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FIGURE 2. Czechoslovak National Assembly voting on the federalization law, 27 October 1968 (U/OU)
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FIGURE 3. President Ludvik Svoboda signing the constitutional law declaring Czechoslovakia a federal republic, 30 October 1968 (U/OU)
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Federalization was the culmination of a Slovak drive, begun in 1968, to attain constitutional equality with the numerically superior Czechs. Slovak dissatisfaction over traditional Czech domination of the national administration dates from the founding of the republic in 1918. Various legislative concessions were made by both democratic and Communist regimes to grant the Slovaks a semiautonomous status, but none provided the Slovaks with meaningful control of their domestic affairs. During the belated de-Stalinization movement of the early 1960's, the Slovaks focused their energies on gaining a greater share in the government, but remained discontented with the concessions wrung from Prague.
By 1967 Slovak officials were able to take advantage of Novotny's rapidly deteriorating political position and launched a renewed campaign for national autonomy. Slovak nationalism played a key role in the collapse of the Novotny regime and was an important platform of the successor Dubcek government, which committed itself to a new Czech-Slovak federation.
As Slovak party boss under the Dubcek regime, Gustav Husak in 1968 was named deputy premier in charge of the "great Slovak dream"—federalization of
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