<p>After 1968, the Marxist-Leninist theory in Czechoslovakia was based on a strict rejection of reformist tendencies. The turbulent year 1968 was seen, among other things, as the result of nationalist counter-revolutionary tendencies, which were put to an end by the “internationalist” aid of Warsaw Pact armies. Late Czechoslovak socialism was, however, also based on a patriotic conception that emphasized domestic socialist traditions. This study aims to analyze the presence of the seemingly contradictory pairing of “national” and “international” in the Marxist-Leninist theory of late socialism. In particular, the author will pay attention to the attempts to reconcile the internal contradiction of national and international into a single socialist whole and will suggest what consequences the failure of this concept had for post-communist developments in the East-Central European region.</p>