Volume 40, Number 15 · September 23, 1993
Unlikely Hero
By Paul Wilson
Hope Dies Last: The Autobiography of Alexander Dubcek
edited and translated by Jirí Hochman
Kodansha International, 354 pp., $27.50
Alexander Dubcek was a most unlikely hero. Modest, sincere, and cautious to the point of indecision, he rose in 1968 from obscurity to become the leading figure in the prague Spring, a reform movement that breathed new hope into the lives of Czechs and Slovaks, inspired the Western new left, challenged the authority of Soviet Communism in Eastern Europe, and anticipated elements of the final collapse twenty years later. His was the 'human face' that people identified with the Prague Spring and its violent demise when the Soviet troops invaded that same August. Yet there were questions. How could a man whose life had been lived within the Communist world have challenged that system at its roots? Was Dubcek merely a symbol, a figurehead of reform? Or was he a true leader, who put his distinctive stamp on the course of events?
Review, 5192 words
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