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

2. What is at stake now is the process of movement towards détente—the policy of the President’s speech of October 7, 1966; the NATO Resolution of last September accepting the Harmel Exercise Report; the German Eastern policy, and the possibility of real improvement in the political climate in Europe, leading to mutual balanced force reductions. Progress in this direction would be set back if the Soviets intervened in Czechoslovakia. I simply do not agree that Soviet efforts in Eastern Europe would fail to stamp out liberal trends. They have long since proved their capacity to keep the animals tame by police methods, and their willingness to do so.

3. The Russians must be hesitating. The moment to give them a deterrent signal is therefore now. It will be too late once they cross the border.

1. On top of this memorandum is the handwritten note “No action DR” (Dean Rusk).

Folder “6/1/68,” Box 1558, POL Czech—USSR DEF 4 NATO, Central Foreign Policy Files 1968–1969, RG 59, NARA.

Plenary Session of the CC CPSU

Speech by the General Secretary of the CC CPSU, L. I. Brezhnev

17 July 1968

Comrades!

The Poliburo of the CC CPSU has considered it imperative to convene this meeting, where our purpose is to report on the results of a meeting that took place in Warsaw on 14/15 July of the party and government leaders of Bulgaria, Hungary, the GDR, Poland and the Soviet Union.

The most important issue discussed at this meeting, indeed the issue around which the whole meeting revolved, was the dangerous sequence of events in Czechoslovakia. Before I proceed to present to this meeting the relevant documents let me remind you that after the April plenum of the CC the prevalent notion in the Politburo of the CC CPSU with regard to the events in Czechoslovakia had been the one expressed at that plenum; it held that assistance should be given to the healthy forces and above all to the communist party of Czechoslovakia in their efforts to fend off the loss of socialist achievements in Czechoslovakia as well as the country’s alienation from the socialist camp. […]

As they encountered no courageous and determined resistance, the rightist forces threw all moderation over board, with the result that four leading Czechoslovak papers simultaneously published an openly counterrevolutionary manifesto—the so-called “2,000 Words.” It bore the signatures of a number of people, some of them well-known, others unknown. A detail that should be mentioned is the fact that some of the signatures are those of nonexistent people who have obviously been invented for the purpose.

This document is a direct attack on the KSČ, it is no less than a call to take up arms against the constitutional government. As we speak, it is being used to unite the antisocialist forces and to serve as a platform for their activities.

Immediately after the emergence of this hostile platform I spoke on the phone to Comrade Dubček and told him on behalf of the Poliburo of the CC that no time must be lost in engaging the antisocialist counterrevolutionary forces. We pointed out to him that the “2,000 Words” called for concerted actions against these forces, involving the support of the healthy forces in the party, in the working class and in the armed units of the People’s Militia. Comrade Dubček told me that a meeting of the presidium of the CC KSČ was in progress at the time and that he was going to pass on our recommendations to the meeting; he assured us that a radical condemnation was forthcoming and that highly effective countermeasures were about to be taken. Unfortunately none of these things came to pass.

[…] What is happening in Czechoslovakia in our view is this: a carefully disguised, fully up-to-date counter-revolutionary process is taking place that is aiming to fundamentally alter the social structure, possibly without changing its outward attributes and without causing any changes up to now in the society’s political and state leadership. The particular danger of this development consists in the initial confusion of the Czechoslovak working population and indeed even of the working class, who were completely in the dark as to where this development would eventually lead. It is also likely to cause confusion in communist circles outside the Soviet Union, as we can see from symptoms displayed by the Communist Parties of France, Italy and England.

[…] This manifest counterrevolution may yet cost the communists in Czechoslovakia dearly. The experience of events in Hungary teaches us that those who surrender to the reaction or strike a compromise with it expose the party to the onslaught of the counterrevolution.

[…] And the attempt to stem this process cannot be interpreted as an interference in the country’s internal affairs. It is no more than the expression of our internationalist duty towards the communist movement, towards the working population of Czechoslovakia. [Applause.] Face to face with the danger that one of the member states of the socialist community might deviate from the path of Socialism, we have no right to lock ourselves up in our national houses. This would mean a betrayal of the interests of Communism.

Communism unfolds as an international movement and this in fact describes its very existence. This is the key to its victories and its achievements. Whoever deviates from internationalism has lost the right to call himself a communist. Our countries are tied to the ČSSR through treaties and agreements. These are no mere agreements between individuals but commitments entered into by peoples and states. They are based on the general striving to preserve Socialism in our countries and to protect it against fluke events.

No one has the right to shirk their internationalist duties, the duties that are part of our contractual obligations, and the demagoguery that one occasionally encounters in this context is, to be quite frank, totally misplaced.

We respect the rights that each party has, the rights of each people. We acknowledge the special characteristics that the construction of Socialism may assume in different countries. Yet we are equally convinced of the bond that unites our historical destinies. Protecting Socialism—that is the task to which all of us must be prepared to contribute. Our parties all agreed on this point when we met in Moscow in early May. We are convinced that the same consensus is going to prevail at our meeting this time.

It is simply without precedent for capitalism to reassert itself where victory has once fallen to Socialism and where Socialism has established itself. This has never been the case and we feel sure it never will. [Applause.] The guarantee for this is our joint readiness to do anything that is necessary to help a fraternal party and its people to scupper the plans of the counterrevolution and to foil the imperialists’ designs on Czechoslovakia.

[…] As you can see, the imperialists’ tactics are marked by cunning and subterfuge; we must be prepared to counter their machinations and to unmask them in a timely and irrefutable manner. We must not close our eyes to the direct link that unites the tactics of the imperialist reaction and the activities of the antisocialist and counter-revolutionary forces in Czechoslovakia.

[…] Before we resort to the most extreme measures at our disposal we will concentrate on political means in collaboration with the healthiest forces in the communist party of Czechoslovakia to decisively repulse the antisocialist and counter-revolutionary elements and to maintain the KSČ in its role of the leading force of Czechoslovak socialism. We count on your unqualified support, comrades, and are looking forward to your speeches. [Applause.]