Czech writer and journalist Ludvik Vaculik, pictured in his apartment in Prague, was author of Two Thousand Words manifesto in 1968 and Charter 77 signatory.Josef Horazny/The Associated Press
Ludvik Vaculik, an author, journalist and anti-communist dissident whose Two Thousand Words manifesto became a key document of the 1968 Prague Spring reform movement that contributed to the Kremlin's decision to invade Czechoslovakia, has died. He was 88.
Czech public radio and television, and daily newspaper Lidove Noviny, to which he contributed a weekly column, The Last Word, all announced Mr. Vaculik's death on June 6. No further details were immediately given.
Mr. Vaculik created the manifesto at the request of leading scientists from the Academy of Sciences to support a process of liberal reforms meant to lead toward the democratization of communist Czechoslovakia that started in early 1968 when Alexander Dubcek became secretary-general of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. In the manifesto, Mr. Vaculik wrote that since the Communists took power in 1948, "the nation reached a point where its spiritual health and character are under threat." The manifesto was published July 27, 1968, in three countrywide newspapers and a leading weekly, a day after censorship was abolished.
With demands for freedom of speech and the removal of hard-line apparatchiks, hundreds of thousands of people, including many leading intellectuals, signed the document in approval. Mr. Vaculik said it was necessary to complete the reforms, "otherwise the revenge of the old powers would be cruel."
Mr. Dubcek began making changes to increase freedom of speech, hold elections at state and national levels and legalize non-communist parties, something revolutionary for the rigid communist regime.
After a few months, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev lost his patience and launched an invasion that started Aug. 20, 1968, and put the reforms to an end.
"We will all remember [Mr. Vaculik] as an important and brave man of pen and word who was free and independent throughout his life and under any regime," said Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, who offered his condolences to the family.
Born July 23, 1926, in the eastern town of Brumov, Mr. Vaculik supported the Communist regime early in his life and became a Communist Party member. But soon realizing the totalitarian nature of the system, he became disappointed with it. After a fierce critical speech he delivered at a congress of Czechoslovak writers in 1967, he was expelled from the party.
Mr. Vaculik leaves his wife, Madla, and five children, two of whom are from another relationship.
Details about funeral arrangements weren't immediately available.