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

In April, Soviet hawks were pushing for military intervention. For Soviet minister of defense Andrei Grechko, however, the matter had reached a point of clarity: “We are ready at a moment’s notice, provided the Party passes such a resolution, to assist the Czechoslovak people with the armies of the Warsaw Pact countries , in case imperialists and counterrevolutionaries attempt to tear away the socialist ČSSR from the other socialist countries” (emphasis added). 39Two days earlier, the Soviet leadership had already decided to start military preparations. On 8 April, the commander in chief of the Soviet airborne troops, General Margelov, received a directive to start planning the deployment of airborne troops in Czechoslovakia. Margelov’s paratroopers were directed to be ready for deployment at a moment’s notice. In case the troops of the Czechoslovak armed forces took a friendly view of the Soviet paratroopers landing on their territory, suitable forms of cooperation were to be organized. If they resisted, they would be disarmed.

Moscow regarded military measures throughout the crisis as the option of last resort . Yet throughout the Prague Spring, military measures were never off the table. 40The loss of Czechoslovakia, a Central European country of key strategic importance within the framework of the Warsaw Pact, was considered unacceptable. It would have created a grave security problem for the Soviet military, irrespective of the larger political repercussions in the Cold War. The key importance of the military-industrial complex (MIC) receiving enormous attention under Brezhnev must also be kept in mind. In the 1960s and 1970s, the USSR sped up the development of a number of new defense programs. The KGB in particular did a great deal to further its own interests in the vast Soviet arms industry. 41Special favors for the military-industrial complex originated with both KGB chief Andropov and defense minister Dmitrii Ustinov having their roots in the MIC. Not surprisingly then, both Andropov and Ustinov “were the most categorical advocates of a military solution” during the Czechoslovak crisis. 42

In the larger scheme of things, the Prague Spring and its long-range repercussions created a “hunger for innovation” and also an increasing bureaucratization of the structures of the military-industrial complex. From the spring of 1968 onward, all KGB activities in Czechoslovakia were made to serve the preparations for the invasion of the Red Army. With this objective in mind, the KGB produced fake evidence of the “inevitable intervention of the West” and put it into circulation. This was a precautionary measure in case the leadership of the USSR, losing its nerve, conceded freedom of action to Dubček, and was thus designed to drive home to the Soviet party leadership the necessity of a military solution. 43

Yet the key hawks and most important catalysts outside the Kremlin for a “military solution” of the Czechoslovak “issue” were Ulbricht and Gomułka. 44In their eyes, all the key ingredients calling for intervention—ideological, political, and military—were in play. Particularly for Ulbricht, who was never tired of warning of the potential consequences and spillover effects into the Bloc and the Soviet Union itself, his own survival in power was at stake. Viewed from the perspective of 1989, when the countries of the Soviet Bloc fell like dominoes, his anxieties seem quite prescient.

A couple of weeks after the April plenum of the CC CPSU, the “reactions” of the fraternal states and their recommendations had been brought to the Kremlin’s notice. Konstantin Rusakov acted as the head of the Department of Liaison with the Communist and Workers’ Parties of the Socialist Countries. On 26 April, he presented a secret report to the CC CPSU underlining the SED’s contention that it was imperative for the fraternal parties to offer “collective help, including measures of last resort… in order to defend Socialist achievements in the ČSSR if circumstances require it.” 45Gomułka also supported the idea of an “armed intervention.” He even let it be known that for the time being he saw no alternative to “marching the troops of the Warsaw Pact, including the Polish army, into the territory of the ČSSR.” The Bulgarians had likewise opted immediately after Dresden “for taking the required measures forthwith, including military ones, if need be.” The only ones to drag their feet were the Hungarian party leaders. Raising the old bogey of Western subversion in the Bloc, Zhivkov declared in Sofia: “Western points of contact have been established and are active there. In the ČSSR as well as in Poland Zionism is playing a major role.” He added: “It is not necessary to revert to the Stalinist methods of the past yet we have to choose methods that will enable us to reestablish order in Czechoslovakia, Romania and subsequently also in Yugoslavia.” 46

At the end of April, Zhivkov came to Prague on a state visit and met Dubček in person for the first time. Dubček tried to defend his reforms. Yet for Zhivkov, it was a foregone conclusion that Dubček was a revisionist. After having seen the situation in the country with his own eyes, Zhivkov concluded that a counterrevolution was unfolding in Czechoslovakia and that capitalism was being restored. Nowhere else but in Slovakia had he found sympathetic ears to his concerns, evident in talks with Bil’ak, not least because he had told the Slovak “healthy” forces loyal to Moscow that he himself sympathized with the project of a “federalization” of the ČSSR, namely giving the Slovaks more rights. 47

Upon their return to Sofia, the Bulgarian party leadership informed the fraternal parties of the upshot of their state visit to the ČSSR. Like the East Germans, the Bulgarians had identified two revisionist hot spots within the leadership of the KSČ. They were emphatic that the devious counterrevolutionary process was still unfolding. Ulbricht had come to the same conclusion and suggested yet another meeting. 48It unfolded in Moscow on 8 May, 49just a few days after yet another round of bilateral talks in Moscow between the Soviets and Czech Communist leaders. The most important result of that meeting was that the Prague leadership reluctantly consented to the Warsaw Pact’s proposal to conduct military maneuvers on Czechoslovak territory. 50The fact that the Soviet leadership once again had received only unsatisfactory answers from the Czechoslovaks during this bilateral meeting was presumably the reason why the Czech Communist leadership was not invited to attend the meeting with the leaders of the fraternal parties scheduled a few days later.

The gathering of fraternal parties, entirely devoted to a discussion of Czechoslovakia, was marked by a high level of tension. The leaders of the CPSU found themselves wedged between a rock and a hard place in a situation without precedent in the history of the Soviet Union. On the one hand, the fraternal parties were clamoring for extreme measures. On the other hand, the Kremlin was well aware that these extreme measures would only be justified as a last resort if all political options had been exhausted. Brezhnev was not prepared to abandon his burning desire for détente. 51Leaders of the fraternal parties deemed it inadvisable to attack the Czech Communist leadership in its entirety. There was still a residue of hope that the “healthy forces” in Czechoslovakia were on the verge of gaining political clout. Brezhnev, however, knew that the odds for such a development occurring were rather long and stated that “we may have to meet again in this matter, and presumably more than once.” 52

During this Moscow meeting, Ulbricht explicitly welcomed Warsaw Pact military maneuvers as an opportunity to demonstrate military strength. He desired them to take place in close proximity to the West German border. He also suggested providing additional outside support for the “healthy forces” in the KSČ to strengthen them in their intra-party struggle. Dubček was a hopeless case, Ulbricht decreed in Moscow. Gomułka polemicized vehemently against Hungarian party chief Janoš Kádár, who adamantly refused to recognize the “counterrevolution” unfolding in neighboring Czechoslovakia. Conversely, Ulbricht’s clear-cut diagnosis was grist to the Polish party chief’s mill. 53Gomułka was as fond of using the term “counterrevolution” as Ulbricht and Brezhnev.