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

A typical example of the disinformation campaign of the Directorate “A” of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB is an article in Pravda on 19 July 1968 entitled “The Adventurous Plans of the Pentagon and the CIA.” 42Citing a “strictly confidential operative plan” and documents of the commander in chief of the U.S. Army in Europe, it claimed that the Pentagon and the CIA were playing an active part in Czechoslovakia, engaging in “ideological diversions” and fomenting a “counterrevolutionary coup.” This plan, which had supposedly been leaked to Soviet journalists, had, in fact, been fabricated by the KGB. 43

The oppositional tendencies in Czechoslovakia were grossly exaggerated by Soviet propaganda. The multiplication of civic initiatives and the fact that there was rising criticism of totalitarian dictatorship of the Stalinist type were portrayed as evidence for the disastrous plan “of Czechoslovakia’s secession from the socialists camp.” All this was valuable only in terms of the USSR’s internal propaganda. It is thoroughly typical of the situation that the comprehensive report entitled “On the Activities of the Counterrevolutionary Underground in the ČSSR,” which was compiled in October 1968 by the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, devoted no more than a quarter of its text to the “activities of the antisocialist forces before the invasion of the Allied troops in the ČSSR.” There is not a word in this section about arms caches or any other tangible underground activities. What featured very prominently were the weakness of the local KSČ organs, the loss of their “leading role,” party infighting, chaos in the cadres, the proliferation of oppositional tendencies within society and the mushrooming of all kinds of organized civic groupings, including those of individuals who had been exposed to political repression in the past. There is only one passage that refers to isolated examples of the distribution of flyers and of the use of slogans hostile to the KSČ and the USSR. 44

The problems that had arisen in connection with events in Czechoslovakia also cropped up on the territory of the USSR. Several Czechoslovak correspondents in Moscow ran afoul of the KGB due to their independent positions and their critical reporting. This was Moscow and not Prague, censorship was totally in effect here, and tolerance of independent judgment was nil. At the instigation of the KGB, which kept the representatives of foreign media under close surveillance, a Politburo resolution was passed on 19 June 1968 entitled “On Anti-Soviet Statements by the Moscow Correspondent of the Czechoslovak Radio, L. Dobrovský.” 45The issue was tricky in that it involved the correspondent of a “fraternal socialists country.” The resolution was, therefore, top secret and bears the stamp “Special File.” Yet there was no immediate solution to the problem in sight. It was not until after the military invasion that Andropov and Gromyko penned a joint letter on 9 September 1968 proposing Dobrovský “be expelled from the Soviet Union.” 46The proposal was accepted by the Politburo, but the resolution was not officially recorded. 47

The KGB’s secret efforts in the spring and early summer of 1968 provided the Kremlin leadership with the arguments they urgently required to justify the tough line they were taking toward the political leaders of the KSČ. The plenum of the CC CPSU on 17 July 1968 was entirely given over to the developments in Czechoslovakia and the results of the meeting of the Communist and Workers’ Parties in Warsaw. Brezhnev gave a speech at the plenum and said that “a carefully camouflaged counterrevolutionary process” was unfolding in Czechoslovakia. 48There were fourteen speakers at the debate. By way of conclusion at the end of the plenum, Brezhnev announced: “Tomorrow the fraternal parties’ letter to the Czechoslovaks will be published.” 49

The military action carried out by the Soviet Union and its satellite countries against Czechoslovakia made it plain for all to see how little value was to be attached to the sovereignty of the Warsaw Pact countries. Shortly afterward, a propaganda campaign was initiated in support of the Kremlin’s new course. Pravda published an article with the programmatic title “Sovereignty and the International Obligations of the Socialist Countries,” which caused a sensation. 50The article presented different aspects of the thesis that the security interests of the entire “Socialist community” were more important than the interests of individual countries within the community. According to the article, it was “inadmissible for the sovereignty of individual Socialist countries to be opposed to the interests of worldwide socialism.” As for the military action of the “five allied socialist countries,” it was, according to the author of this article, perfectly in keeping “with the basic interests of the Czechoslovak people.” 51The article, signed Sergei Kovalev, contained no additional information as to the author’s education or function, so it makes sense briefly to discuss him here.

Sergei Mitrofanovich Kovalyov was known for his tireless struggle against “bourgeois ideology and revisionism.” 52Having been educated at the Moscow Institute of History, Philosophy, and Literature and at the Party University, Kovalev worked at the Department of Propaganda and Agitation of the CC CPSU. One of his first publications bore the title O natsional’noi gordosti sovetskikh lyudei ( National Pride and the Soviet Man ). 53Kovalev quickly rose in the hierarchy and was made director of the state-owned publishing house for political literature in February 1951, where he made the mistake of not realizing in time that political change was in the air. He laid himself open to the charge of having made serious errors in publishing Istoricheskii materializm ( Historical Materialism ), which included “mistaken formulations that are in breach of the guidelines of the CC CPSU and harmful to the interest of our state”; Kovalev was dismissed from his post and his file sent to the party Control Committee of the CPSU for inspection.

It took Kovalev a great deal of effort to rehabilitate himself sufficiently to be allowed to work in the field of ideology again. He had learned his lesson and was determined not to forget it. By 1968, his standing was reasonably consolidated again and in June a Politburo resolution assigned him to the group around the Politburo member Andrei Kirilenko, who was due to travel to Italy on a state visit. 54Then, in September 1968, Kovalev, by then a member of the editorial staff of Pravda , published an important article on the extremely sensitive topic of the relations between the Socialist countries. It is hardly conceivable that Kovalev could have written this article without previous briefing by the Kremlin.

The Pravda article was immediately spotted by the U.S. State Department and identified as a “new Soviet doctrine.” The KGB informed the CC CPSU accordingly in a letter dated 21 October 1968. In the same letter, the KGB also pointed out that in the view of U.S. State Department specialists the “new Soviet interpretation of the issue of sovereignty” contravened the UN Charter, an assessment that was also shared by UN Secretary-General Sithu U Thant. Despite this, Soviet foreign minister Gromyko formally underscored the new Soviet approach to the issue of “limited independence” at the UN Plenary Session. 55

The new course was developed further at the plenum of the CC CPSU on 30 and 31 October 1968. Brezhnev held a speech on the “Activities of the CC CPSU.” 56He informed the comrades that, at the political level, “the situation in the ČSSR remained precarious even after the military action of 20/21 August.” According to Brezhnev, most Socialist countries—and that included Vietnam, Mongolia, North Korea, Cuba—had welcomed the military invasion. Only China and Albania had remained aloof. 57“What worries us however is the equivocal and far from honest position of several members of the presidium of the KSČ,” Brezhnev noted. 58Yugoslavia, too, was guilty of embracing a “mistaken position,” which, according to Brezhnev, had to do with that country’s “revisionist tendencies.” A similar charge had to be leveled against Romania, even though that country’s “position had lately become more moderate.” With regard to the general tendencies that were becoming apparent in the assessment of the Soviet invasion, Brezhnev regretted the “unclear positions” held by the French and Italian Communist parties and noted: “What is obvious in the politics of the leaders of several Western European Communist Parties is the deference to the tendencies of the petty bourgeois masses, the abatement of class consciousness and the underestimation of their international obligations.” 59On the whole, Brezhnev could find no fault with the general reactions of the West: “The protests that the governments of these countries registered in their various ways actually had a formal, symbolic character and concerned in no way whatsoever the basis of our interstate and, above all, our economic relationships with these countries.” According to Brezhnev, the most important lesson to be drawn from the military action was this, “One thing has been made clear beyond any doubt: the assurances of the CPSU and of the Soviet Union that we will not allow anyone to prize away one single member from the socialist community are no empty propaganda.” 60In this way the doctrine of “limited sovereignty” was given its final touches; it has entered the history books as the Brezhnev Doctrine.