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

Senior representatives of the KGB arrived in Czechoslovakia at the same time as the invasion troops. Their tasks included the organization of operative KGB groups in Prague und Bratislava. At the head of the entire operation were two high-ranking KGB officers: First Deputy of the head of the KGB Nikolai Zakharov and the head of the Second Chief Directorate (Counterespionage) and member of the board of the KGB, Georgii Tsinyov. Aleksandr Yakovlev, who held the post of the First Deputy Director of the CC CPSU Propaganda Department at the time, was sent to Czechoslovakia with a group of journalists on 21 August 1968. Later he told how on his return he had informed Brezhnev of what he had seen: “The KGB generals Zakharov and Tsinyov were spreading fear in our Prague embassy and passing on disinformation to Moscow.” 61Brezhnev simply acknowledged this information without reacting to it or drawing any other conclusion from it apart from asking Yakovlev to keep it from Kosygin. 62

Brezhnev was convinced that the military action against Czechoslovakia would bear fruit sooner or later. At the plenum of the CC CPSU on 9 December 1968, he had already announced optimistically that the situation in Czechoslovakia was returning to “normal.” He also noted that V. Kuznetsov, who had been sent to Prague to assist the Soviet ambassador Chervonenko, “was doing a great job.” 63

In the autumn of 1968, the KGB regularly updated the CC CPSU on events in Czechoslovakia and on events related to the country. Those reports bore the signatures of the first deputy directors of the KGB, Nikolai Zakharov and Semyon Tsvigun, which was presumably due to the fact that Andropov was away on an extended leave beginning 1 September 1968. 64In report no. 2159-C of 13 September, the KGB informed the CC CPSU of a BBC broadcast in which Moscow writers and their protests against the military invasion of Czechoslovakia had been the topic; 65a report of 16 October dealt with programs planned by the radio station Svoboda; 66another report (29 October) centered on one of the editors of the daily Rudé právo , Oldřich Švestka, and his comments on the situation in Czechoslovakia and some political leaders of the KSČ; 67the report of 29 November dealt with the French government’s further plans regarding the development of relations between France and the USSR and other Socialist countries; 68and the report of 27 December 1968 focused on the Italian Communist Party’s internal situation and that party’s position with regard to the events in Czechoslovakia. 69

In addition to the problems it had to face in Czechoslovakia, the KGB was also confronted with serious difficulties in the USSR itself. The Soviet propaganda declarations on the “indestructible unity between the party and the people” appeared somewhat discredited after a group of courageous people had dared publicly to register their protest in the Red Square against the occupation of Czechoslovakia. On 25 August, they unfurled banners there with the slogans “Hands off the ČSSR!” and “For your freedom and ours!” Six of the demonstrators were arrested, tried at the Moscow Municipal Court, and sentenced to prison terms ranging from three to five years. Their arrest, its consequences, and the sentences were the subject of no less than three reports to the CC CPSU, by the KGB, the Ministry of the Interior, and the Public Prosecutor’s Office respectively. 70

In the meantime, the Kremlin was undertaking its first move to consolidate the status of the troops in Czechoslovakia and to convert their stationing from a temporary to a permanent one: the Central Group of Forces (CGV) was created. Shortly afterwards, on 17 October 1968, a Politburo resolution of the CC CPSU called into being a special department of the KGB (Osobyi Otgel) and a government communication task force of the Central Group of Forces. For this purpose, new KGB personnel were recruited until a total of 334 officers was reached (its wartime total being 426 officers); of these, 32 officers belonged to Osobyi Otgel of the Central Group of Forces. 71

All this was contrary to the promises that Brezhnev had previously made to Dubček. The Moscow Protocol of 27 August 1968 contained the explicit provision that the troops would be withdrawn from Czechoslovakia “after the normalization of the situation.” This did not happen until 1990. 72

The operative groups of the KGB stayed put as well. Not until 2 March 1970 did Andropov propose to Brezhnev that the KGB operative groups be withdrawn from Czechoslovakia. Andropov wrote that these KGB groups had been created in connection with the formation of the Central Group of Forces in Prague and Bratislava and “had done a certain amount of positive work since then.” Changes in the political situation and the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from these cities had reduced the groups’ scope for counterespionage. Andropov added that “their continued activities might be perceived as negative by the Czechoslovak comrades.” He therefore proposed that the work of these groups be terminated “in the near future.” Andropov’s letter bears the inscription: “Agreed. Brezhnev, Podgornyi, Kosygin 3. March 1970” and the remark: “Agreement signaled to Andropov’s S[ecretaria]t on 4 March 1970.” 73

The Czechoslovak events led to some rather strange conclusions in the Kremlin. In 1971, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued the decree “On the Award of Orders and Medals of the USSR to Members of Soviet Organizations in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and to Members of the Staff of the Central Administration.” 74The decree was not designed for publication; contrary to normal decrees concerning the award of distinctions, it bore the stamp “not released for publication.” This represented, in a way, the final act of the Czechoslovak drama: the Kremlin was drawing a line and henceforth considered the problem as solved. The text that accompanied the distinctions was fairly basic and put in simple terms: “For the exemplary fulfillment of duties during the events in Czechoslovakia.” The men and women awarded high distinctions on this occasion included people from all walks of life—from cooks and chauffeurs at the Soviet embassies and consulates to the USSR’s special envoy to Czechoslovakia, Stepan Chervonenko. Yet it was not only diplomatic personnel who were honored, but members of the CC CPSU apparatus as well, such as First Deputy Director of the Propaganda Department Aleksandr Yakovlev and a large number of journalists and newspaper people. The decree reserves a special mention for a group of people whose functions remain unspecified and who are named together with their military rank: members of the KGB. Ninety people were honored on the occasion, fifty-seven of whom were awarded orders, the rest medals. Of the fifty-seven candidates for orders, as many as twenty were KGB members! The number of high ranking KGB officers included Deputy Director of the KGB Georgii Tsvigun and the director of the KGB’s 3rd Directorate (Military Counterespionage), Vitalii Fyodorchuk, who by the time he received this distinction had already advanced to the post of head of the KGB of the Council of Ministers of the Ukraine. The remaining KGB officers, who belonged mainly to the 2nd Directorate (Counterespionage), had formed the bulk of the KGB operative groups in Prague and Bratislava. In addition to these, a number of KGB operatives who worked for the press received distinctions, such as Deputy Director of the Novosti Press Agency Georgii Arsent’evich Fedyashin and Novosti’s representative in Czechoslovakia, Aleksandr Ivanovich Alekseev. Of these, Alekseev is especially noteworthy. Having worked for the secret service in Latin America for a long time, he was sent to Cuba in 1959, where he became Fidel Castro’s confidante and was made ambassador in 1962. In 1968, he brought his great expertise to the secret operations in Czechoslovakia. On completing his mission in Czechoslovakia, Alekseev was, in an interesting development of his career and again in the guise of a “representative of the Soviet press,” sent to parts of the world where the Kremlin sought to step up its influence, namely Chile and Peru. 75