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

At the Politburo session of the HSWP on 6 February, the Hungarian leader formulated this concern much more pointedly. According to information he had received two days before the meeting in Komárno, things had taken a turn in Czechoslovakia

that made one’s hair stand on end. In a number of different areas all kinds of twelve-point programmes are formulated and submitted to the Central Committee. Their tenor is not hostile or directed against the party but the initiative has been taken out of the hands of the Central Committee and some proposals go beyond the CC’s presently held position. They contain such issues as whether Novotný could be allowed to continue as President. 28

At the meeting, Dubček painted his visit to Moscow as a great success. He said that Brezhnev and the other Soviet leaders had assured him of their assistance. He underlined that he had explicitly made the point that he wanted to solve all problems in close cooperation with the Soviet Union. Dubček and Kádár agreed in their assessments of the international situation across the board (Middle East, Vietnam, the issue of the Budapest Conference of the Communist and Workers’ Parties, and so forth). The most interesting discussion was the one regarding relations with the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). Kádár noted with relief that the Czechoslovak and Hungarian points of view were identical and felt sure he had found an ally in the Czechoslovak leadership in a question that was crucially important to the Hungarian economy. The secret protocol that had been endorsed under Polish and East German pressure by the Conference of Foreign Ministers in February 1967 in Warsaw made it impossible, after Romania’s earlier unilateral move, for Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary to enter into diplomatic relations with the FRG even though the Bonn government had extended this offer to all four countries. 29Kádár and Dubček welcomed the fact that diplomatic relations had been reestablished in the meantime between West Germany and Yugoslavia. There were now three Socialist countries (the Soviet Union, Romania, and Yugoslavia) that had official relations with the FRG. The fact that Dubček agreed with him that this created an entirely new situation made Kádár hope that with help from the Czechoslovak leadership the time might come for the Warsaw directive to be reviewed. Kádár used open, flexible language to describe his point of view to Dubček:

We have accepted this agreement and stand by it without any emotional involvement either way. It came into being under adverse circumstances. The position it creates is a rigid one and the six points [of the Warsaw protocol] create an impression as if we expected the FRG to proclaim itself a Soviet republic. The conditions are over the top and too rigid. I said that we were of course going to stand by the agreement but afterwards we informed all the parties concerned that this was a question that was not going to go away. It continues to be on the agenda. The situation must be reviewed constantly—and the same applies to what needs to be done about it. It’s not one of those problems that can be dealt with once and for all. And we cannot afford not to be able to come up with political answers to political questions.

Dubček and Koucký found themselves in complete agreement with the Hungarian leader. 30That Kádár pinned his hopes of bringing about a review of the Warsaw Pact’s attitude toward the FRG to Dubček’s help appears to be an important clue in any attempt to understand why he insisted for so long that Czechoslovakia’s consolidation according to the interests of the Soviet Bloc be carried out with the Dubček leadership rather than with the “healthy forces” backed by Moscow.

The meeting also produced an agreement on a continued development of bilateral economic and cultural relations. At Dubček’s request, Kádár was willing to consider that the friendship treaty between the two countries that had been concluded for twenty years in February 1949 should be renewed a year before its termination, with a clearly demonstrative purpose in the summer of 1968.

The next meeting between Kádár and Dubček also took place earlier than had originally been planned, at the anniversary of the Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia in February 1968. Initial planning had provided for the invitation of delegations from the “fraternal countries” headed by one Politburo member, yet in mid-February Dubček, citing “domestic and foreign policy reasons,” requested in no uncertain terms that the Soviet delegation be led in person by Brezhnev. 31According to the ritual of “imitation,” which was well established in the Soviet Bloc, it now became imperative for all other countries to be represented on the occasion by their party leaders as well. In Prague, Kádár had his most important conversation curiously enough not with Dubček, but with Novotný. The Hungarian leader was not only interested in Novotný’s views on the developments in Czechoslovakia, but he also tried to persuade the deposed politician not to be swayed by injured pride and not to block reform. A positive outcome was dependent on a unified leadership, Kádár told Novotný, and advised him “to work for a solution of the problems alongside the comrades.” 32

In March, the news from Czechoslovakia that reached the countries of the Soviet camp became more and more perturbing. After the abolition of censorship, ever more radical views found their way into the media. Novotný’s suggested removal from the post of president, for instance, did not even make it into the list of the particularly courageous “proposals.” The Soviet leaders therefore concluded that a meeting must be called immediately to enable leaders of “fraternal countries” to offer Dubček and his comrades Communist assistance in the task of consolidating the situation.

The story of the meeting in Dresden on 23 March 1968 and Kádár’s role as a mediator are sufficiently well known. What is less well known is the precise role Kádár played in the run-up to the meeting, which, generally speaking, was the result of agreements involving Brezhnev, Gomułka, and Kádár. During the Czechoslovak crisis, Brezhnev was in regular contact by telephone with the leaders of the five other countries of the “Six”; he was also regularly in touch with Kádár for purposes of sharing information and consultation. On average, he spoke to Kádár at least once a week, with occasional peaks of twice a day.

Wishing to provoke Kádár into speaking his mind, Brezhnev told him on 11 March that Gomułka and Todor Zhivkov, who were both deeply worried about the Czechoslovak developments, had suggested a meeting in Prague in that very week, if possible. Because Dubček himself had suggested at the March meeting of the Warsaw Pact Political Consultative Committee in Sofia that the members should meet more frequently at top level to discuss issues of economic cooperation, this meeting was to be advertised as one devoted to economic consultations, which meant that, in addition to the party heads and prime ministers, the leaders of the state planning boards would have to be invited as well.

Kádár’s reaction to the proposal was far from enthusiastic, yet he did not think it prudent to reject it out of hand. He suggested holding the meeting in Uzhgorod rather than in Prague “so that things were less obvious.” He also objected to painting the meeting as something different from what it was actually going to be: “Comrade Dubček must be told the truth whole and unabridged.” He also suggested that participation in the meeting should be confined to the party heads of four countries, namely the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary. Because Kádár knew the points of view of each of the respective leaders, he concluded that a smaller forum, excluding Bulgaria and the GDR, was going to provide more opportunity for offering the KSČ genuine constructive advice and assistance and at same time reduce the probability of it ending in outright condemnation of the Prague leadership’s erroneous ways. 33