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

At the same time, open attacks on the KSČ group of leaders gained no traction, and grave accusations, which charged them, among other things, with cowardice and apathy, were dropped. In an attempt not to cause emotions to flare, passages such as “We are firmly convinced that openly anti-Communist assaults of reactionary elements are literally possible any day” were left out of the text. At the end of the session, Shelepin’s proposal to dispatch Brezhnev, Kosygin, and Podgornyi to the ČSSR as soon as possible so that they could form their own impression of the situation fell through. 46In its place, a resolution was adopted in the Politburo to forward the memorandum to the party Action Committee, to dispatch copies to the party leaders of Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, and the German Democratic Republic (GDR), and to organize a meeting of the party leaders of these countries, to which representatives of the ČSSR would also be invited. 47

Of the greatest importance was editing the key paragraph of the memorandum where the final version has a passage saying that the KSČ’s leaders could always count on “help as required” from the CPSU and the Soviet government. 48In the original version, this phrase had a much blander ring:

If the situation continues to develop in a dangerous direction and if the threat for Socialist achievements in Czechoslovakia keeps on growing, we, mindful of the principles of proletarian internationalism and of the obligations imposed on us by the Warsaw Pact, want to assure you in a fraternal manner that we will be prepared to come to the assistance of the Czechoslovak people with all means at our disposition. 49

These editorial changes and corrections may not look spectacular at first sight if it were not for a huge “but”: they may be unspectacular, but every word that was added or deleted affected the fates of thousands of people and of entire nations. Therefore, a whole week passed from the first appearance of the missive to its final dispatch.

The CPSU informed its own party Action Committee and the Soviet public of developments in Czechoslovakia in “open” and “secret” letters and in the plenum of the CC CPSU; the same purpose was served as regards the USSR’s close allies in the Warsaw Pact—the GDR, Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria—through regular meetings devoted to this topic. 50The results of these discussions usually had a profound effect on the activities of the Soviet Union. At first these meetings of the allies included the ČSSR, as in Dresden in March 1968, where the KSČ leaders were confronted for the first time with critical questions on developments in their country and on the future course the party proposed to adopt. Their efforts notwithstanding, the participants of the meeting did not manage to extract conclusive answers from either Dubček or his colleagues, nor were the Soviet leaders any more successful at a bilateral meeting with a KSČ delegation, which had come to Moscow at the beginning of May. This was obviously the reason why no Czechoslovak representatives were invited to the Moscow conference of the party leaders of the five East European Communist parties which was scheduled for 8 May. The conference itself was entirely given over to a discussion of the situation in the ČSSR. The prevailing tone was a relatively agitated one: all speakers mentioned the activation of antisocialist forces in the ČSSR, the feebleness and haplessness of the KSČ leadership, the targeted discrediting of Socialist ideas, and so forth. 51Nevertheless, the Soviet leaders succeeded in persuading the participants of the conference to refrain “for the time being from launching wholesale attacks on the KSČ leadership,” in the hope that the “healthy forces” in the ČSSR might ride to the rescue (with, perhaps, the planned military maneuvers of the Warsaw Pact countries on Czechoslovak territory to encourage them). Brezhnev, who presumably did not consider this scenario realistic, expressed his opinion that “we will have to meet again, perhaps several times, to sort these matters out.” He underscored the “readiness on our part to fly wherever is necessary, be it day or night, we can be on the spot in a matter of two to three hours, however busy we are.” 52

The fact that no representatives of the ČSSR had been invited to attend the conference caused considerable irritation in Prague; Moscow had to justify its decision and set out to prove that the participants “had no secrets they did not want to share with the KSČ” and that the agenda had consisted exclusively of issues that had already featured at the meeting of the heads of state of the two countries in the USSR not long before. The Soviets also pointed out that “another visit of the Czechoslovak leaders in Moscow within such a short time” might have given rise “to any number of interpretations and speculations about presumptive ‘difficulties’ in the relations between the CPSU and the other fraternal countries, on the one hand, and the KSČ, on the other.” 53When the Soviet Union proposed a meeting in July in Warsaw, the KSČ leaders declined the invitation, knowing only too well what would be in store for them there. They proposed to hold a number of bilateral meetings instead, involving the leaders of the “fraternal parties” (notably those of the CPSU). The reason they gave for not accepting the invitation to Warsaw was that “at that time, attending a meeting would overly exacerbate the work load on our party.” 54The KSČ letter containing the negative reply was not dispatched until 13 July. At that time, the delegation of all parties had already arrived in Warsaw. For this reason, the draft of a reply was written on the spot in Poland by Brezhnev, Kosygin, Podgornyi, and Shelest. The party apparatus back in Moscow was given the order “to vote on the resolution, to adopt it, and to dispatch it to the indicated address.” 55

The way the leadership of the ČSSR acted played directly into the hands of the hawks in the Kremlin. This state of affairs was further compounded by the fact that Brezhnev was presumably the only one among the Soviet participants of the meeting in Warsaw to still pursue a moderate course. The party leaders of Poland and Bulgaria, Władysław Gomułka and Todor Zhivkov—and even more the GDR’s Walter Ulbricht—only poured oil onto the fire. They all emphatically advocated a military intervention. The latter had already classified Dubček as “a basket case” during the Moscow meeting in May; 56in Warsaw, he declared with a sideswipe at Kádár that the KSČ and the ČSSR was no longer about a struggle with the revisionists (as the Hungarian leader had claimed), but about fighting the counterrevolution and asserted that “the next blow will be directed against you, against the Hungarian People’s Republic.” 57Even though no groundbreaking resolutions were officially adopted at the conference 58and the leaders of the CPSU declared they were prepared to hold another bilateral meeting with the ČSSR leadership, the distant thunder of the imminent military operation was sounding for everyone to hear. When Kádár told the story of how Dubček and Černik had burst into tears in the middle of a discussion with him about the party and the country’s situation, not even Brezhnev could help remarking mordantly, “They are always bursting into tears!” 59

At the beginning of July, with the CC CPSU still busy putting the final touches on the abovementioned letter to the CC KSČ, another missive was dispatched from Berlin to Prague, where, as opposed to the Soviet variant, the readiness of the GDR was openly offered “to support all your resolutions and measures according to the obligations that member states of the Warsaw Pact are bound by in the spirit of Socialist internationalism.” 60

In this context, the Warsaw Conference became for Moscow the next indispensable step in the preparations for the military operation, which were visibly gaining in momentum. Only a day after the end of the conference, on 17 July, the plenum of the CC CPSU was convened in order to rubberstamp the imminent intervention. The extremely short notice at which this important party forum was convened is also in evidence in the composition of the participants: it was hardly due to the holiday season that twenty CC members, thirty-one candidate members, and ten members of the Central Revision Committee failed to turn up—they simply could not make it to Moscow in time. 61Most of those who were present wanted to move from words to deeds and signaled agreement with launching a military operation against Czechoslovakia. 62At the same time, remembering his promise to conduct one more bilateral meeting with the KSČ leadership, Brezhnev underscored both in his speech and in his closing remarks that “before extreme measures are taken, we will exhaust, together with the fraternal parties, all political means at our disposal to assist the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the Czechoslovak people in keeping and defending the achievements of Socialism.” 63