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

Following receipt of the CPSU letter, the Politburo of the SED convened for an extraordinary session with just one item on the agenda: the situation in the ČSSR. The committee approvingly took note of the letter from the Kremlin and finalized the text of its own letter to the KSČ. 65

The letter ended, like the Moscow original, with an “offer of assistance.” In contrast to the nonspecific “promise of help” from Moscow, the SED stated the basis of its willingness more precisely by making reference to the corresponding agreements between the Warsaw Pact states and the spirit of “socialist internationalism,” while at the same time narrowing them down. This offer related only to such decisions made and steps taken by the KSČ that were suitable for strengthening the position of socialism in the ČSSR. 66All these letters by the Warsaw Five were supposed to warn Dubček to take the criticism and demands of the Warsaw Pact states seriously.

The “2,000 Words” became in “many respects the turning-point in SovietCzechoslovak relations and characterized the beginning of the third stage, during which the better part of the Soviet leadership psychologically came to terms with the necessity of a military solution to the problem,” according to Prozumenshchikov. 67

The CPSU resolved to convene a new conference of the “Five” and the KSČ in Warsaw. Under pressure from large municipal associations, Dubček cancelled his participation in the meeting and proposed instead bilateral negotiations with the individual parties. 68

In Warsaw, the die was cast for an effort of collective assistance for the protection of socialism in the ČSSR, though not yet for the decision to intervene. The Soviet general secretary came to Warsaw with the draft of a letter endorsed by his Politburo. 69It was to be sent to the Presidium of the KSČ as a joint warning and at the same time legitimate externally the collective action. The letter was approved and passed on to Prague; in it, the most important parts of the existing letters were repeated. It instructed the KSČ in a threatening tone: “We, therefore, think that the decisive repulse of attacks by the anti-communist forces and the resolute defense of the socialist order in Czechoslovakia are not only your task but also ours.” 70The joint letter gave the interventionist coalition its name Warsaw Five.

The papers of the party leaders all had the character of a general reckoning with the developments of the previous months in the ČSSR. All of them emphasized the broken promises of the KSČ leadership since Dresden. 71In the assessment of the situation, all were in agreement: in the ČSSR, a change of system loomed. The Polish party head, Gomułka, precisely formulated this theory: in Czechoslovakia, “a peaceful process of change from a socialist state… to a republic of middle-class character is taking place.” This was, for him, an event that threatened “to turn into a weakening of our bloc.” His reasoning considered that, because at that moment all political problems were decided on a global scale, the action in Czechoslovakia meant a weakening of socialism “as represented by us.” Neither the Poles not the GDR were the decisive problem for imperialism; for him, the Soviet Union and its nuclear potential counted above all; it was the decisive force that held the “imperialist world” at bay. The Czech comrades were in the process of altering the European balance of power with their course. In order to do that, they had “already broken their bond with us. They have broken our bilateral and multilateral resolutions. They do not consult with us in significant matters.” Gomułka advocated “practical measures” to restore the closeness of the Bloc and “a unified line in the main issues”; this was, for him, “our unity toward the imperialist camp.”

Ulbricht likewise addressed the Bloc confrontation; he combined the theory of peaceful system change, as formulated by Gomułka and with which he agreed, with western, imperialist politics toward the Socialist states. For him there was no doubt that the organizers of the “counterrevolution” were located in Washington and Bonn. 72He apodictically declared:

The current measures and the appearance of counterrevolution in Czechoslovakia are part of the strategy of the U.S. and West German imperialism in the struggle for hegemony in Europe. Comrade Gomułka is right when he says it is not a question of whether businesses remain owned by the people or are transferred to private ownership. A state capitalist Czechoslovakia… can also come completely under the command and control of the World Bank and the West German Bundesbank; completely, even under the enterprise of socialism, the new socialism.

For Ulbricht, it was not the property question that was the decisive one; rather, “political power is what it’s about.”

Brezhnev himself shared this view and emphasized: “There is no example where socialism has been victorious and is firmly established, of capitalist circumstances triumphing anew. That does not exist and we are convinced that it also never should and also never will.”

The invocation of socialism and internationalism and the references to the existing treaties among the Socialist states already served to legitimize the imminent “collective action” in Czechoslovakia. Brezhnev justified at length why it did not represent interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. Prior to the decision on this “collective assistance” for socialism in Czechoslovakia, Brezhnev asked once more: Would the KSČ leadership have the courage to take resolute measures “to topple the reaction, to rescue the position of socialism?”

If it did not do this, the downfall of socialism loomed, which the Five could not allow! Therefore, it remained necessary “to support” the “healthy forces” in the KSČ. Moreover, the “sister parties” must be ready at the “first call of the Czechoslovak comrades to arise or, in the event that the circumstances required such an appearance and if the Czechoslovak comrades were having difficulties, to turn to us for assistance.” The new keyword for the intervention was “assistance.”

The Bulgarian party leader Zhivkov translated what this word really meant in the context of July 1968. He began solemnly, explaining that prior to the 14th KSČ Party Congress, which should never have taken place, the Five had had a “historic task” to fulfill: “There is only one way out, namely for the socialist countries, the Communist Parties and the Warsaw Pact to provide decisive assistance to the ČSSR.” The “inner forces of the ČSSR” could no longer be entrusted with rescuing socialism. “We can address diverse appeals and letters to them, of course, but unfortunately at present there are no such forces in the ČSSR that could assume the task mentioned in the letters. Czechoslovakia must be supported by the assistance of the socialist countries and the Communist Parties, by the assistance of the Warsaw Pact, primarily by the armed forces of the Warsaw Pact. First of all, the dictatorship of the proletariat must essentially be resurrected there.”

This demand did not yet, however, answer the question as to who in the ČSSR should restore the dictatorship and rebuild the KSČ. The “collective assistance,” should it fulfill its political aim, required party followers in the ČSSR who were to assume the task of restoring the monopoly on power into their own hands.

In his report on the Warsaw meeting before the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU on 17 July, General Secretary Brezhnev fell back on the suggestion from Ulbricht in May in Moscow in order to find a solution to these questions: “When we see that the leadership of the KSČ does not wish to adhere to our considerations, one must pursue efforts to promote other healthy forces in the Party and search for the opportunity to turn to these forces in the Party, which perhaps emerge with the initiative in the struggle for the restoration of the leading role of the KSČ and for the normalization of conditions in the country.” 73In order to organize this, there must be a meeting at which “representatives with the initiative group empowered by us… who represent the healthy forces in the Presidium of the Central Committee of the KSČ and convey our position to the political stage, on the basis of whom one can consolidate the Party, issue a rebuff to the anti-socialist elements and above all declare our readiness to provide our necessary support.” Then he repeated the passage from his speech in Warsaw, in which he had called on the “sister states” to look out for the first call for help from Prague. The Central Committee approved the report, and with this the Politburo was given a free hand.