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

In the final meetings of the Soviet Central Committee’s Politburo before Dresden, Moscow’s political decision makers advanced the idea for the first time that it might be necessary to enter into deliberations “ along military lines .” Kirill Mazurov was a Politburo member and the first vice president of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Before and after the August 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, he also operated as “Brezhnev’s man” in Prague. Mazurov openly addressed the already prevalent anxiety when he averred in no uncertain terms: “ We have to prepare for the worst ” (emphasis added). 29

The invitation to the March meeting in Dresden also included the KSČ leadership. The official purpose given for this Warsaw Pact gathering was a discussion of economic issues. Dubček himself is supposed to have suggested to Brezhnev to paint the conference as an economic meeting. 30Dubček, however, left his Czechoslovak comrades in the dark. He was at pains after the meeting to create the impression that the Czechoslovak side had been confronted out of the blue with the “counterrevolution” charges leveled against them in Dresden. Instead of discussions on economic issues, the Czechoslovak delegation found itself arraigned as if the meeting were a tribunal. In his initial statement, Brezhnev solemnly declared that the issues on the agenda were much too grave to tolerate any keeping of minutes. Yet contrary to the directive of the general secretary of the CPSU, the SED arranged for the proceedings to be recorded anyway.

These minutes are a blessing to historians of the crisis, for the East German minutes clearly document how severely their Communist brethren took the Prague reformers to task. Dubček first had to explain his party’s political course. Brezhnev then asked him what meaning he attached to the concept of “liberalization of society.” The Soviet party chief also bluntly asserted that a “counterrevolution” was imminent in Czechoslovakia. Gomułka told Dubček in plain words: “We are well aware of the dangers, the real dangers confronting the Czechoslovak party and the Czechoslovak people and we are convinced that it is still possible today to overcome these dangers, I mean to overcome them in a peaceful manner.” The aggressive Polish party chief added: “This calls for a forceful counteroffensive that would in our view have to be carried out by the leadership of the Communist Party of the ČSSR against the counter-revolutionary forces, against the reactionary forces that have surfaced and are active on a grand scale in the ČSSR.” 31

In no uncertain terms, Brezhnev demanded Dubček restore the KSČ’s monopoly of power. The CPSU did not see the events in the ČSSR in the light of an “experiment,” but as a “calculated project,” in other words, as a deliberate attempt to change the system: “We have been empowered by our Politburo to… express the hope that you as the leaders will be in position to bring about a reversal of these events and to put an end to this very dangerous development. We are prepared to help… you.” In a more ominous tone he added: “If this should prove impossible… we cannot remain passive onlookers of the development in the ČSSR. We are inseparably linked to each other through ties of friendship, through obligations of an internationalist kind, through considerations for the security of the socialist countries.” This was a clear indication of the limits of Moscow’s patience. The forcible removal of “a link in the chain” that tied together the Socialist community could not be tolerated.

Yet the demands that were put to the Czechoslovak Communist Party were unequivocal. The Communist Party must reestablish its monopoly of power in Czechoslovakia and suppress the “counterrevolution” by every means at its disposal. The Warsaw Pact allies expected the KSČ to deal with the “problem” itself; after all, it was of its own creation. This, then, was the only alternative offered to the Czechoslovaks by the CPSU and its vassals: to reestablish order as understood by the Warsaw Pact through the use of all political means available in order to avoid a military “solution” that had been in the cards even before the Dresden meeting.

Everybody present at the Dresden meeting agreed to cloak it in absolute silence. Such a conspiratorial stipulation was observed above all by Dubček himself, who left his own party leadership in the dark about the Warsaw Pact allies’ demands. Dresden marks the end of the “reconnaissance phase,” which assessed the nature of goings-on in Czechoslovakia. The Warsaw Pact allies’ stark conclusion, stated openly and shared also with the Czechoslovaks present at the meeting, was that Prague had indeed embarked on a “counterrevolution.” In the ensuing phases moving toward intervention, the fraternal states increasingly subjected the Czechoslovak leadership to growing “political pressure.” 32

Phase II lasted from the end of March to the publication of the “2,000 Words” and/or the Warsaw meeting in mid-July. Shortly before dissolving, the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party passed an “Action Program” on 1 April calling for domestic pluralism and changing the composition of the party leadership in favor of the reformers by way of elections. This bold Action Program was the first step in a transition from Stalinist Soviet-style socialism to democratic socialism “with a human face.” Ulbricht’s SED fretted that the Action Program was no longer recognizable as the program of a Marxist-Leninist Party and that the Czechoslovak Communist Party could no longer be considered belonging to that select league. It should not come as a surprise, then, that the Action Program was neither published in the GDR, nor did the press comment on it. 33Clearly, anxiety about the spillover of Czechoslovak reforms to the neighboring fraternal countries was growing ominously.

Moscow’s reactions were more muted. The Kremlin felt that while the Action Program had a number of deficiencies it was hardly reasonable to expect the Czechoslovaks “to come up with anything better.” 34The Kremlin leaders had had an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the Action Program since mid-March, when KGB circles close to Novotný had passed it on to them. 35It had already provoked a storm of criticism in Dresden. Yet the KSČ nevertheless stood by it and emerged from Dresden unscathed. Until early April, it had only been a topic in internal discussions in the Soviet leadership. In his speech opening the plenum of the Communist Party’s Central Committee meeting, taking place from 6 to 10 April, Brezhnev attacked the Action Program openly for the first time and called it “revisionist,” a term pregnant with sinister meaning in the Communist dictionary. 36This April Party Plenum marked the end of Soviet tactical forbearance, notably displayed by Brezhnev since the beginning of the Czechoslovak crisis.

The hard-line fraternal parties, led by the GDR, immediately responded to this signal from Moscow—a clear case of the tail wagging the dog. 37Poland’s Gomułka urged the Soviet military “to consider, within the framework of the Warsaw Pact Treaty, the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Soviet forces.” 38Such assessment of the Action Program by Eastern European hardliners encouraged Kremlin dogmatists in Moscow, such as the Communist Party chief ideologist Mikhail A. Suslov and Ukrainian party chief Petro Shelest, to go on the offensive. Shelest, who was also a full member of the Politburo, was highly anxious that the Czechoslovak reforms might soon spill across the border into Ukraine and the rest of the Soviet empire. At the same time, he was aware that military intervention might not solve all the problems and could raise additional ones.