A reflection

From Return to Diversity: A Political History of Eastern Europe, by Rotschild and Wingfield:

By the winter of 1967/68, most of the Czechoslovak reforms had come to a turning point where they would have to be either pressed more vigorously if their salutary potential was to be achieved or rolled back to halt the disarray that they were generating.

When reading history I sometimes feel frustrated when this or that great man or woman could not have seen that there was only so much they could do, at least for the time being; that they had lacked the vision to put on the brakes a little so as not to jeopardize the implementation of their agenda. However, it seems that once again the internal pace of history sets this inertia in motion which is impossible to resist –even if those riding the wave had wished it.