henceforth be associated with his name: ‘Each Communist party is free to apply the principles of Marxism-Leninism and socialism in its own country, but it is not free to deviate from these principles if it is to remain a Communist party . . . The weakening of any of the links in the world system of socialism directly affects all the socialist countries, and they cannot look indifferently upon this.’ This pronouncement, a lightly veiled assertion of the Kremlin’s right to act preventively to head off a threat to socialism in any socialist country, may well have given Dubček pause. But there was
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