groups	Political voices outside the Communist Party could form

These changes were hugely popular in Czechoslovakia. But to Moscow they were dangerous. The Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev feared:

• The reforms would weaken Communist control in Czechoslovakia.
• The example would spread to Poland, Hungary and other satellites.
• A liberalised Czechoslovakia might drift towards the West and weaken the Warsaw Pact.

After failed negotiations, the USSR decided to act by force.

On 20–21 August 1968, around 500,000 Warsaw Pact troops (led by the USSR) invaded Czechoslovakia. There was little military resistance, but widespread non-violent protest. Dubček was arrested, taken to Moscow, and later removed; his reforms were reversed.

Out of this crisis came the Brezhnev Doctrine:

The Brezhnev Doctrine declared that the USSR had the right to intervene — by force if necessary — in any Warsaw Pact country where Communist rule was under threat. The interests of the whole socialist bloc came before any single country's freedom.

Consequences — analyse the effect on the Cold War, which is what the exam rewards:

Consequence	Effect on the Cold War
Warsaw Pact control tightened	Satellite states warned that reform would be crushed
The West did not intervene	Confirmed, as in Hungary 1956, that the West would not fight over the Soviet sphere
Sino-Soviet split deepened	Communist China condemned the invasion, widening the rift between the USSR and China
Reform hopes ended in the East	The Eastern bloc stayed frozen until the late 1980s

Exam link: the June 2024 8-mark question was "Write an account of how the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia, 1968 affected the Cold War." Examiners reported that strong answers explained the "tail" of the question — the effect on the Cold War (the Brezhnev Doctrine, Western non-intervention, the Sino-Soviet split) — not just the reforms themselves.

Despite events in Czechoslovakia, the early 1970s saw a deliberate easing of superpower tension known as détente (a French word meaning "relaxation"). Several pressures pushed both sides to negotiate:

• The cost of the arms race. Building ever more nuclear weapons was crippling both economies, especially the weaker Soviet economy.
• Nuclear parity. By around 1970 both sides had enough weapons to destroy each other. A first strike was suicidal, so limiting weapons made sense.
• The shock of Cuba. The 1962 missile crisis had shown how close the world had come to nuclear war.
• The Sino-Soviet split. With Communist China now a rival, the USSR wanted better relations with the West to avoid facing enemies on two fronts.
• Vietnam and domestic pressures. The USA, strained by the Vietnam War, wanted to reduce Cold War costs and risks.

One issue détente had to work around rather than solve was the Soviets' record on human rights. The West condemned the USSR's persecution of dissidents, its censorship, and its refusal to let citizens (including many Soviet Jews) emigrate freely. This remained a lasting source of tension: Western governments negotiated arms limits with Moscow while still distrusting a regime they saw as denying its people basic freedoms.

Détente did not end the Cold War. Both sides still competed and distrusted each other. It was a managed rivalry, aiming to lower the risk of accidental nuclear war.

The centrepiece of détente was SALT 1 — the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks — signed by Brezhnev and US President Nixon in Moscow in May 1972.

SALT 1 was the first major agreement to limit nuclear weapons. Its two main parts:

Element	What it did
ABM Treaty	Limited each side to a small number of anti-ballistic missile defence systems
Interim Agreement	Froze the number of certain long-range missiles (ICBMs and submarine-launched missiles) for five years

Why it mattered:

• It was the first time the superpowers agreed to limit their nuclear arsenals — a major psychological breakthrough.
• Nixon's 1972 visit to Moscow, and his earlier visit to Communist China, showed the superpowers talking rather than threatening.
• It marked the high point of détente and reduced the immediate danger of nuclear war.

But its limits should be noted: SALT 1 only capped certain weapons rather than cutting them, and did not cover newer technologies. The rivalry continued — but it was now, for a time, being managed by negotiation.

1. Confusing Czechoslovakia (1968) with Hungary (1956)

Examiners repeatedly flag this. Hungary tried to leave the Warsaw Pact in 1956; Czechoslovakia under Dubček did not — it sought reform within the bloc. Do not merge the two events.

2. Describing the Prague Spring but ignoring its effect on the Cold War

"Write an account" questions have a tail — how the event affected the Cold War. Long descriptions of Dubček's reforms alone stay in the lower levels. Explain the Brezhnev Doctrine, Western non-intervention and the Sino-Soviet split.

3. Thinking détente ended the Cold War

Détente eased tension in the 1970s; it did not end the Cold War. Distrust and competition continued, and tension rose again later in the decade.

4. Overstating what SALT 1 achieved

SALT 1 limited (capped) some nuclear weapons; it did not abolish or even reduce them. Describe it accurately as an arms-limitation agreement, not disarmament.

5. Getting the SALT 1 leaders or date wrong

SALT 1 was signed in 1972 by Brezhnev (USSR) and Nixon (USA). Do not attribute it to Khrushchev or Kennedy, who were gone by then.