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

47. “Rozkaz správcu posádky čislo 1, Trenčín, 21. avgusta 1968: Správca posádky Sovietskej armády podplukovník ŠMATKO,” in ÚSD-SK, A, from I. Šimovček. See also Historický ústav ČSAV, Sedm pražských dnu˚: Dokumentace (Prague: Historický ústav ČSAV, 1968), 123, 278–81, and 324–25.

48. See “TsK KPSS,” Memorandum No. 24996 (top secret), 6 September 1968, from Aleksandr Yakovlev, deputy head of the CPSU Propaganda Department, and Enver Mamedov, deputy head of Soviet television and radio, to the CPSU Politburo, in RGANI, F. 5, Op. 60, D. 19, Ll. 200–206; and “Nekotorye zamechaniya po voprosu podgotovki voenno-politicheskoi aktsii 21 avgusta 1968 g.,” Politburo Commission report (special dossier/strictly secret), 16 November 1968, in RGANI, F. 5 “OP,” Op. 6, D. 776, Ll. 128–44.

49. “Shifrtelegramma,” 21 August 1968 (top secret), from Kirill Mazurov to the CPSU Politburo, in AVPRF, F. 059, Op. 58, P. 124, D. 574, Ll. 184–86.

50. “Nekotorye zamechaniya po voprosu podgotovki voenno-politicheskoi aktsii 21 avgusta 1968 g.,” L. 137.

51. “Informatsiya o druzheskikh svyazyakh oblastei i gorodov Ukrainskoi SSR s oblastyami, voevodstvami, okrugami, uezdami i gorodami sotsialisticheskikh stran v 1968 godu,” 20 December 1968 (secret), in RGANI, F. 5, Op. 60, D. 2, Ll. 46, 64–65.

52. The first quotation is from the Soviet participants in a high-level “Warsaw Five” meeting shortly after the invasion, “Záznam ze schůzek Varšavské pětky v Moskvě ve dnech 24.–27.8.1968,” verbatim transcript (top secret), 24–27 August 1968, in ÚSD-SK, Z/M 21; and the second quotation is from “Nekotorye zamechaniya po voprosu podgotovki voenno-politicheskoi aktsii 21 avgusta 1968 g.,” L. 129. This was also the view put forth by the four East European leaders of the “Warsaw Five.” See, for example, Gomulka’s secret speech on 29 August 1968 to the PZPR Central Committee, reproduced in “Gomułka o inwazji na Czechosłowacje w sierpniu ’68: Mysmy ich zaskoczyłi akcja wojskowa,” Polityka (Warsaw), No. 35 (29 August 1992): 13.

53. “Záznam ze schůzek Varšavské pětky v Moskvě ve dnech 24.–27.8.1968,” L. 3.

54. “Záznam ze schůzek Varšavské pětky v Moskvě ve dnech 24.–27.8.1968,” L. 5.

55. “Rabochaya zapis’ zasedaniya Politbyuro TsK KPSS ot 25 avgusta 1968 g.,” verbatim transcript (top secret), 25 August 1968, in APRF, F. 3, Op. 45, D. 99, Ll. 484–91.

56. For an assessment of the postinvasion period based on declassified archival materials from former Czechoslovak archives, see Kieran Williams, The Prague Spring and Its Aftermath: Czechoslovak Politics, 1968–1970 (New York: Cambridge Univeristy Press, 1997), 39–59, 144–253.

57. “Rech’ tovarishcha L. I. Brezhneva,” Pravda (Moscow), 13 November 1968, p. 2.

58. S. Kovalev, “O ‘mirnoi’ i nemirnoi kontrrevolyutsii,” Pravda (Moscow), 11 September 1968, p. 4.

59. “Proti zapomnění a manipulaci: O co šlo v roce 1968,” Lidové novin y (Prague), 12 March 2008, p. 3.

60. “‘Fast alle glaubten an diesen Traum’: Der tschechische Staatspräsident Václav Klaus im Standard -Interview über die Niederschlagang des Prager Frühlings,” Der Standard (Vienna), 27 March 1968, pp. 1, 5.

61. Interview with Černík, transcribed in “Bumerang ‘prazhskoi vesny,’” Izvestiya (Moscow), 21 August 1990, p. 7.

62. Lubomír Brokl et al., Postoje československých občanůk demokracii v roce 1968 , Working Paper No. 99:8 (Prague: Sociologický ústav Akademie věd České republiky, 1999).

For many contemporary observers, the events in Czechoslovakia in 1968 were already directly linked at the time to one symbolic figure: Alexander Dubček. This was undoubtedly even more the case for observers from abroad (and to a certain extent also for Slovak observers). Factors that contributed to this impression were photos, sound recordings, and even mere ideas: Dubček smiling, with an enthusiastic crowd milling around him in spring 1968; Dubček anxious, talking to Leonid Brezhnev at the end of July in Čierná nad Tisou; 1Dubček on his way to an uncertain future on 21 August, as he is being deported from the country (perhaps handcuffed) by Soviet military personnel; 2Dubček on 27 August, addressing Czechs and Slovaks on the radio and explaining with a faltering voice the necessity of reaching a compromise with the Kremlin and appealing to the population to end their resistance to the intervention. 3In the memories of 1968, Dubček does indeed play the role of an icon of the “Prague Spring,” and these events also signaled, in a certain sense, his own breakthrough: Dubček the reformer of socialism, Dubček the defender of Czechoslovak sovereignty and independence, Dubček the precursor of Mikhail Gorbachev. 4

A certain simplification in the interpretation of past events and their identification with the most significant actors are not unusual in connection with historical memory, all the more so in the case of a memory that relies above all on the media reportage of the period: headlines, photos, and TV material. In all of them it is, unsurprisingly enough, people and their names that play a key role and that eclipse to some extent the continuum or the changes and developments in the attitudes and the reactions of the public, the hidden interdependencies, the decision making, and all the rest that tends to get lost in day-to-day reporting. These were the decisive factors shaping the information about the events of 1968 in Czechoslovakia that was brought to the attention of a non-Czechoslovak public, which—according to the rules applicable at the time—was a Western one. The “Dubček myth”—the idea that, first, the Prague Spring amounted to a single-handed attempt by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia ( Komunistická strana Československa or KSČ) to reform the Communist regime and that, second, the initiator and at the same time the political leader responsible for that attempt was Alexander Dubček—is erroneous twice over. This myth is, moreover, decidedly unhelpful if we want to understand what actually happened in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and complicates the interpretation of the Soviet decision and of the reasons for the military intervention even further. By the same logic, this myth will prevent us from fully appreciating the lessons to be learned from the Prague Spring and its consequences for the following decades.

It must be borne in mind that the Prague Spring was not only an attempt to reform the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, it was a major crisis of the regime as such. For an understanding of what was at stake in Czechoslovakia in 1968, we must not content ourselves with an analysis of the reforms that the KSČ leadership sought to implement. It is not enough to focus on “socialism with a human face,” and it would be a great mistake to analyze the motives behind the Soviet decision to intervene purely in terms of the Soviet determination to put a stop to the Czechoslovak reforms.

If we are to understand the dynamics and the meaning of the events of 1968, we must proceed from the fact that the developments of the spring and summer were not exclusively (and not even primarily) masterminded by the reformers within the leadership of the KSČ. We must assume that the reforms were not the outcome of some political strategy that had been devised in detail in advance and that was backed by a unified and clearly defined group of reformers. Even less were they the work of one key player, that is, Alexander Dubček. In Czechoslovak society, other forces were at work as well, forces whose strivings for reform influenced each other, which took turns in the role of pioneers, which took inspiration from each other, but which were at the same time far from identical in terms of their objectives, their political platforms, and their orientation.