Günter Bischof - The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968

Ulbricht demanded in Moscow a concerted international campaign against the “revisionism” in Prague, as part of which it should be openly said “that there is counterrevolution in the ČSSR.” He repeated his thesis, according to which the main thrust of this counterrevolution was directed against the GDR. The SED could no longer accept that the GDR would be taken in a political pincer attack: on the one hand from the new eastern policy of the Federal Republic and on the other hand from the reformers in Prague. The first secretary of the SED was concerned that both events could contribute to the erosion of the SED’s monopoly on power in the GDR.

This fear was not unfounded. Both events elicited hope for change in the GDR. The new Bonn eastern policy opened up the prospect of an improvement in German internal relations and the reforms in Prague awoke the hope among Socialists for analogous improvements in the GDR. The Leipzig historian Hartmut Zwahr noted in his diary, “Beneath the surface, a wave of sympathy is rolling; a large proportion of the youth is trembling with the Czechs.” 45

The SED confronted the danger of the Czech infection in the GDR with campaigns and prescribed ideological terminology. “With the power of the apparatus and of the entire state, the Party establishes Party opinion, the ‘orientation’: before it all public discussions fell silent. A new taboo is created.” 46Not everyone fell silent; Robert Havemann gave an interview to a Czech magazine. 47Turning to the reformers, he said, “[S]ocialists and communists across the world are following political developments in the ČSSR with genuine sympathy and filled with great hopes.” 48He stressed the self-assessment of the reform Communists, that they attempted for the first time to reconcile socialism and democracy. He was concerned with Stalinism being overcome. 49Havemann was able to publish his German text in the Federal Republic, but not in the GDR. A Danish journalist who published this interview in Copenhagen was identified on Ulbricht’s direct orders. The MfS received the directive to intensify the surveillance on Havemann and his circle of friends. The distribution of the German-language Prager Volkszeitung ( Prague People’s Newspaper ) was prohibited in the GDR.

In the KSČ, the May plenum (29 May until 1 June) was supposed to set the course; it decided to convene the 14th Party Congress in September. The party had in the meantime split into two wings: the conservatives and the reformers. Dubček constituted the integrating clip between them. In the resolution accepted by the plenum, the Soviet criticism was absorbed. Both wings agreed on the struggle against the counterrevolutionary danger. The KSČ’s claim on the leading role in the political system was strengthened. 50Initially, it looked as though the resolutions and decisions of the May plenum had consolidated the position of the leadership in order that they could prepare for the Party Congress in peace. 51This proved to be a fallacy in terms of both domestic and foreign policy. Thus Florin reported from Berlin that at the plenum no “debate was conducted with those revisionist views strongly represented among those persons active in the cultural sector and the middle-class intelligentsia, above all with regard to the leading role of the Communist Party in society.” 52It was precisely this that the Warsaw Five expected from Dubček. 53The SED’s skepticism as to whether the necessary turnaround in the KSČ’s politics would come about was also demonstrated by the prognosis of the ambassador regarding the probable result of the 14th Party Congress: “During the preparation of the Party Congress, the Party will as hitherto lose itself in a general discussion and questions on the new composition of the Central Committee will take center stage. The danger exists that the KSČ will take a social democratic development on the basis of the Action Program.” 54The Soviet ambassador in Prague personalized the consequences that “the healthy forces will disintegrate at the Party Congress” and the party would split. It was now already clear that Drahomír Kolder, Alois Indra, Bil’ak, and others would not be elected as members of the Central Committee and, perhaps, not even as delegates to the Party Congress. Should this situation be consolidated, the party would be led across to the right at the Party Congress. 55Neither ambassador allowed himself to be deceived by the resolution. While Florin stressed the change in character of the KSČ, his Soviet college had the “cadre question” in mind, without which the monopoly on power of the Party in the ČSSR could not be restored. 56Mikhail Prozumenshchikov has dealt with the consequences that Dubček’s politics had for the Soviet leadership, concluding: “To a certain extent, Dubček himself with his constant promises to improve the situation (which were not, however, fulfilled) also contributed to the increase within the Russian leadership of the number of those who advocated a solution of the problem by force.” 57A party reform requires an alteration in its statute. Florin did not, however, address the draft of the new party statute, although the text would have confirmed his prognosis, for he envisaged an extension of membership rights as well as the secret ballot for leadership functions and a protection of minorities. 58

The election of delegates in July led to a change in generations and resulted in a clear majority of 80 percent for Dubček and the reformers. 59In Moscow, Ulbricht had realistically estimated the balance of power in the KSČ: the “healthy forces” were a minority.

The Sˇhumava (Bohemian Forest) maneuver was set to end on 30 June. The Soviet Army used it to prepare undercover the occupation of the ČSSR. 60The military demonstration and the political pressure of the Warsaw Five aroused in the ČSSR not only fear, but also resistance. This resistance was articulated in the “2,000 Words,” written by Ludvík Vaculík. 61He called upon the citizens to take the initiated democratization of their country into their own hands, to support the progressive wing of the Communists in view of the election of delegates, and not to allow a restoration. In his report of 3 July, the GDR ambassador recorded very precisely the contradictory response at the conferences of delegates to the “2,000 Words.” 62Two days after its appearance, Ulbricht received an estimate from the GDR ambassador in Prague. Florin presented a piece of “evidence”: “This document is a call for counterrevolution, which bears programmatic character and contains the methods for the implementation of the counterrevolutionary intentions.” 63

This corresponded to the meaning of the “2,000 Words” for the CPSU, who also expressed this in its letter of 4 July to the Presidium of the KSČ. 64The SED received the letter at the same time as Prague did. The handwritten underlining on the German translation—presumably marked by Ulbricht himself—is important for understanding the position of the SED in its own letter to the KSČ. The underlining relates to a series of passages, above all those in the Soviet letter that concern the ČSSR’s relationship with West Germany and in which the CPSU assumes the position of the SED. The following was underlined: the “decisive question… as to whether Czechoslovakia should be socialist or not”; the behavior of the KSČ toward the “anti-socialist forces,” against whom no “effective blow” had so far been dealt; the passage on the revisionists in the party and on the intention to “legalize factions and groups” within the KSČ; and finally the questions of missing party control over mass media and the exploitation of events in the ČSSR by the “enemies of socialism [for] comprehensive ideological diversion.” Reflected in this underlining is the keyword that gave direction to the SED leadership’s perception of the “Prague Spring”: counterrevolution.