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The Brezhnev years included aggressive moves to defend the Soviet Union's position with its neighbors. Brezhnev was concerned that the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia was becoming too liberal -- the Communist leader in Prague, Alexander Dubcek, having talked of creating a "socialism with a human face." Brezhnev saw Soviet hegemony in East Europe as threatened. He spoke of all the sacrifices that the Soviet people had made in World War II and, in August 1968, he sent tanks into Czechoslovakia to quell liberalization.