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

111. RGANI, F. 10, op. 1, d. 247, p. 30, reprinted in Karner et al., Dokumente , #109.

112. The first attempts of the allied armies at broadcasting to a Czechoslovak audience resulted in extremely negative reactions in the ČSSR, even among those who were in favor of the military operation: the commentators’ poor command of Czech, their obvious ignorance of daily life in the country, and serious factual blunders caused those who claimed to be acting in the name of the “Czechoslovak patriots and the defenders of Socialism” to unmask themselves.

113. RGANI, F. 3, op. 68, d. 877, p. 173, materials on the resolution of the Politburo of the CC CPSU, “On the Address to the Citizens of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic”; text of the Proclamation to the Citizens of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. When they informed the allies that such a text was being prepared, the Soviet leaders added that “no publication of the proclamation in our press is planned,” 22 August 1968.

114. On 28 August alone, forty articles and news items were devoted to Czechoslovakia in the London Times , sixty-eight in the Paris Le Monde , and forty-eight in the Bonn Die Welt . In the USSR, too, a collected volume of documents on the situation in the ČSSR was published in September 1968, which had been compiled from press material by Soviet journalists, K sobytiyam v Chekhoslovakii: Fakty, dokumenty , svidetel’stva pressy i ochevidtsev , 1st ed. (Moscow: Moskva, 1968). The small number of copies printed and the late publication date prevented the volume from playing the significant role on which the Kremlin propagandists had counted.

115. RGANI, F. 89, op. 61, d. 6, pp. 2–4, internal order of the departments of the CC CPSU regarding the question of preparing military-political operations on 21 August 1968.

116. RGANI, F. 89, op. 61, d. 6, pp. 1–2.

117. Pikhoya, Sovetskii Soyuz: Istoriya vlasti , 342–43.

118. Suri, Power and Protest , 200.

Political leaders of the Soviet Union were particularly sensitive to even minor deviations from the ideological concepts and guidelines officially adopted by the USSR by countries of the Socialist Bloc. With regard to Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (ČSSR), the situation was further exacerbated by the fact that the totalitarian system imposed on the country by the Kremlin was experienced as alien and at odds with the historical tradition of pluralism and democracy that was characteristic of Czechoslovakia. 1

Changes in the political climate and the first stirrings of the civil rights movement can be traced to the end of Antonín Novotný’s time in office. After the January plenum of the Central Committee (CC) of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia ( Komunistická strana Československa or KSČ) in 1968, the democratization of Czechoslovakia’s political system, the process of the revision of antiquated ideological dogmas, and, ultimately, the rehabilitation of the victims of Stalinist repression got off to a good start. This process was diametrically opposed to the domestic politics of the USSR that had been taking shape after Nikita Khrushchev’s ousting. Here the process of rehabilitation was shelved completely by the new leadership under Leonid Brezhnev. The Soviet Committee for State Security (KGB) crushed all forms of thought that did not toe the party line and all independent activities in the population. From this point of view, the Kremlin’s radical opposition to the political reforms in Czechoslovakia was a foregone conclusion. It is obvious that “the struggle against dissent in Czechoslovakia strengthened the uniformity of official orthodoxy in the USSR.” 2

There was another substantial reason why Czechoslovakia was at the center of the Kremlin leadership’s attention. There is plenty of evidence that Brezhnev asked Novotný as early as 1966 to consent to the stationing of Soviet troops on ČSSR soil. 3Novotný gave his consent to the stationing of rockets, but refused to sanction the presence of Soviet troops on Czechoslovak territory, which irritated Brezhnev considerably, for as he saw it, the implementation of new military strategies in the struggle with the West was imperative. The Kremlin strategists believed it was crucial to have troops in place at the western borders of each satellite state. Czechoslovakia formed a gap between the battle groups in the north, in Poland, and in the south, in Hungary. Aleksandr Mayorov, commander in chief of the 38th Army stationed at the Czechoslovak border, describes in his memoirs how Brezhnev had ordered him to Old Square ( Staraya ploshchad ’), to the CC Communist Party of the Soviet Union ( Kommunisticheskaya Partiya Sovetskogo Soyuza or CPSU), where the party leader told him: “Our focus must now shift north of Budapest to Prague…. And we must have more friends in the Czechoslovak army.” 4

There is also evidence that Brezhnev nursed a grudge against Novotný, who had been one of Khrushchev’s protégés. Khrushchev had been especially open toward Novotný and had passed on information to him that he refused to discuss with other Warsaw Pact heads of state. After Khrushchev’s fall from power in October 1964 Novotný had a conversation with the USSR’s ambassador in Czechoslovakia, Mikhail Zimyanin, in the course of which Novotný mentioned some of the revelations he had received from Khrushchev. Zimyanin reported this to Moscow: “Comrade Novotný said that Comrade Khrushchev had mentioned last year in a conversation that Czechoslovakia was enriching herself at the Soviet Union’s expense.” During negotiations in Prague, Khrushchev “had also characterized relations between the USSR and the CPSU on the one hand and several fraternal countries and parties on the other—notably the German Democratic Republic (GDR), Poland, and Romania—as well as the political leaders of these parties and countries in a manner that would in all probability—had his utterances been made public—have damaged the interests of the CPSU and the Soviet Union.” 5

The way the Czechoslovak political leaders reacted to Khrushchev’s ousting was observed by the KGB representative in Prague. On 15 October, he reported to Brezhnev on his meeting with the minister of the interior, Lubomír Štrougal:

In a personal conversation Comrade Štrougal told me that the President had been told by Comrade Brezhnev that Comrade Khrushchev had been dismissed on account of mistakes in the field of domestic policy. He also pointed out that there was the danger of an increase of liberalist tendencies and possible demonstrations directed against the Party in Slovakia—inspired notably by Husák and Novomeský. The situation is further exacerbated by the presidential elections that are scheduled for the beginning of November. 6…The minister underlined that in view of the difficulties experienced in the ČSSR in explaining why Stalin’s mistakes had not been recognized as such in time it was presumably going to be even more difficult to explain why Comrade Khrushchev’s mistakes had taken so long to be identified. The standing of the KSČ with the masses could easily be undermined by this at least to an extent. This was a subject however that the minister did not return to during our meeting. 7

However, it appears to have been the case that Czechoslovakia’s political leaders were looking for danger in places where there was none. Štrougal, for instance, pointed to “the possibility of nationalistic and ‘left-wing’ (pro-Chinese) reactions of some elements also within the KSČ.” 8Security arrangements were stepped up in October 1964. According to another report of the KGB representative in Prague, Štrougal convened a meeting of senior cadres at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs on 15 October 1964 to inform them of the dismissal of Khrushchev and the CC of the Presidium of the CPSU. Moreover, he ordered staff to be on twenty-four-hour stand-by duty, and put the police on alert as well as the security details for members of the government according to Line Five of the Czechoslovak Ministry for Foreign Affairs. 9