Cold War - Episode 14: Red Spring (The 60s)

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14. Red Spring (1960s) Likewise the Soviet Union started the decade with growing openness and optimism. There was also an emerging cohort of youth with no memory of the privations and purges of the past, and who had a taste for Western music and fashion that alarmed the established order. Khrushchev sought, with limited success, to make the Soviet consumer economy more affluent, and he initiated housing construction and the poorly organised Virgin Lands Campaign. Khrushchev's erratic leadership style, his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis and a poor 1963 harvest eventually led to his removal from power. Czechoslovakia had an even more profound transformation under Alexander Dubček, who introduced human rights and free market reforms. However the Prague spring was opposed by Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev, and was ended abruptly in 1968. Interviewees include Miloš Forman, Vladimir Semichastny, Vasiľ Biľak and Yevgeny Yevtushenko. The pre-credits scene show Khrushchev and Czechoslovak leader Antonín Novotný demonstrating solidarity in 1964, in contrast to the Soviet Union ruling by brute force four years later.

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