What was the name of the 1968 reform movement in Czechoslovakia that attempted to democratize and liberalize the country before being halted by invasion?

• A. Velvet Revolution
• B. Glasnost
• C. Cultural Revolution
• D. Prague Spring

Answer: (D)

The idea being tested is a brief, hopeful liberal reform within a communist system, aimed at opening up politics and society while staying within socialism. In 1968 Czechoslovakia, under leader Alexander Dubček, the country pursued “socialism with a human face”—loosening censorship, allowing greater speech and political debate, and decentralizing some decision-making to give more freedom and reform within the Communist framework. This period is known as the Prague Spring.

What makes this the best answer is that it specifically refers to the 1968 movement in Czechoslovakia that attempted to democratize and liberalize the country, and it ended when Warsaw Pact troops invaded, stopping the reforms. The other options refer to different places or times: the Velvet Revolution happened in 1989 as the peaceful end of communist rule in Czechoslovakia; Glasnost was a Soviet openness policy in the 1980s; the Cultural Revolution occurred in China.