Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia
Encyclopedia
On the night of 20–21 August 1968, the Soviet Union
and her main satellite states in the Warsaw Pact
– Bulgaria, the German Democratic Republic
(East Germany), Hungary
and Poland
– invaded the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic
in order to halt Alexander Dubček
's Prague Spring
political liberalization reforms.
In the operation, codenamed Danube, varying estimates of between 175,000 and 500,000 troops attacked Czechoslovakia; approximately 500 Czechs and Slovaks were wounded and 108 killed in the invasion. The invasion successfully stopped the liberalization reforms and strengthened the authority of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
. The foreign policy of the Soviet Union during this era was known as the Brezhnev Doctrine
.
and leadership of the Warsaw Pact
countries worried that the unfolding liberalizations in Czechoslovakia, including the ending of censorship and political surveillance by the secret police, would be detrimental to their interests. The first of such fears was that Czechoslovakia would defect from the bloc, injuring the Soviet Union's position in a possible war with NATO. Not only would the loss result in a lack of strategic depth for the USSR., but it would also mean that it could not tap Czechoslovakia's industrial base for its war efforts.
Czechoslovak leaders had no intention of leaving the Warsaw Pact, but Moscow felt it could not be certain exactly what Prague's intentions were.
Other fears included the spread of liberal communism and unrest elsewhere in Eastern Europe. The Warsaw Pact countries worried that if the Prague Spring
reforms went unchecked, then those ideals might very well spread to Poland and East Germany, upsetting the status quo there as well. Within the Soviet Union, nationalism in the republics of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine was already causing problems, and many worried that events in Prague might exacerbate those problems.
In addition, part of Czechoslovakia bordered Austria, which was on the other side of the Iron Curtain
. This meant both that foreign agents could potentially slip into Czechoslovakia and onto any member of the Communist Bloc and that defectors could slip out to the West. The final concern emerged directly from the lack of censorship; writers whose work had been censored in the Soviet Union could simply go to Prague or Bratislava and air their grievances there, circumventing the Soviet Union's censorship.
, near the Slovak-Soviet border.
At the meeting, Dubček defended the program of the reformist wing of the KSČ while pledging commitment to the Warsaw Pact
and Comecon
. The KSČ leadership, however, was divided between vigorous reformers (Josef Smrkovský, Oldřich Černík
, and František Kriegel
) who supported Dubček, and conservatives (Vasil Biľak
, Drahomír Kolder, and Oldřich Švestka) who adopted an anti-reformist stance. Brezhnev decided on compromise. The KSČ delegates reaffirmed their loyalty to the Warsaw Pact and promised to curb "anti-socialist" tendencies, prevent the revival of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party, and control the press more effectively. The USSR agreed to withdraw their troops (still stationed in Czechoslovakia since the June 1968 maneuvers) and permit the 9 September party congress.
On 3 August, representatives from the Soviet Union
, East Germany, People's Republic of Poland
, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia
met in Bratislava
and signed the Bratislava Declaration. The declaration affirmed unshakable fidelity to Marxism-Leninism
and proletarian internationalism
and declared an implacable struggle against bourgeois ideology and all "antisocialist" forces. The Soviet Union expressed its intention to intervene in a Warsaw Pact country if a bourgeois system—a pluralist system of several political parties representing different factions of the capitalist class—was ever established. After the Bratislava conference, Soviet troops left Czechoslovak territory but remained along Czechoslovak borders.
As these talks proved unsatisfactory, the USSR began to consider a military alternative. The Soviet Union's policy of compelling the socialist governments of its satellite state
s to subordinate their national interests to those of the Eastern Bloc
(through military force if needed) became known as the Brezhnev Doctrine
.
and was unlikely to be able to drum up support for a potential conflict in Czechoslovakia. Also, he wanted to pursue an arms control treaty with the Soviets, SALT. He needed a willing partner in Moscow in order to reach such an agreement, and he did not wish to potentially risk that treaty for Czechoslovakia. For these reasons, the United States made it clear that it would not intervene on behalf of the Prague Spring, giving the USSR a free hand to do as it pleased.
At approximately 11 pm on 20 August 1968, Eastern Bloc armies from five Warsaw Pact countries – the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, and East Germany – invaded Czechoslovakia. That night, 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 2,000 tanks entered the country.
The invasion was well planned and coordinated, simultaneously with the border crossing by ground forces, a Soviet airborne division (VDV) captured Prague's Ruzyne International Airport in the early hours of the invasion. It began with a special flight from Moscow which carried more than 100 plainclothes agents. They quickly secured the airport and prepared the way for the huge forthcoming airlift, in which An-12 transport aircraft started arriving and unloading Soviet airborne troops equipped with artillery and light tanks.
As the operation at the airport continued, columns of tanks and motorized rifle troops headed toward Prague and other major centers, meeting no resistance. The bulk of invading forces were from the Soviet Union supported by other countries from the communist bloc. Among them were 28,000 troops of the Polish 2nd Army from the Silesian Military District
, commanded by general Florian Siwicki
, and all invading Hungarian troops were withdrawn by 31 October.
Romanian troops did not take part in the invasion, and neither did Albania, which withdrew from the Warsaw Pact
over the matter. The degree of participation of the East German Army is dubious: either they were withdrawn within a few days or barely crossed the border.
During the attack of the Warsaw Pact armies, 72 Czechs and Slovaks were killed (19 of those in Slovakia) and hundreds were wounded. Alexander Dubček called upon his people not to resist. He was arrested and taken to Moscow along with several of his colleagues. Dubček and most of the reformers were returned to Prague on 27 August, and Dubček retained his post as the party's first secretary until he was forced to resign in April 1969 following the Czechoslovak Hockey Riots
.
The invasion was followed by a wave of emigration, largely of highly qualified people, unseen before and stopped shortly after (estimate: 70,000 immediately, 300,000 in total). Western countries allowed these people to immigrate without complications.
printed an unsigned request, allegedly by Czechoslovak party and state leaders, for "immediate assistance, including assistance with armed forces." At the 14th KSČ Party Congress
(conducted secretly, immediately following the intervention), it was emphasized that no member of the leadership had invited the intervention. At the time, a number of commentators believed the letter was fake or non-existent.
In the early 1990s, however, the Russian government gave the new Czechoslovak President, Václav Havel
, a copy of a letter of invitation addressed to Soviet authorities and signed by KSČ members Biľak, Švestka, Kolder, Indra, and Kapek. It claimed that “right-wing” media were “fomenting a wave of nationalism and chauvinism, and are provoking an anti-communist and anti-Soviet psychosis.” It formally asked the Soviets to “lend support and assistance with all means at your disposal” to save the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic “from the imminent danger of counterrevolution.”
A 1992 Izvestia
article claimed that candidate Presidium member Antonin Kapek gave Leonid Brezhnev
a letter at the Soviet-Czechoslovak Čierna nad Tisou talks in late July which appealed for “fraternal help.” A second letter was supposedly delivered by Biľak to Ukrainian Party leader Petro Shelest
during the August Bratislava
conference “in a lavatory rendezvous arranged through the KGB
station chief.” This letter was signed by the same five as Kapek’s letter, mentioned above.
. When these men had managed to convince a majority of the Presidium (six of eleven voting members) to side with them against Alexander Dubček’s reformists, they asked the USSR to launch a military invasion. The USSR leadership was even considering waiting until the 26 August Slovak Party Congress, but the Czechoslovak conspirators “specifically requested the night of the 20th.”
The plan was to unfold as follows. A debate would unfold in response to the Kašpar report on the state of the country, during which conservative members would insist that Dubček present two letters he had received from the USSR, letters which listed promises he had made at the Čierná nad Tisou talks but had failed to keep. Dubček’s concealment of such important letters, and his unwillingness to keep his promises would lead to a vote of confidence which the now conservative majority would win, seizing power, and issue a request for Soviet assistance in preventing a counterrevolution. It was this formal request, drafted in Moscow, which was published in Pravda
on 22 August without the signatories. All the USSR needed to do was suppress the Czechoslovak military and any violent resistance.
With this plan in mind, the 16–17 August Soviet Politburo
meeting passed a resolution to “provide help to the Communist Party and people of Czechoslovakia through military force.” At the 18 August Warsaw Pact meeting, Brezhnev announced that the intervention would go ahead on the night of 20 August, and asked for "fraternal support", which the national leaders of Bulgaria, East Germany, Hungary, and Poland duly offered.
could be covered before any discussion on recent reforms or Kašpar’s report. Discussion of the Congress dragged on, and before the conspirators had a chance to request a confidence vote, early news of the invasion reached the Presidium.
An anonymous warning was transmitted by the Czechoslovak Ambassador to Hungary, Jozef Púčik, approximately six hours before Soviet troops crossed the border at midnight. When the news arrived, the solidarity of conservative coalition crumbled. When the Presidium proposed a declaration condemning the invasion, two key members of the conspiracy, Jan Pillar and Frantíšek Barbírek, switched sides to support Dubček. With their help, declaration against the invasion won with a 7:4 majority.
The conservatives asked Svoboda to create an "emergency government" but since they had not won a clear majority of support, he refused. Instead, he and Gustáv Husák traveled to Moscow on 23 August to insist Dubček and Černík should be included in a solution to the conflict. After days of negotiations, the Czechoslovak delegation accepted the "Moscow Protocol
", and signed their commitment to its fifteen points. The Protocol demanded the suppression of opposition groups, the full reinstatement of censorship, and the dismissal of specific reformist officials. It did not, however, refer to the situation in the ČSSR as "counterrevolutionary
" nor did it demand a reversal of the post-January course.
. In Prague
and other cities throughout the republic, Czechs and Slovaks greeted Warsaw Pact soldiers with arguments and reproaches. Every form of assistance, including the provision of food and water, was denied to the invaders. Signs, placards, and graffiti
drawn on walls and pavements denounced the invaders, the Soviet leaders, and suspected collaborators. Pictures of Dubček and Svoboda appeared in the streets. Citizens gave wrong directions to soldiers, even removing street signs that may help the invaders.
Initially, some civilians tried to argue with the invading troops, but this met with little or no success. After the USSR
used photographs of these discussions as proof that the invasion troops were being greeted amicably, secret Czechoslovak broadcasting stations discouraged the practice, reminding the people that "pictures are silent." The protests in reaction to the invasion lasted only about seven days. Explanations for the fizzling of these public outbursts mostly center around demoralization of the population, whether from the intimidation of all the enemy troops and tanks or from being abandoned by their leaders. Many Czechoslovaks saw the signing of the Moscow Protocol as treasonous. Another common explanation is that, due the fact that most of the society was middle class, the cost of continued resistance meant giving up a cushy lifestyle, which was too high a price to pay.
The generalized resistance caused the Soviet Union to abandon its original plan to oust the First Secretary. Dubček, who had been arrested on the night of 20 August, was taken to Moscow for negotiations. It was agreed that Dubček would remain in office, but he was no longer free to pursue to liberalization that he had before the invasion.
On 19 January 1969, student Jan Palach
set himself on fire in Wenceslas Square
in Prague to protest the renewed suppression of free speech.
Finally, on 17 April 1969, Dubček was replaced as First Secretary by Gustáv Husák
, and a period of "Normalization
" began. Pressure from the Soviet Union pushed politicians to either switch loyalties or simply give up. In fact, the very group that voted in Dubček and put the reforms in place were mostly the same people who annulled the program and replaced Dubček with Husák. Husák reversed Dubček's reforms, purged the party of its liberal members and dismissed the professional and intellectual elites who openly expressed disagreement with the political turnaround from public offices and jobs.
The first country to react against the invasion was Albania, which withdrew from the Warsaw Pact
.
Many people in the Soviet Union did not approve of the invasion. On 25 August, on the Red Square
, 8 protesters opened banners with anti-invasion slogans. The demonstrators were arrested and later punished; as the protest was dubbed "anti-Soviet".
In the People's Republic of Poland
, on 8 September 1968, Ryszard Siwiec
had immolated himself in Warsaw during a harvest festival at the 10th-Anniversary Stadium in protest against Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and the communist totalitarianism. Siwiec did not survive.
A more pronounced effect took place in the Socialist Republic of Romania
, which did not take part in the invasion. Nicolae Ceauşescu
, already a staunch opponent of Soviet influences and one to have declared himself on Dubček's side, held a public speech in Bucharest on the day of the invasion, depicting Soviet policies in harsh terms. This response consolidated Romania's independent voice in the next decades, especially after Ceauşescu encouraged the population to take up arms in order to meet any similar maneuver in that country: he received an enthusiastic initial response, with many people who were by no means communist willing to enroll in the newly-formed paramilitary Patriotic Guards
.
In the German Democratic Republic
, the invasion aroused a fair share of discontent among those who had hoped that Czechoslovakia would pave the way for a more liberal socialism. However, isolated protests were quickly stopped by the police and stasi
.
The night of the invasion, Canada, Denmark, France, Paraguay, the United Kingdom and the United States all requested a meeting of the United Nations Security Council
. That afternoon, the council met to hear the Czechoslovak Ambassador Jan Muzik denounce the invasion. Soviet Ambassador Jacob Malik
insisted the Warsaw Pact actions were "fraternal assistance" against "antisocial forces." The next day, several countries suggested a resolution condemning the intervention and calling for immediate withdrawal. US Ambassador George Ball, suggested that "the kind of fraternal assistance that the Soviet Union is according to Czechoslovakia is exactly the same kind that Cain gave to Abel
."
Ball accused Soviet delegates of filibuster
ing to put off the vote until the occupation was complete. Malik continued to speak, ranging in topics from US exploitation of Latin America's raw materials to statistics on Czech commodity trading. Eventually, a vote was taken. Ten members supported the motion; Algeria, India, and Pakistan abstained; the USSR (with veto power) and Hungary opposed it. Canadian delegates immediately introduced another motion asking for a UN representative to travel to Prague and work for the release of the imprisoned Czechoslovak leaders. Malik accused Western countries of hypocrisy, asking "who drowned the fields, villages and cities of Vietnam in blood?" By 26 August, another vote had not taken place, but a new Czechoslovak representative requested the whole issue be removed from the Security Council's agenda.
Although the United States insisted at the UN that Warsaw Pact aggression was unjustifiable, its position was compromised by its own actions. Only three years earlier, US delegates to the UN had insisted that the overthrow of a leftist government Dominican Republic as part of Operation Power Pack
was an issue to be worked out by the Organization of American States
(OAS) without UN interference. The OAS accepted adherence to Marxism-Leninism
as an armed attack justifying self-defense by the United States. American involvement in the Vietnam War
led UN Secretary-General U Thant
to draw further comparisons, suggesting that "if Russians were bombing and napalming the villages of Czechoslovakia" he might be more vocal in his denunciation.
In effect, the western countries offered only vocal criticism following the invasion – the reality of the Cold War meant they were in no position to challenge Soviet military force in Central Europe, without risking nuclear war.
In Finland, a neutral country under some Soviet political influence at that time, the occupation caused a major scandal. Like the Italian
and French Communist Parties, the Communist Party of Finland
denounced the occupation. Nonetheless, Finnish president
Urho Kekkonen
was the very first Western politician to officially visit Czechoslovakia after August 1968; he received the highest Czechoslovakian honours from the hands of president Ludvík Svoboda
, on 4 October 1969.
The Portuguese communist
secretary-general Álvaro Cunhal
is believed to have been the only political leader from western Europe to have supported the invasion for being counterrevolutionary
, along with the Luxembourgian Communist Party.
The United States government sent Shirley Temple Black, the famous child movie star, who became a diplomat in later life, to Prague in August 1968 to prepare to become the first United States Ambassador to free Czechoslovakia. Two decades later, when Czechoslovakia became independent, Mrs. Black was the first United States ambassador to the country.
Yugoslavia
was fearful of a similar action against it and its military was set on the highest alert and the defenses of the border with the Warsaw pact countries was strengthened.
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and her main satellite states in the Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
– Bulgaria, the German Democratic Republic
German Democratic Republic
The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...
(East Germany), Hungary
People's Republic of Hungary
The People's Republic of Hungary or Hungarian People's Republic was the official state name of Hungary from 1949 to 1989 during its Communist period under the guidance of the Soviet Union. The state remained in existence until 1989 when opposition forces consolidated in forcing the regime to...
and Poland
People's Republic of Poland
The People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...
– invaded the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic
Czechoslovak Socialist Republic
The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was the official name of Czechoslovakia from 1960 until end of 1989 , a Soviet satellite state of the Eastern Bloc....
in order to halt Alexander Dubček
Alexander Dubcek
Alexander Dubček , also known as Dikita, was a Slovak politician and briefly leader of Czechoslovakia , famous for his attempt to reform the communist regime during the Prague Spring...
's Prague Spring
Prague Spring
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...
political liberalization reforms.
In the operation, codenamed Danube, varying estimates of between 175,000 and 500,000 troops attacked Czechoslovakia; approximately 500 Czechs and Slovaks were wounded and 108 killed in the invasion. The invasion successfully stopped the liberalization reforms and strengthened the authority of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, in Czech and in Slovak: Komunistická strana Československa was a Communist and Marxist-Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992....
. The foreign policy of the Soviet Union during this era was known as the Brezhnev Doctrine
Brezhnev Doctrine
The Brezhnev Doctrine was a Soviet Union foreign policy, first and most clearly outlined by S. Kovalev in a September 26, 1968 Pravda article, entitled “Sovereignty and the International Obligations of Socialist Countries.” Leonid Brezhnev reiterated it in a speech at the Fifth Congress of the...
.
Soviet fears
Leonid BrezhnevLeonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...
and leadership of the Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
countries worried that the unfolding liberalizations in Czechoslovakia, including the ending of censorship and political surveillance by the secret police, would be detrimental to their interests. The first of such fears was that Czechoslovakia would defect from the bloc, injuring the Soviet Union's position in a possible war with NATO. Not only would the loss result in a lack of strategic depth for the USSR., but it would also mean that it could not tap Czechoslovakia's industrial base for its war efforts.
Czechoslovak leaders had no intention of leaving the Warsaw Pact, but Moscow felt it could not be certain exactly what Prague's intentions were.
Other fears included the spread of liberal communism and unrest elsewhere in Eastern Europe. The Warsaw Pact countries worried that if the Prague Spring
Prague Spring
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...
reforms went unchecked, then those ideals might very well spread to Poland and East Germany, upsetting the status quo there as well. Within the Soviet Union, nationalism in the republics of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine was already causing problems, and many worried that events in Prague might exacerbate those problems.
In addition, part of Czechoslovakia bordered Austria, which was on the other side of the Iron Curtain
Iron Curtain
The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
. This meant both that foreign agents could potentially slip into Czechoslovakia and onto any member of the Communist Bloc and that defectors could slip out to the West. The final concern emerged directly from the lack of censorship; writers whose work had been censored in the Soviet Union could simply go to Prague or Bratislava and air their grievances there, circumventing the Soviet Union's censorship.
Czechoslovak negotiations with the USSR and most of the Warsaw Pact states
The Soviet leadership at first tried to stop or limit the impact of Dubček's initiatives through a series of negotiations. Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union agreed to bilateral talks to be held in July 1968 at Čierna nad TisouCierna nad Tisou
Čierna nad Tisou is a town and municipality in the Trebišov District in the Košice Region of extreme south-eastern Slovakia, near the Tisa river.-History:The town and municipality is one of the newest in the Košice Region established in 1828....
, near the Slovak-Soviet border.
At the meeting, Dubček defended the program of the reformist wing of the KSČ while pledging commitment to the Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
and Comecon
Comecon
The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance , 1949–1991, was an economic organisation under hegemony of Soviet Union comprising the countries of the Eastern Bloc along with a number of communist states elsewhere in the world...
. The KSČ leadership, however, was divided between vigorous reformers (Josef Smrkovský, Oldřich Černík
Oldrich Cerník
Oldřich Černík was a Czechoslovakian Communist political figure. He was the Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia from April 8, 1968 to January 28, 1970....
, and František Kriegel
František Kriegel
František Kriegel was a Czechoslovak politician, physician, and a member of the Communist Party reform wing of Prague Spring...
) who supported Dubček, and conservatives (Vasil Biľak
Vasil Bilak
RSDr. Vasiľ Biľak is a former Slovak Communist leader of Rusyn origin.Vasiľ Biľak was originally a tailor...
, Drahomír Kolder, and Oldřich Švestka) who adopted an anti-reformist stance. Brezhnev decided on compromise. The KSČ delegates reaffirmed their loyalty to the Warsaw Pact and promised to curb "anti-socialist" tendencies, prevent the revival of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party, and control the press more effectively. The USSR agreed to withdraw their troops (still stationed in Czechoslovakia since the June 1968 maneuvers) and permit the 9 September party congress.
On 3 August, representatives from the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, East Germany, People's Republic of Poland
People's Republic of Poland
The People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...
, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
met in Bratislava
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
and signed the Bratislava Declaration. The declaration affirmed unshakable fidelity to Marxism-Leninism
Marxism-Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology, officially based upon the theories of Marxism and Vladimir Lenin, that promotes the development and creation of a international communist society through the leadership of a vanguard party over a revolutionary socialist state that represents a dictatorship...
and proletarian internationalism
Proletarian internationalism
Proletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is a Marxist social class concept based on the view that capitalism is now a global system, and therefore the working class must act as a global class if it is to defeat it...
and declared an implacable struggle against bourgeois ideology and all "antisocialist" forces. The Soviet Union expressed its intention to intervene in a Warsaw Pact country if a bourgeois system—a pluralist system of several political parties representing different factions of the capitalist class—was ever established. After the Bratislava conference, Soviet troops left Czechoslovak territory but remained along Czechoslovak borders.
As these talks proved unsatisfactory, the USSR began to consider a military alternative. The Soviet Union's policy of compelling the socialist governments of its satellite state
Satellite state
A satellite state is a political term that refers to a country that is formally independent, but under heavy political and economic influence or control by another country...
s to subordinate their national interests to those of the Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
(through military force if needed) became known as the Brezhnev Doctrine
Brezhnev Doctrine
The Brezhnev Doctrine was a Soviet Union foreign policy, first and most clearly outlined by S. Kovalev in a September 26, 1968 Pravda article, entitled “Sovereignty and the International Obligations of Socialist Countries.” Leonid Brezhnev reiterated it in a speech at the Fifth Congress of the...
.
NATO
The United States and NATO largely turned a blind eye to the evolving situation in Czechoslovakia. While the Soviet Union worried it might lose an ally, the United States had absolutely no designs on gaining it. President Lyndon Johnson had already invested the United States in the Vietnam WarVietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
and was unlikely to be able to drum up support for a potential conflict in Czechoslovakia. Also, he wanted to pursue an arms control treaty with the Soviets, SALT. He needed a willing partner in Moscow in order to reach such an agreement, and he did not wish to potentially risk that treaty for Czechoslovakia. For these reasons, the United States made it clear that it would not intervene on behalf of the Prague Spring, giving the USSR a free hand to do as it pleased.
Intervention
The invasion was well planned and coordinated, simultaneously with the border crossing by ground forces, a Soviet airborne division (VDV) captured Prague's Ruzyne International Airport in the early hours of the invasion. It began with a special flight from Moscow which carried more than 100 plainclothes agents. They quickly secured the airport and prepared the way for the huge forthcoming airlift, in which An-12 transport aircraft started arriving and unloading Soviet airborne troops equipped with artillery and light tanks.
As the operation at the airport continued, columns of tanks and motorized rifle troops headed toward Prague and other major centers, meeting no resistance. The bulk of invading forces were from the Soviet Union supported by other countries from the communist bloc. Among them were 28,000 troops of the Polish 2nd Army from the Silesian Military District
Silesian Military District
Silesian Military District with its headquarters in Wrocław is one of two current military districts in Poland ....
, commanded by general Florian Siwicki
Florian Siwicki
Florian Siwicki is a Polish military officer, diplomat and a communist politician, as well as a General of the Polish Army . Throughout his career he held a number of posts, including military attaché in China, commanding officer of the 2nd Polish Army during the invasion of Czechoslovakia in...
, and all invading Hungarian troops were withdrawn by 31 October.
Romanian troops did not take part in the invasion, and neither did Albania, which withdrew from the Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
over the matter. The degree of participation of the East German Army is dubious: either they were withdrawn within a few days or barely crossed the border.
During the attack of the Warsaw Pact armies, 72 Czechs and Slovaks were killed (19 of those in Slovakia) and hundreds were wounded. Alexander Dubček called upon his people not to resist. He was arrested and taken to Moscow along with several of his colleagues. Dubček and most of the reformers were returned to Prague on 27 August, and Dubček retained his post as the party's first secretary until he was forced to resign in April 1969 following the Czechoslovak Hockey Riots
Czechoslovak Hockey Riots (1969)
The Czechoslovak Hockey Riots were a short lived series of protests, mildly violent on occasion , that took place in response to the 1969 World Ice Hockey Championships....
.
The invasion was followed by a wave of emigration, largely of highly qualified people, unseen before and stopped shortly after (estimate: 70,000 immediately, 300,000 in total). Western countries allowed these people to immigrate without complications.
Failure to prepare
The Dubcek regime took no steps to forestall a potential invasion, despite the ominous troop movements by the Warsaw Pact. The Czechoslovak leadership believed that the Soviet Union and its allies would not invade, having believed that summit at Čierna nad Tisou smoothed out the differences between the two sides. They also believed that any invasion would be too costly, both because of domestic support for the reforms and because the international political outcry would be too significant, especially with the World Communist Conference coming up in November of that year. Czechoslovakia could have raised the costs of such an invasion by drumming up international support or making military preparations such as blocking roads and ramping up security of their airports, but they decided not to, paving the way for the invasion.Letter of invitation
Although on the night of the invasion, the Czechoslovak Presidium declared that Warsaw Pact troops had crossed the border without knowledge of the ČSSR Government, the Soviet PressCentral newspapers of the Soviet Union
The following publications were known as central newspapers in the Soviet Union. They were organs of the major organizations of the Soviet Union.*Pravda , the organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union....
printed an unsigned request, allegedly by Czechoslovak party and state leaders, for "immediate assistance, including assistance with armed forces." At the 14th KSČ Party Congress
Party Congress
A party congress is a general conference of a political party. The congress is attended by delegates who represent the party membership. In most parties the party congress is the highest decision making body of the organisation and elects the party's leadership bodies such as the National Executive...
(conducted secretly, immediately following the intervention), it was emphasized that no member of the leadership had invited the intervention. At the time, a number of commentators believed the letter was fake or non-existent.
In the early 1990s, however, the Russian government gave the new Czechoslovak President, Václav Havel
Václav Havel
Václav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
, a copy of a letter of invitation addressed to Soviet authorities and signed by KSČ members Biľak, Švestka, Kolder, Indra, and Kapek. It claimed that “right-wing” media were “fomenting a wave of nationalism and chauvinism, and are provoking an anti-communist and anti-Soviet psychosis.” It formally asked the Soviets to “lend support and assistance with all means at your disposal” to save the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic “from the imminent danger of counterrevolution.”
A 1992 Izvestia
Izvestia
Izvestia is a long-running high-circulation daily newspaper in Russia. The word "izvestiya" in Russian means "delivered messages", derived from the verb izveshchat . In the context of newspapers it is usually translated as "news" or "reports".-Origin:The newspaper began as the News of the...
article claimed that candidate Presidium member Antonin Kapek gave Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...
a letter at the Soviet-Czechoslovak Čierna nad Tisou talks in late July which appealed for “fraternal help.” A second letter was supposedly delivered by Biľak to Ukrainian Party leader Petro Shelest
Petro Shelest
Petro Yukhymovych Shelest was the First Secretary of the Communist party in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic Petro Yukhymovych Shelest (February 14, 1908 - January 22, 1996) was the First Secretary of the Communist party in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic Petro Yukhymovych Shelest...
during the August Bratislava
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
conference “in a lavatory rendezvous arranged through the KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
station chief.” This letter was signed by the same five as Kapek’s letter, mentioned above.
Internal plot
Long before the invasion, planning for a coup was undertaken by Indra, Kolder and Biľak, among others, often at the Soviet embassy and at the Party recreation centre at Orlík DamOrlík Dam
The Orlík Dam is the largest hydroelectric dam in the Czech Republic. It dams the Vltava River near the village of Solenice, which is near the town of Příbram. The structure is named after a chateau, which is situated a few kilometers above the dam...
. When these men had managed to convince a majority of the Presidium (six of eleven voting members) to side with them against Alexander Dubček’s reformists, they asked the USSR to launch a military invasion. The USSR leadership was even considering waiting until the 26 August Slovak Party Congress, but the Czechoslovak conspirators “specifically requested the night of the 20th.”
The plan was to unfold as follows. A debate would unfold in response to the Kašpar report on the state of the country, during which conservative members would insist that Dubček present two letters he had received from the USSR, letters which listed promises he had made at the Čierná nad Tisou talks but had failed to keep. Dubček’s concealment of such important letters, and his unwillingness to keep his promises would lead to a vote of confidence which the now conservative majority would win, seizing power, and issue a request for Soviet assistance in preventing a counterrevolution. It was this formal request, drafted in Moscow, which was published in Pravda
Pravda
Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....
on 22 August without the signatories. All the USSR needed to do was suppress the Czechoslovak military and any violent resistance.
With this plan in mind, the 16–17 August Soviet Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
meeting passed a resolution to “provide help to the Communist Party and people of Czechoslovakia through military force.” At the 18 August Warsaw Pact meeting, Brezhnev announced that the intervention would go ahead on the night of 20 August, and asked for "fraternal support", which the national leaders of Bulgaria, East Germany, Hungary, and Poland duly offered.
Failure of the plot
The coup, however, did not go according to plan. Kolder intended to review the Kašpar report early in the meeting, but Dubček and Špaček, suspicious of Kolder, adjusted the agenda so the upcoming 14th Party CongressParty Congress
A party congress is a general conference of a political party. The congress is attended by delegates who represent the party membership. In most parties the party congress is the highest decision making body of the organisation and elects the party's leadership bodies such as the National Executive...
could be covered before any discussion on recent reforms or Kašpar’s report. Discussion of the Congress dragged on, and before the conspirators had a chance to request a confidence vote, early news of the invasion reached the Presidium.
An anonymous warning was transmitted by the Czechoslovak Ambassador to Hungary, Jozef Púčik, approximately six hours before Soviet troops crossed the border at midnight. When the news arrived, the solidarity of conservative coalition crumbled. When the Presidium proposed a declaration condemning the invasion, two key members of the conspiracy, Jan Pillar and Frantíšek Barbírek, switched sides to support Dubček. With their help, declaration against the invasion won with a 7:4 majority.
The Moscow Protocol
By the morning of 21 August, Dubček and other prominent reformists had been arrested, and were later flown to Moscow. There they were held in secret and interrogated for days.The conservatives asked Svoboda to create an "emergency government" but since they had not won a clear majority of support, he refused. Instead, he and Gustáv Husák traveled to Moscow on 23 August to insist Dubček and Černík should be included in a solution to the conflict. After days of negotiations, the Czechoslovak delegation accepted the "Moscow Protocol
Moscow Protocol
Moscow Protocol was a document signed by Czechoslovak political leaders in Moscow, after the Prague Spring. The negotiations took place from 23 to 26 August 1968...
", and signed their commitment to its fifteen points. The Protocol demanded the suppression of opposition groups, the full reinstatement of censorship, and the dismissal of specific reformist officials. It did not, however, refer to the situation in the ČSSR as "counterrevolutionary
Counterrevolutionary
A counter-revolutionary is anyone who opposes a revolution, particularly those who act after a revolution to try to overturn or reverse it, in full or in part...
" nor did it demand a reversal of the post-January course.
Reactions in Czechoslovakia
Popular opposition was expressed in numerous spontaneous acts of nonviolent resistanceNonviolent resistance
Nonviolent resistance is the practice of achieving goals through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, and other methods, without using violence. It is largely synonymous with civil resistance...
. In Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
and other cities throughout the republic, Czechs and Slovaks greeted Warsaw Pact soldiers with arguments and reproaches. Every form of assistance, including the provision of food and water, was denied to the invaders. Signs, placards, and graffiti
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
drawn on walls and pavements denounced the invaders, the Soviet leaders, and suspected collaborators. Pictures of Dubček and Svoboda appeared in the streets. Citizens gave wrong directions to soldiers, even removing street signs that may help the invaders.
Initially, some civilians tried to argue with the invading troops, but this met with little or no success. After the USSR
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
used photographs of these discussions as proof that the invasion troops were being greeted amicably, secret Czechoslovak broadcasting stations discouraged the practice, reminding the people that "pictures are silent." The protests in reaction to the invasion lasted only about seven days. Explanations for the fizzling of these public outbursts mostly center around demoralization of the population, whether from the intimidation of all the enemy troops and tanks or from being abandoned by their leaders. Many Czechoslovaks saw the signing of the Moscow Protocol as treasonous. Another common explanation is that, due the fact that most of the society was middle class, the cost of continued resistance meant giving up a cushy lifestyle, which was too high a price to pay.
The generalized resistance caused the Soviet Union to abandon its original plan to oust the First Secretary. Dubček, who had been arrested on the night of 20 August, was taken to Moscow for negotiations. It was agreed that Dubček would remain in office, but he was no longer free to pursue to liberalization that he had before the invasion.
On 19 January 1969, student Jan Palach
Jan Palach
Jan Palach was a Czech student who committed suicide by self-immolation as a political protest.- Death :...
set himself on fire in Wenceslas Square
Wenceslas Square
Wenceslas Square is one of the main city squares and the centre of the business and cultural communities in the New Town of Prague, Czech Republic. Many historical events occurred there, and it is a traditional setting for demonstrations, celebrations, and other public gatherings...
in Prague to protest the renewed suppression of free speech.
Finally, on 17 April 1969, Dubček was replaced as First Secretary by Gustáv Husák
Gustáv Husák
Gustáv Husák was a Slovak politician, president of Czechoslovakia and a long-term Communist leader of Czechoslovakia and of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia...
, and a period of "Normalization
Normalization (Czechoslovakia)
In the history of Czechoslovakia, normalization is a name commonly given to the period 1969 to about 1987. It was characterized by initial restoration of the conditions prevailing before the reform period led by Alexander Dubček , first of all, the firm rule of the Communist Party of...
" began. Pressure from the Soviet Union pushed politicians to either switch loyalties or simply give up. In fact, the very group that voted in Dubček and put the reforms in place were mostly the same people who annulled the program and replaced Dubček with Husák. Husák reversed Dubček's reforms, purged the party of its liberal members and dismissed the professional and intellectual elites who openly expressed disagreement with the political turnaround from public offices and jobs.
Reactions in other Warsaw Pact countries
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
.
Many people in the Soviet Union did not approve of the invasion. On 25 August, on the Red Square
Red Square
Red Square is a city square in Moscow, Russia. The square separates the Kremlin, the former royal citadel and currently the official residence of the President of Russia, from a historic merchant quarter known as Kitai-gorod...
, 8 protesters opened banners with anti-invasion slogans. The demonstrators were arrested and later punished; as the protest was dubbed "anti-Soviet".
In the People's Republic of Poland
People's Republic of Poland
The People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...
, on 8 September 1968, Ryszard Siwiec
Ryszard Siwiec
Ryszard Siwiec was a Polish accountant, teacher and former Home Army soldier who was the first person to commit suicide by self-immolation in protest against the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia.- Self-Immolation :...
had immolated himself in Warsaw during a harvest festival at the 10th-Anniversary Stadium in protest against Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and the communist totalitarianism. Siwiec did not survive.
A more pronounced effect took place in the Socialist Republic of Romania
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
, which did not take part in the invasion. Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
, already a staunch opponent of Soviet influences and one to have declared himself on Dubček's side, held a public speech in Bucharest on the day of the invasion, depicting Soviet policies in harsh terms. This response consolidated Romania's independent voice in the next decades, especially after Ceauşescu encouraged the population to take up arms in order to meet any similar maneuver in that country: he received an enthusiastic initial response, with many people who were by no means communist willing to enroll in the newly-formed paramilitary Patriotic Guards
Patriotic Guards (Romania)
The Patriotic Guards were Romanian paramilitary formations formed during the Communist era, designed to provide additional defense in case of outside attack.-History:...
.
In the German Democratic Republic
German Democratic Republic
The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...
, the invasion aroused a fair share of discontent among those who had hoped that Czechoslovakia would pave the way for a more liberal socialism. However, isolated protests were quickly stopped by the police and stasi
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
.
Reactions around the world
United Nations Security Council
The United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of...
. That afternoon, the council met to hear the Czechoslovak Ambassador Jan Muzik denounce the invasion. Soviet Ambassador Jacob Malik
Jacob Alexandrovich Malik
Yakov Alexandrovich Malik was a Soviet diplomat. Malik was the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations from 1948 to 1952, and from 1968 to 1972....
insisted the Warsaw Pact actions were "fraternal assistance" against "antisocial forces." The next day, several countries suggested a resolution condemning the intervention and calling for immediate withdrawal. US Ambassador George Ball, suggested that "the kind of fraternal assistance that the Soviet Union is according to Czechoslovakia is exactly the same kind that Cain gave to Abel
Cain and Abel
In the Hebrew Bible, Cain and Abel are two sons of Adam and Eve. The Qur'an mentions the story, calling them the two sons of Adam only....
."
Ball accused Soviet delegates of filibuster
Filibuster
A filibuster is a type of parliamentary procedure. Specifically, it is the right of an individual to extend debate, allowing a lone member to delay or entirely prevent a vote on a given proposal...
ing to put off the vote until the occupation was complete. Malik continued to speak, ranging in topics from US exploitation of Latin America's raw materials to statistics on Czech commodity trading. Eventually, a vote was taken. Ten members supported the motion; Algeria, India, and Pakistan abstained; the USSR (with veto power) and Hungary opposed it. Canadian delegates immediately introduced another motion asking for a UN representative to travel to Prague and work for the release of the imprisoned Czechoslovak leaders. Malik accused Western countries of hypocrisy, asking "who drowned the fields, villages and cities of Vietnam in blood?" By 26 August, another vote had not taken place, but a new Czechoslovak representative requested the whole issue be removed from the Security Council's agenda.
Although the United States insisted at the UN that Warsaw Pact aggression was unjustifiable, its position was compromised by its own actions. Only three years earlier, US delegates to the UN had insisted that the overthrow of a leftist government Dominican Republic as part of Operation Power Pack
Operation Power Pack
The second United States occupation of the Dominican Republic began when the United States Marines Corps entered Santo Domingo on April 28, 1965. They were later joined by most of the United States Army's 82nd Airborne Division and its parent XVIIIth Airborne Corps...
was an issue to be worked out by the Organization of American States
Organization of American States
The Organization of American States is a regional international organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States...
(OAS) without UN interference. The OAS accepted adherence to Marxism-Leninism
Marxism-Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology, officially based upon the theories of Marxism and Vladimir Lenin, that promotes the development and creation of a international communist society through the leadership of a vanguard party over a revolutionary socialist state that represents a dictatorship...
as an armed attack justifying self-defense by the United States. American involvement in the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
led UN Secretary-General U Thant
U Thant
U Thant was a Burmese diplomat and the third Secretary-General of the United Nations, from 1961 to 1971. He was chosen for the post when his predecessor, Dag Hammarskjöld, died in September 1961....
to draw further comparisons, suggesting that "if Russians were bombing and napalming the villages of Czechoslovakia" he might be more vocal in his denunciation.
In effect, the western countries offered only vocal criticism following the invasion – the reality of the Cold War meant they were in no position to challenge Soviet military force in Central Europe, without risking nuclear war.
In Finland, a neutral country under some Soviet political influence at that time, the occupation caused a major scandal. Like the Italian
Italian Communist Party
The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party . Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played...
and French Communist Parties, the Communist Party of Finland
Communist Party of Finland
The Communist Party of Finland was a communist political party in Finland. The SKP was a section of Comintern and illegal in Finland until 1944.SKP did not participate in any elections with its own name. Instead, front organisations were used...
denounced the occupation. Nonetheless, Finnish president
President of Finland
The President of the Republic of Finland is the nation's head of state. Under the Finnish constitution, executive power is vested in the President and the government, with the President possessing extensive powers. The President is elected directly by the people of Finland for a term of six years....
Urho Kekkonen
Urho Kekkonen
Urho Kaleva Kekkonen , was a Finnish politician who served as Prime Minister of Finland and later as the eighth President of Finland . Kekkonen continued the “active neutrality” policy of his predecessor President Juho Kusti Paasikivi, a doctrine which came to be known as the “Paasikivi–Kekkonen...
was the very first Western politician to officially visit Czechoslovakia after August 1968; he received the highest Czechoslovakian honours from the hands of president Ludvík Svoboda
Ludvík Svoboda
thumb|Svoboda and [[I Corps |I Czechoslovak Army Corps]]Ludvík Svoboda was a Czechoslovak general and politician...
, on 4 October 1969.
The Portuguese communist
Portuguese Communist Party
The Portuguese Communist Party is a major left-wing political party in Portugal. It is a Marxist-Leninist party, and its organization is based upon democratic centralism. The party also considers itself to be patriotic and internationalist....
secretary-general Álvaro Cunhal
Álvaro Cunhal
Álvaro Barreirinhas Cunhal, who used the name Álvaro Cunhal , was a Portuguese politician. He was one of the major opponents of the dictatorial regime of Estado Novo. He served as secretary-general of the Portuguese Communist Party from 1961 to 1992...
is believed to have been the only political leader from western Europe to have supported the invasion for being counterrevolutionary
Counterrevolutionary
A counter-revolutionary is anyone who opposes a revolution, particularly those who act after a revolution to try to overturn or reverse it, in full or in part...
, along with the Luxembourgian Communist Party.
The United States government sent Shirley Temple Black, the famous child movie star, who became a diplomat in later life, to Prague in August 1968 to prepare to become the first United States Ambassador to free Czechoslovakia. Two decades later, when Czechoslovakia became independent, Mrs. Black was the first United States ambassador to the country.
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
was fearful of a similar action against it and its military was set on the highest alert and the defenses of the border with the Warsaw pact countries was strengthened.
See also
- Czechoslovakia: 1948 - 1968 (provides further details)
- Normalization (Czechoslovakia)Normalization (Czechoslovakia)In the history of Czechoslovakia, normalization is a name commonly given to the period 1969 to about 1987. It was characterized by initial restoration of the conditions prevailing before the reform period led by Alexander Dubček , first of all, the firm rule of the Communist Party of...
- Ota ŠikOta ŠikOta Šik was a Czech economist and politician. He was the man behind the New Economic Model and was one of the key figures in the Prague Spring.-Early years:...
Further reading
- Bischof, Günter, et al. eds. The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 (Lexington Books, 2010) 510 pp. isbn 978-0-7391-4304-9.
- Williams, Kieran, 'Civil Resistance in Czechoslovakia: From Soviet Invasion to "Velvet Revolution", 1968–89', in Adam RobertsAdam Roberts (scholar)Sir Adam Roberts, KCMG, FBA is President of the British Academy , the UK's national academy for the humanities and social sciences...
and Timothy Garton AshTimothy Garton AshTimothy Garton Ash is a British historian, author and commentator. He is currently serving as Professor of European Studies at Oxford University. Much of his work has been concerned with the late modern and contemporary history of Central and Eastern Europe...
(eds.), 'Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Expereience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present' (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 110–26. ISBN 978-0-19-955201-6. - Windsor, Philip, and Adam Roberts, Czechoslovakia 1968: Reform, Repression and Resistance (London: Chatto & Windus, and New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), 200 pp.
External links
- August 1968 – Victims of the Occupation page dedicated to documenting the invasion, created by the Totalitarian Regime Study Institute