Alexander Dubček

Dubček became First Secretary of Czechoslovakia's Communist Party in January 1968 and immediately accelerated cultural and economic reforms that terrified both internal conservatives and the neighboring Soviet bloc. On the night of 20-21 August 1968, Warsaw Pact forces invaded to enable a conservative coup - but no viable replacement leadership existed, and Dubček's popularity made the takeover impossible to execute cleanly. He was forced out in April 1969, replaced by Gustáv Husák, then expelled from the party entirely in 1970 during a purge that eventually removed nearly two-thirds of the 1968 membership. He spent the next two decades as a symbolic leader for Eurocommunist reformers across Europe, keeping contact with counterparts in Italy and the Soviet Union. When the Velvet Revolution came in 1989, he returned as Chairman of the federal parliament and contended for the presidency; the European Parliament gave him the Sakharov Prize that same year. He died in a car crash in 1992, still seen by many as the natural future president of independent Slovakia.