# Slovak Socialist Republic Created (1 January 1969)

URL: https://allhistories.com/slovakia/timeline/1969-slovak-socialist-republic-created
Location: Bratislava
Themes: Key Events

Federalisation had been the central Slovak demand of 1968, championed by Gustáv Husák among others. Unlike most of the Prague Spring programme, it was acceptable to Moscow, and the reform survived the invasion as a concession that could be presented as a fulfilment of Slovak national aspirations. The Constitutional Act on the Czechoslovak Federation was adopted by the National Assembly on 27 October 1968 and signed at Bratislava Castle on 30 October. It took effect on 1 January 1969, creating the Czech Socialist Republic and the Slovak Socialist Republic, each with its own national council and government. The National Assembly was replaced by a bicameral Federal Assembly with a Chamber of the People and a Chamber of the Nations, in which Czech and Slovak deputies voted separately on important matters, preventing the Czech majority from simply outvoting the Slovaks. During normalisation many of the federal arrangements were hollowed out by a 1970 amendment and by the centralised control of the Communist Party, which itself was never federalised. Nevertheless, the Slovak Socialist Republic gave Slovakia its own institutions, ministries and capital functions in Bratislava. These structures became the basis of the Slovak Republic after 1989 and of independent Slovakia in 1993.

## Why it matters
Federation gave Slovakia its own state institutions, the framework from which the independent Slovak Republic later emerged.

Ruler at the Time: [Ludvík Svoboda](https://allhistories.com/slovakia/rulers/ludvik-svoboda)

Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia: Oldřich Černík (Communist Party of Czechoslovakia)
Prime Minister of the Slovak Socialist Republic: Štefan Sádovský (Communist Party of Slovakia)
First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia: Alexander Dubček (Communist Party of Czechoslovakia)

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Slovak Socialist Republic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovak_Socialist_Republic)
- [National Council of the Slovak Republic](https://www.nrsr.sk/)
- [Wikipedia — Communist Czechoslovakia (period overview)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechoslovak_Socialist_Republic)