Czechs confronting Soviet troops in Prague, 21 August 1968
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia that began with Alexander Dubcek's election as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on 5 January 1968 and ended with the Invasion of Czechoslovakia on 20-21 August 1968. Dubcek loosened restrictions on the media, speech, and travel, oversaw the division of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia (as federal units, not as separate countries), and partially decentralized the economy and the government. The Soviet Union did not approve of the reforms, and Leonid Brezhnev sent 500,000 Warsaw Pact troops to brutally suppress the reforms, crushing the people's non-violent resistance movement without any military resistance. Nevertheless, 108 civilians were killed by the invading Warsaw Pact troops, and the authoritarian wing of the Communist Party took power in the country.