April 1968 and he was the architect of the economics section of Dubček's action programme. Šik claimed that if his policies were followed then Czechoslovakia would be on an economic par with neighbouring Austria within four years. However these plans were never followed out after the Prague Spring was brutally ended in August of the same year by the tanks of the Soviet army. After the Prague Spring When the tanks rolled into Prague, Šik was on holiday in Yugoslavia. With the threat of arrest looming, he did not return to his homeland. Leonid Brezhnev and the Soviet Communist Party's propaganda machine singled Šik out for particular attention. In August 1968, TASS issued a press release calling him an agent of U.S. imperialism and "one of the most odious figures of the rightwing revisionists". Šik left Yugoslavia in October 1968 and moved to Switzerland. In 1969, he returned to Prague and tried to convince his colleagues but his views were rejected. Thus, he returned to Switzerland, where he became an economics professor at the University of St. Gallen in 1970, holding the post until his retirement in 1990. After the Velvet Revolution, Šik became an economic advisor to the Czech president, but had no impact on actual economic policies. He became a Swiss citizen and lived there until his death. Major works Šik was known as a market socialist but through the time he became a proponent of social market economy instead of market socialism. His major works include: The Third Way: Marxist-Leninist Theory & Modern Industrial Society (1972) For a Humane Economic Democracy (1979) The Communist Power System (1981) Economic Systems (1989) External links Ota Šik Archive at marxists.org 1919 births 2004 deaths Charles University alumni Czech communists Czechoslovak economists Czechoslovak defectors Politicians from Plzeň Prague Spring Mauthausen concentration camp survivors Place of death missing Communist Party of Czechoslovakia politicians Academic staff of the University of St. Gallen Czechoslovak academics Czechoslovak expatriates in Switzerland 20th-century Czech economists