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

“No action” characterizes Johnson’s response to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Over the next weeks, Rusk and the State Department were busy rejecting charges about prior U.S.-Soviet “collusion” tolerating a Soviet intervention. Charges from French president Charles de Gaulle’s government that the Yalta spheres of influence agreement explained the meek U.S. response were particularly galling. The Americans were worried about a possible spillover of the crisis into Romania or Yugoslavia and cautioned the Soviets about further invasions in the Bloc. Washington used the invasion crisis without hesitation to stop all Congressional talk of withdrawing American forces from Europe. The Johnson administration ironically seized the opportunity of the advance of Warsaw Pact forces along Czechoslovakia’s West German border to strengthen NATO and demand higher Western European contributions to their own defense. Efforts at East-West détente were put on ice, but not for very long. 79The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and the pronouncement of the Brezhnev Doctrine caused only minor ripples in the fall of 1968 during the divisive presidential campaign. Unlike during the Hungarian crisis, the cold warriors of Radio Free Europe in Munich stuck by their scripts during the crisis in Czechoslovakia and did not escalate propaganda warfare. As far as we know, no CIA covert operations were launched behind the Iron Curtain (despite unsubstantiated Soviet propaganda that U.S. “green berets” had infiltrated Czechoslovakia through neutral Austria). The debate in the United Nations quickly fizzled out, too. Soviet control of the Western frontiers of its Eastern European sphere of influence was firmly respected in Washington, particularly at a time when the U.S. military was overburdened by the war in Vietnam. It was also obvious that President Johnson did not want to risk nuclear war with either a U.S. or a NATO military intervention in Czechoslovakia. 80

The “reconnaissance phase,” in which the nature of the events in Prague was assessed, ended in Dresden in March 1968. From then on, the Czechoslovaks saw themselves confronted with demands for an end of their reforms and the restoration of the status quo ante. The ensuing phases were marked by the search for ways and means to realize these demands. The next phase of “political pressure” gave way in May 1968 to a combination of “political and military pressure.” The publication of the “2,000 Words” was grist to the Kremlin’s mill and enabled it to turn up the heat on the KSČ leadership. The die was cast finally in Warsaw in mid-July. After the meeting of the Warsaw Five in Poland, the Politburo of the CC CPSU passed a resolution in favor of a military intervention and the political preparation of a “bureaucratic coup,” counting on the support of “healthy forces” in Prague loyal to Moscow around Vasil Bil’ak and Alois Indra. The military intervention went according to plan, but the machinations to topple Dubček failed miserably. After the invasion, the Kremlin quickly reached a political dead end. The Kremlin then played the “national card” and courted the Slovak Gustav Husák. Moscow could always count on the support of the fraternal parties throughout the crisis and got Czechoslovakia back on the road of “normalization.” Communist rule in Czechoslovakia was consolidated once again without rescinding all the reforms right away, but by slowly reestablishing a Communist government along neo-Stalinist lines. This postinvasion reestablishment of Communist control in Czechoslovakia was Phase V.

On the basis of hitherto inaccessible resolutions of the Politburo of the CC CPSU, historians now can fill in the details about Soviet preinvasion decision making. 81By mid-July, the invasion was a foregone conclusion. The meeting in Čierná nad Tisou at the end of July was the very last attempt to substitute a “political” solution for the military one. It was Dubček’s last chance to deal with the “counterrevolution” on his own terms, without having his arm twisted by “fraternal assistance.” Despite the prevalence of the opinion that Dubček would never be able to deliver on his promises, in an unprecedented step the entire Politburo of the Soviet Communist Party traveled to eastern Czechoslovakia to meet their counterparts. The heads of the Communist parties of the fraternal countries were scheduled to meet on the very next day in Moscow. This meeting was canceled at short notice after Dubček had managed to convince Brezhnev that he was still in charge.

Early first hints that Moscow was considering a military “solution” to the “Czechoslovak crisis” exist. During the April plenum of the CC CPSU, Soviet minister of defense Grechko intoned that the Red Army was ready to play its role and launch an invasion if the party ordered it. We must also keep in mind that positions of individual actors in the Kremlin were by no means immune to change or clear cut. One might speak of two distinct camps inside the Kremlin, hawks and moderates. Kremlin insiders considered Kosygin, for instance, a hawk, yet after his trip to the ČSSR, he switched to a more “moderate” role. 82Given his background during the Hungarian crisis, Andropov saw events in the ČSSR entirely in light of the situation in Hungary in 1956. The hawkish KGB chief contributed to making the situation appear more ominous than it was. The duplicitous Andropov went so far as to misinform the Politburo members in order to buttress arguments for a drastic “solution.”

Brezhnev’s astounding hesitancy throughout the crisis comes as the biggest surprise. Brezhnev would have preferred a “political” solution to the Czechoslovak crisis. Even as late as early August, he engaged in wishful thinking, hoping that his friend Dubček and the KSČ might recognize the danger of a “counterrevolution” on their own and stop the reforms. But Brezhnev was not averse to the last resort of a military solution and did not need to be persuaded by others to accept it (and certainly did not need to be outvoted in the Politburo).

The leverage of the weak —the influence of the fraternal parties on the decision-making process in the Kremlin and their reckless abandon in calling for the military solution—emerges powerfully in these new documents. Ulbricht was the first to use the term “counterrevolution” in Prague. He received substantial support from Zhivkov and Gomułka in this matter. Zhivkov and Gomułka identified a “second center” within the KSČ leadership, and later even a “Zionist” conspiracy, as the old Stalinist diction put it. The leaders of these three fraternal parties became crucial outside catalysts to drive the decision-making process in the Kremlin. Janoš Kádár, the head of the Hungarian Communist Party, played his own special role. After the crushing of the Hungarian uprising twelve years earlier, Kádár had been responsible for steamrolling his countrymen back on a course loyal to Moscow. In this particular “band of brothers,” he was the least inclined to advocate a repetition of this scenario. Yet in the end he supported Moscow’s decision without reservations. All his attempts at mediation failed. 83

Ulbricht may have been the most adamant from the get go to enforce the end of the reform process in Prague. He is credited even today with having shown restraint in his attitude toward the Czechoslovaks. Some also give him credit for having wisely decided to refrain from dispatching German troops into Czechoslovakia and thus refraining from stirring painful memories of Hitlerite aggression. 84Newly opened archival sources from Moscow tell a different story. The last-minute decision not to include the East German National People’s Army in the Warsaw Pact invasion force was requested by Czechoslovak Communists loyal to Moscow. The German comrades, according to Brezhnev, were bitter about their exclusion from the invasion force. 85