The Soviet decision to allow limited, cautious reform in the Eastern bloc in the 1960s encouraged reformers in Czechoslovakia to initiate much more dramatic changes in 1968. Frightened by the possibility of similar movements erupting elsewhere in eastern Europe, the Soviets moved in and forcefully reasserted their control. Soviet leaders took a stark lesson away from the events of 1968. Communist rule was to be maintained at any cost. There would be no more “reform from within.” Pressure for change, however, continued to build, and the 1980s would see dramatic challenges to Soviet rule, challenges that would culminate in the collapse of communism.