He was a member of the Slovak resistance movement during World War II, and became first secretary of the Communist Party 1967-69. He launched a liberalization campaign (called the Prague Spring) that was opposed by the USSR and led to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia 1968. He was arrested by Soviet troops and expelled from the party 1970. In 1989 he gave speeches at prodemocracy rallies, and after the fall of the hardline regime, he was elected speaker of the National Assembly in Prague, a position to which he was re-elected 1990. He was fatally injured in a car crash Sept 1992. The son of Slovak communists who had earlier emigrated briefly to the USA, Dubcek grew up and was educated in the USSR. A committed socialist, he returned to Czechoslovakia 1938 and fought as a Slovak patriot against the Nazis 1944-45. In 1939 he joined the Communist Party and gradually rose through its hierarchy, becoming chief secretary of the regional committee 1953 and first secretary of the Slovak Communist Party's Central Committee 1963. As Czechoslovakia's Communist Party leader from Jan 1968, he sought to popularize the system by introducing liberalizing economic, political and cultural reforms, dubbed "socialism with a human face". This reform movement was crushed Aug 1968 when Warsaw Pact forces invaded Czechoslovakia. Initially, Dubcek cooperated with the post-invasion, Soviet-directed "normalization" process, but in 1969 was replaced as party leader by the more conservative Gustáv Husák. He served briefly as Czechoslovakia's ambassador to Turkey, but in 1970 was expelled from the Communist Party. Political banishment for two decades followed, with Dubcek working as a clerk for the Slovakian forestry ministry. Though disenchanted with the cautious, stifling Husak regime, he retained his faith in the socialist dream and did not join the Charter 77 dissident movement formed by playwright Vaclav Havel. He returned to prominence November 1989, appearing with Havel on the balcony overlooking Prague's Wenceslas Square to acclaim the downfall of the communist regime.
