Writers, Slovaks, scandal cast spell of 1968 Prague Spring Fifty years ago, writers including Vaclav Havel and Milan Kundera, a Czech-Slovak rift and a bizarre scandal helped spark a fleeting but heady spell of openness in communist Czechoslovakia before Soviet tanks rolled in to crush it. The 1968 Prague Spring that brought “Socialism with a human face” to Czechoslovakia was personified by the smiling Alexander Dubcek, a Slovak who had become Communist Party chief on January 5 the same year. SOUNDBITESTO GO WITH VID1123964_EN