Slovak Socialist Republic in the context of Constitutional Act on the Czechoslovak Federation

The Prague Spring (Czech: Pražské jaro; Slovak: Pražská jar) was a period of political liberalization and mass protest in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), and continued until 21 August 1968, when the Soviet Union and three other Warsaw Pact members (Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland) invaded the country to suppress the reforms.

The Prague Spring reforms were an attempt by Dubček to grant additional rights to the citizens of Czechoslovakia in an act of partial decentralization of the economy and democratization. The freedoms granted included a loosening of restrictions on the media, speech and travel. After national discussion of dividing the country into a federation of three republics, Bohemia, Moravia–Silesia and Slovakia, Dubček oversaw the decision to split into two, the Czech Socialist Republic and Slovak Socialist Republic. This dual federation was the only formal change that survived the invasion.

The dissolution of Czechoslovakia, which took effect on 31 December 1992, was the self-determined partition of the federal republic of Czechoslovakia into the independent countries of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Both mirrored the Czech Socialist Republic and the Slovak Socialist Republic, which had been created in 1969 as the constituent states of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic until the end of 1989.

It is sometimes known as the Velvet Divorce, a reference to the bloodless Velvet Revolution of 1989, which had led to the end of the rule of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. The dissolution of Czechoslovakia is clearly linked to the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of other Eastern Bloc countries such as the Dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Breakup of Yugoslavia. Unlike Yugoslavia, which was also created in 1918 and disappeared in 1992, Czechoslovakia did not experience violent clashes due to nationalism, which in the case of Yugoslavia led to the Yugoslav Wars.

The Communist Party of Slovakia (Slovak: Komunistická strana Slovenska, KSS) was a communist party in the Slovak Socialist Republic. It was formed in May 1939, when the Slovak State was created, as the Slovak branches of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) were separated from the mother party. When Czechoslovakia was again established as a unified state, the KSS was still a separate party for a while (1945–1948). On 29 September 1948, it was reunited with the KSČ and continued to exist as an "organizational territorial unit of the KSČ on the territory of Slovakia". Its main organ (and thus the main newspaper in Slovakia at the time) was Pravda.

After the merger KSS functioned as a regional affiliate of the KSČ, not as an independent political institution. Therefore, the organizational structure of the KSS mirrored that of the KSČ: the KSS Congress held session for several days every five years (and just before the KSČ's Congress), selecting its Central Committee members and candidate members, who in turn selected a Presidium, a Secretariat, and a First Secretary (i.e. party leader).