I am writing a paper on Czechoslovak New Wave cinema that was made during the Prague Spring. I want to begin by summarizing the sociopolitical climate that led to it, and while I'm beginning to piece together the literal cause for the liberalization, I'm having a hard time finding information on why Czechoslovakia was a unique exception within the communist countries at this time. In other words, why was Dubeck's reform so readily accepted by the country's communist party? All the resources I have scoured simply imply that the country was more liberal and urban in its pre-communist era, yet I feel that I am missing out on exact reasoning. Is it social or cultural beliefs? Is it that the Czech people were simply just less enamored with the steadfast socialism of the Soviet Union? I just feel that to better analyze the type of art the Czech people created during the time of weakened censorship, I need to better understand their cultural climate as a whole. I realize that this is a huge question, but it is not really an easy thing to google! Links to resources or anything would be a great help.
There's a podcast by the Eastern border and also one on bohemican.com on this. But here's a real quick summary.
Basically the change happened in the Party itself. Every country had streaks of underground literature and culture. What made Czechoslovakia different in the late 60's is that the party itself decided to risk someone who was ready to listen to the people a bit. To do some much-needed reforms. Because Czechoslovakia was just as stifling as the surrounding socialist countries, but the Czechs do have a fierce sense of independence, and demanded reforms more harshly in the late 60's... and the Party was willing to bend a little--by nominating Dubček.
Except that backfired, the populace just published way too much too fast in their first breath of freedom... even too much for Dubček. And Moscow stepped in directly.
This actually also happened in the Soviet Union. A brief relaxing of censorship laws lead to UFO sightings being reported... which was giving away secret military installations (a neat parallel to Area 51)---and Moscow clamped back down.
The censorship swung on a pendulum. Sometimes to compromise with a very upset population, they were loosened, only to be promptly tightened when it got out of control. East Germany, Hungary, ČSSR, and the Soviet Union, etc all went through this to some degree, and at different times. Prague was very conservative at the end, in the 80's. Hungary very liberal.. both are reactions to the pendulum swing that came before.