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

Today, it seems safe to assume that the Czechoslovak side agreed to implement the Soviet demands for cadre changes and dismissals as a result of the Čierná meeting. The signing of the declaration of Bratislava provided the Soviet side with a frame of reference that, as they saw it, made their own further actions and the actions of the Warsaw Five appear legitimate. The result of Bratislava was a last attempt before a military intervention in Czechoslovakia to achieve a compromise on the basis of the Soviet draft agreement between the parties involved. This legitimated the “bureaucratic coup” already being prepared by the “healthy forces” in the presidium of the KSČ. In the course of the meeting, Bil’ak handed the Soviet delegation the notorious “letter of invitation by the healthy forces” in the KSČ, asking the five interventionist states to provide “collective assistance.” The letter reputedly changed hands in a men’s bathroom.

Signing the declaration of Bratislava also provided a point of reference for the programmatic preparation of the “bureaucratic coup” that was being planned by Bil’ak and his comrades in the presidium. Dubček’s nonadherence to the declaration of Bratislava was ultimately used by the Soviet side to justify the invasion. Moscow needed time to organize the “bureaucratic coup,” which was planned to unfold in the presidium of the KSČ at the same time as the military invasion was occurring. If Dubček failed to adhere to the agreement—which was quite inevitable—the “healthy forces” had a lever with which to oust him from his position. 69

Dubček would not be bullied, and Brezhnev did what he had threatened to do: “I may look soft, but I can strike so hard that afterwards I feel sick for three days.” 70The military intervention of the Warsaw Five put an end to all attempts on the part of the Five to solve the “crisis” in the ČSSR by political means. It marked the transition to Phase IV, the military phase, which had begun with the Warsaw Pact maneuvers in Czechoslovakia in May. The military preparations had been completed by 30 July. The Politburo of the CPSU took the final decision as to the date of the intervention as late August. A day later, Zhivkov, Kádár, Ulbricht, and Gomułka arrived in Moscow. Brezhnev informed them of the decision to reestablish the “old order” in Czechoslovakia by military means, and they all signaled full agreement. Newly accessible Soviet sources document that Moscow concurred with the request of the “healthy forces” in Czechoslovakia urging the exclusion of the GDR’s National People’s Army from the military action as such. Ulbricht and the SED leadership, which had been among the most vociferous advocates of an intervention, found it difficult to stomach that they should not be part of the forces that would snatch the country from the jaws of the “counterrevolution.” In 1968, as in 1953 and 1956, the Soviet empire was still kept in place by coercion. 71

Gathering information on the situation in the ČSSR was above all the task of the Soviet embassy in Prague, the consulate in Bratislava, and the KGB on the ground. After Moscow had acceded to the suggestions of the Czechoslovak secret service in May 1968, the KGB advisers of the state security services of the ČSSR were withdrawn from the country and replaced by new personnel, who were active in the country “protected by the embassy and their diplomatic status.” 72

Writing up detailed reports on the situation in the ČSSR was part of the routine work of the Soviet embassy in Prague. Stepan Chervonenko, the Soviet ambassador in Prague, was “familiar with working against the background of diplomatic crises,” having served as Soviet ambassador to Peking (during a period crucial for Soviet-Chinese relations) before his stint in Prague. Chervonenko reported directly to Brezhnev’s secretariat, the Foreign Ministry, and the CC CPSU. He and the majority of his staff were in close contact above all with politicians from Novotný’s entourage. This was the most important reason for the lack of trust in the new leadership of the KPČ, which became more and more pronounced over the course of time. The man below Chervonenko in rank was Ivan Udal’tsov, who was in charge of the basic operations of secret service activities of the embassy. As opposed to Chervonenko, who resembled Brezhnev in that he was bent on exhausting all political possibilities in a crisis, Udal’tsov was much stricter and more rigorous ideologically. Any deviation from the Soviet model of Marxism-Leninism was anathema to him. He viewed Dubček very critically from the start. This often led to differences of opinion between him and Ambassador Chervonenko in the assessment of the situation in the ČSSR. The embassy’s “troika” was completed by Vasilii Grishanov, the secretary of the party organization.

While the official diplomatic channel was reserved for reports filed by the ambassador and the embassy counselor to Brezhnev’s secretariat, all the other staff members’ reports, following routine practice, were filed to the Foreign Ministry. All incoming reports were scheduled to cross the desk of Evgenii Gromov, the head of the 4th European Department (responsible for a number of European countries including Czechoslovakia). Analyses were made under his supervision and submitted to the CC CPSU. The reports of the most senior diplomats were also filed directly to Foreign Minister Gromyko and Konstantin Rusakov, the head of the Department of Liaison with the Communist and Workers’ Parties of the Socialist Countries in the CC CPSU, and to Brezhnev’s secretariat. Foreign Minister Gromyko and the party’s chief ideologue Mikhail Suslov, along with Brezhnev, were the only members of the Politburo, the Soviet Union’s top decision making body in 1968, to have direct access to all secret diplomatic reports.

Mention of “the first symptoms of a worsening of the antisocialist mood and of the criticism leveled against the USSR” in Czechoslovakia can be found, according to the Russian historian Ol’ga Pavlenko, in a report of 22 November 1966, filed by the Department of Liaison with the Communist and Workers’ Parties. The report was signed by Yuri Andropov, secretary of the CC CPSU from 1962 and formerly the head of that department. Shortly afterwards, Andropov was made head of the KGB. Moscow’s focus on the crisis in Prague had reached a critical stage after Novotný’s dismissal, and the Kremlin started monitoring Czechoslovakia closely, with Andropov serving as a member of all commissions dealing with the situation in the ČSSR. “KGB chief Andropov,” asserts Russian historian Nikita Petrov, “played an important role in all discussions on Czechoslovakia.”

After the withdrawal of the Soviet advisers of the Czechoslovak state security services from the country, Moscow was forced to switch to a new ball game. Nikolai Semyonov, a counterespionage cadre officer, was recalled from Estonia to Moscow for a half-year briefing in the First Chief Directorate to equip him for his mission in Prague. The KGB continued to be the hub for gathering the most diverse kinds of information on the ČSSR. An analysis in May 1967, which was based primarily on information from the Czechoslovak Ministry of the Interior, concluded that widespread discontent was due above all to mistakes in the economic reforms. This first set off alarm bells in the KGB. 73

In the following months, the debate centering on freedom of expression in the media became more and more prominent in the KGB’s analyses, focusing on one of the root causes of all ills. Since 1964, Jiří Pelikan, the head of Czechoslovak National Television, had been producing in cooperation with ORF, the Austrian National Television corporation, a program called Stadtgespräche Wien-Prag . These lively “city communications” between Vienna and Prague were a historic first, featuring uncensored, live TV conversations across the Iron Curtain on a wide variety of topics.