Kitabı oku: «Operation Danube Reconsidered»

ibidem-Press, Stuttgart

Contents

Preface

01 Introduction

02 Reflections on 1968 and its Legacies

03 The Prague Spring and the Evolution of the Position of Leonid Brezhnev

04 Limits of Washington’s Position Towards the Invasion of Czechoslovakia in the Summer of 1968

05 Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia During 1968

06 Towards Military Intervention. Prague Spring and Party Representatives in Hungary

07 The Communist Authorities and Polish Society in the Face of the Prague Spring and the Intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968

08 The Bulgarians and the Prague Spring, 1968

09 Operation “Danube”

10 The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 as Reflected in the “Western” Historiography

11 Conclusion

Selected Sources

Preface

My father Ladislav created in August 1968 a set of photographs of the Warsaw Pact troops’ invasion to Czechoslovakia. Among these, the famous Man with bare chest before an occupation tank—a picture that spread around the world and before being almost completely forgotten. Just like the story of the occupation of Czechoslovakia.

The largest military operation after World War Two has been underestimated for a long time as an insignificant part of history and the most recognisable picture of a Slovak author wandered around the world nameless. However, the truth lay somewhere in the memory of Slovaks and Czechs, while justice for that truth awaited its moment. This came in the year 1989.

The exhibitions of my father’s photographs revealed the true face of the occupation. Justice showed itself in the trials in Germany as well as in Slovakia. The pictures of August 1968 became, together with the name of their author, a part of our visual memory and cultural heritage. However, in order to pay the debt to our history and our ancestors, it is necessary to answer also the questions of the causes of the occupation beginning with the word Why …?

Why were the Soviets so scared of the Prague Spring?

Why did they send such an unreasonably large, half-a-million strong army?

Finally, why did they name this military intervention after the river Danube?

The answers to these questions were hidden in the archives belonging both to the countries who were our aggressors and to those who had been our allies. Together, also thanks to the work of our non-profit organization, these answers appear in the pages of the book you are holding in your hands right now. Can you find them in the texts of the writers from Serbia, Russian Federation, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and other countries? Will these new pieces of information be an inspiration for you in your search for truth about August 1968 in the future?

I do hope so …

Peter Bielik

Head of Camera Obskura, n.o.

01
Introduction

At 11 o’clock in the evening of 20th August 1968, after the signal “Vltava,” the armies of four Warsaw Pact countries, the Soviet Union, Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary, crossed the borders of Czechoslovakia. While Romania and Albania refused to participate, East German forces, except for a small number of specialists, did not participate in the invasion because they were ordered from Moscow not to do so. By August 25th, there were 27 invasion divisions in full combat status in Czechoslovakia, over 6000 tanks, and almost 1000 military aircrafts. Over a hundred Czechoslovakian civilians were killed and approximately 500 seriously wounded during the occupation. The invasion successfully stopped Alexander Dubček’s Prague Spring liberalisation reforms and strengthened the authority of the authoritarian wing within the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ). Literally overnight the Czechoslovak experiment was transformed from living reality into history.

Apart from distressing domestic reforms, especially the decentralization of administrative authority, the more important reason for the Soviet-led Warsaw pact intervention were the signs of a shift in Czech foreign policy that Soviets feared might weaken the position of the Bloc in the Cold War. In regards to foreign policy, the “new course” of Czechoslovakia foresaw wider cooperation with the world, especially with West Germany. Czechoslovakia also sought to loosen its bonds with Warsaw Pact and Comecon, the organization established to facilitate and coordinate the economic development of the Soviet bloc, and gradually showed less and less enthusiasm for the Soviet assistance to the third world countries in a bid to establish its influence there. There was a fear in Moscow that all this could eventually mean that Czechoslovakia might drift away from the communist bloc towards neutrality. This might be followed by Hungary and Poland, slowly undermining the Soviet position in Germany and possibly even losing its buffer zone in Europe.

A decisive faction of the Soviet leadership felt that what was at stake was nothing less than the power balance in Europe—and by extension, potentially the world. That faction saw no other option than a military intervention. Leonid Brezhnev, who did not regard the choice of Alexander Dubček as the successor of Antonín Novotný as problematic in the beginning was subsequently very disappointed. With every liberalizing step in Prague, Moscow grew ever more uneasy. By July 1968, Moscow had come to the conclusion that events in Prague were spinning out of the Party’s control and something has to be done. However, Brezhnev feared his rivals in the Soviet elite, who could use against him any weakening of the Communist power in Czechoslovakia, more than the inevitable international outrage that would be caused by the occupation. After hesitations which lasted some months, he made a choice in favour of the occupation.

Although the Soviet Union’s action successfully halted the pace of reform in Czechoslovakia, it had unintended consequences for both the unity of the Communist bloc and establishing the new Soviet foreign doctrine. The invasion helped established a so-called Brezhnev Doctrine, that—based on the assumption that a challenge to Socialist rule in one part of the Soviet bloc was a threat to the whole enterprise—justified Moscow’s intervention in any country where it felt Communist rule was under threat.

The Warsaw pact intervention, however, did not spark an important international crisis. The division of Europe between superpowers was confirmed and a new version of east-west “détente,” based on that understanding, could be launched. Given the exhausting American involvement in the Vietnam War, the Soviets assumed (correctly) that the United States would not intervene and would make do with the condemnation of the invasion. Lyndon B. Johnson cancelled a planned summit meeting with Brezhnev, but this was something that Soviets expected and they concluded that maintaining the control over the Eastern Bloc was more important. Thus, the invasion was completed without any direct intervention from the West or NATO. Similarly, attempts in the United Nations to pass a resolution that would condemn Warsaw pact action were vetoed by the USSR and slowly died away.

This book focuses attention on the international context of the 1968 crisis in Czechoslovakia. Its chief aim has been to bring together experts from within as well without Central Europe and to ignite or—perhaps, better—to re-ignite an international discussion about the Prague spring, its origins, its unfolding, its aftermath and—most importantly—its international context. The debate and historiography regarding the Prague spring is exhaustive, but in a way fragmented, and—besides a few exceptions—with each national historiography giving its soliloquy. Thus, it was high time to start an international dialogue and to investigate and analyse the reactions of the key international players and Warsaw pact member states involved in the invasion, to bring to the debate the newest findings of the respective national historiographies.

Jakub Drábik

02
Reflections on 1968 and its Legacies

Jacques Rupnik

Sciences Po, Paris

“Czechoslovakia in 1968 represented an important moment in human history; it did not represent an important international crisis.”1 The verdict of two eminent British professors of international relations, arrived at instantly after the tanks of August put an end to the Czechoslovak experiment of ‘socialism with human face’, was brutal and painfully accurate. The division of the continent was confirmed and a new version of east-west ‘détente,’ based on that understanding, ready to be launched. The significance of the Prague Spring cannot be measured only by its defeat, however. Its contribution should be understood in the interplay between its Czecho-Slovak and European dimensions. The August ’68 invasion might not have provoked a “major international crisis,” as the two professors stated, but it certainly was the year that shook Europe. Three aspects deserve to be mentioned in this respect. First, the Prague Spring revived the debate about Czechoslovak democratic exceptionalism in the context of (east) European Socialism. Second, it was often interpreted as part of an international, generational revolt against the establishments, east and west. Third, it represented the most far-reaching reform of the system within the Soviet sphere and provided twenty years later a belated (and thus doomed) inspiration for Mikhail Gorbachev’s botched attempt to save it, which indeed paved the way for 1989.

The Prague Spring was not what you read about in school textbooks that start with the election of Alexander Dubček as party leader on January 5, 1968 and conclude with the Soviet-led invasion of August 21. Rather, it should be understood as a process starting in the early 1960s, with converging pressures for economic reforms identified with the name Ota Sik; Slovak resentment of Prague centralism (hence Alexander Dubček and the federalization project); and the gradual emancipation of the cultural sphere from the stranglehold of ideological censorship, which accounts for the golden age of Czech cinema, theater, and literature with a significant and lasting impact throughout Europe. The culmination of the three-pronged process brought about political change, starting with the abolition of censorship and the separation of party and state. In other words, 1968 was not just a parlor game for reform-minded party bureaucrats. It was, in Václav Havel’s words, “above all a civic renewal, a restoration of human dignity, the trust in the capacities and possibilities of citizens to change society.”2

Post-1968 interpretations of the democratization process revived variations on the theme of Czechoslovak exceptionalism in east central Europe. The first could be summed up as the triumph of Czech and Slovak culture over the Communist structure. The emancipation of the cultural sphere from the constraints of censorship without being subjected to market pressures produced a powerful 60s cultural background to the political and societal changes associated with 1968. A related version of the argument concerns the enduring democratic character of Czechoslovak political culture. Authors like Archie Brown and Gordon Skilling are instructive here. Skilling, in his monumental study of the Prague Spring, has argued that the legacies of pre-war democracy, followed between 1945 and 1948 by a “democratic interlude,” have left behind a political culture (both broadly in society and specifically within the Communist Party itself) that were in conflict with the Stalinist regime, and that eventually came to the surface in the 1960s to contribute to a break from Soviet-type Communism.3 Hence, the problematic title of Skilling’s book, The Interrupted Revolution. In contrast to the Hungarian revolution of 1956, and in order to avoid a similar outcome, the Prague reformers were eager to stress that they meant change within socialism. Yet abolishing censorship and separating party and state fostered a dynamic that challenged the fundamentals of the Communist system.

One of the most interesting debates about the meaning of 1968 was expressed through the opposition of two leading Czech intellectuals, Milan Kundera and Václav Havel—a debate which is worth re-reading half a century later, although not for a post-invasion assessment.4 Inspired by the formidable, peaceful civic resistance of August 1968, Kundera overstated the case when he said that the reformist project could survive the invasion, and this was mercilessly dismissed by Havel as sheer delusion. It is the meaning of the Spring of 1968, however, which is worth revisiting. Following on H. Gordon Schauer’s provocative nineteenth century question about what ultimately justifies the efforts put into producing a culture in the Czech language, Kundera makes a plea for the contribution of small nations to universal values, ideas, culture:

A small nation, if it has any meaning in the world, has to daily, constantly re-create itself. The moment it ceases to create values, it loses the justification for its existence and then perhaps actually ceases to exist, because it is fragile and vulnerable. The creation of values is connected with its very being.5

For Kundera, the Prague Spring was of significance to Europe as a whole because, beyond eastern Stalinism and western Capitalism, it tried to combine Socialism with democracy. Not a mere remake of the ‘third way’, nor a blueprint for a radiant future, the Czechoslovak heresy was defeated, but its impact on the future of the European Left has been far-reaching and persistent.

Havel’s take, in contrast, was more sober and realistic, far from the ‘provincial messianism’ he attributed to Kundera. Restoring basic freedoms was no doubt a great achievement, but the last time we had them was thirty years ago and indeed this is considered ‘normal’ in most ‘civilized’ countries. Therefore, 1968 was about liberal democratic normality, as opposed to the repressive ‘normalization’ that followed:

… If we are going to imagine that a country has placed itself at the center of world history because it wishes to establish freedom of expression—something taken for granted in most of the civilized world—and to check the tyranny of its secret police, in all seriousness we shall become nothing more than self-complacent hacks, laughable in our provincial messianism! Freedom and the rule of law are the most basic preconditions for a normally and soundly functioning societal organism, and should any state attempt to reestablish them after years of their absence it is doing nothing historically momentous but simply trying to remove its own abnormality.6

For some thirty years the verdict on Kundera’s somewhat messianic vision vs Havel’s lucid realism seemed fairly obvious to most Czechs. Yet today, half a century later, with Communism long dead and western liberal-democratic ‘normalcy’ in crisis, Kundera’s plea for the ‘Czechoslovak possibility’ in 1968 acquires perhaps a new resonance.

A second reading of the Prague Spring highlights its European dimension and calls us to interpret it through the prism of the rebellions that shook the political establishments throughout the continent in ’68. There was May ’68 in France, the Polish events of March ’68, Berlin, Belgrade …

The common denominator of these movements was the search for alternative models of society with contrasting, confusing, and often contradictory references to ‘Socialism’: from self-management in the workplace to the Christian-Marxist dialogue or to discussions about the impact of science and technology on the evolution of modern societies in both east and west. Moreover, there were not insignificant Czech contributions to all of the above. Karel Kosik’s Marxist humanism (influenced by Jan Patocka’s phenomenology) and a civilizational pessimism related precisely to the dehumanizing role of science and technology, or on the contrary, Radovan Richta’s civilizational optimism based on the “scientific and technical revolution.”7 The former proved incompatible with the “normalization” Gleichschaltung of the 1970s, while the latter’s technocratic faith in the progress of sciences rather easily blended in. Both were among the most influential Czech thinkers of the late 1960s in Europe and both were thus part of what Jan Patocka had in mind in attempting to frame the Prague Spring reforms in a European context and calling for a dialogue between intellectuals east and west. Patocka’s contribution was a piece entitled “Inteligence a opozice,” based on a lecture given during the Spring of 1968 in Germany, where he states that “the position of intellectuals in the East is better because ‘they do not consider basic democratic rights as a mere means towards an end but an end in itself’.”8

This proved to be the main contrast between 1968 in Prague (or Warsaw) and Paris (or Berlin). To be sure, there is a whole aspect of 1968 that can be interpreted mainly in terms of generations. There is now even a term for this: “Youthquake,” declared in 2017 as the “Word of the Year” by the experts at the Oxford English Dictionary. It is defined as “significant cultural, political, or social change arising from the actions or influence of young people.” The most interesting thing about the Prague Spring was that there was indeed youth participation, particularly the student movement as its radical wing, but its driving force was the previous generation, which experienced (supported or was at the receiving end of) state actions in 1945–48 and their aftermath. A.J. Liehm, the editor of Literarni listy in 1968, elaborated on this concept of political generations precisely in 1968 in the introduction to a splendid volume of his interviews with the leading intellectual figures of 1968 (from Ludvik Vaculik to Josef Skvorecky, and from Eduard Goldstücker to Václav Havel, to mention only a few), among the best guides to the cultural politics of the Prague Spring.9 Many—by no means all—of those who turned twenty after World War Two and had backed the communist takeover in 1948 found themselves frustrated and disappointed with the revolution from above, and thus helped in the 1960s to bring about a revolution from below, which culminated in 1968.10

As much as the political context, this generational aspect accounts for the contrasts and misunderstandings of 1968 between east and west, Prague and Paris. The driving force of the Prague Spring was the aspiration to freedom, whereas in Paris the moment of emancipation combined with the myth of revolution. Milan Kundera described the contrast as follows:

Paris’s May ’68 was an explosion of revolutionary lyricism. The Prague Spring was the explosion of post-revolutionary skepticism … May ’68 was a radical uprising whereas what had, for many a long year, been leading towards the explosion of the Prague Spring was a popular revolt by moderates.11

While western radicals beset by post-colonial guilt looked to the Third World, European identity was part of the Spring of 1968 in Prague. Again, in Kundera’s words:

Paris in May ’68 challenged the basis of what is called European culture and its traditional values. The Prague Spring was a passionate defense of the European cultural tradition in the widest and most tolerant sense of the term (a defense of Christianity just as much as of modern art—both rejected by those in power). We all struggled for the right to maintain that tradition that had been threatened by the anti-western messianism of Russian totalitarianism.”12

The contrast and misunderstandings highlighted here, however, should not make us forget the intellectually and politically important convergence between the western ’68ers who in the following decade abandoned Marxism and became anti-totalitarian liberals of different shades, and the post-’68 Czech dissidents around common issues and concerns: human rights, civil society, and overcoming the partition of Europe.

Finally, there is another dimension to the Spring of 1968 as the “supreme stage” of reformism in the Soviet bloc and its implications for a divided Europe. Zdenek Mlynar, one of the architects of the political reforms and in 1968 the youngest member of the Politburo, has described the way Leonid Brezhnev and the Soviet leadership spelled out the reasons for the invasion to Dubček and his colleagues:

Precisely because the territorial results of the last war are untouchable to us we had to intervene in Czechoslovakia. The West will not move, so, what do you think will be done on your behalf? Comrades Tito, Ceausescu, Berlinguer, will make speeches. Well, and what of it? You are counting on the Communist movement in Western Europe? But that has remained insignificant for the last fifty years.13

That part is familiar enough. Indeed Tito and the “Eurocommunists” in the west protested and claimed to continue the legacy of the Prague Spring as a way to enhance their democratic credentials in western Europe.

The real legacy, however, returned with a vengeance twenty years later. Gorbachev, Mlynar’s friend and roommate from their student days in Moscow, became leader of the Soviet Communist Party and sought inspiration for his perestroika in the Prague Spring of 1968. Asked what was the difference between his reforms and those of Dubček, the spokesman for Gorbachev replied simply: “Nineteen years” …

That certainly was not good enough to rehabilitate “socialism with a human face” in the eyes of skeptical Czechs and Slovaks twenty years later. It is not easy to identify with a defeated project that carries the price tag of another twenty years in a post-totalitarian dictatorship. It did matter, however, for what was unfolding in Moscow and its relationship with its most western dependencies. Jiří Dienstbier, a prominent Czech journalist from 1968 and a dissident turned prisoner turned stoker, became Minister of foreign affairs in December 1989. On his first meeting with Gorbachev, he referred to the hopes of 1968 and their crushing by Moscow, to which Gorbachev replied: “We thought that we had strangled the Prague Spring while in reality we had strangled ourselves …”14

Gorbachev and his entourage saw the Prague Spring as a chance to save the system. Its crushing thus prevented reform at the very center of the empire and accounts for its delayed but intractable crisis. In other words, the August 1968 invasion, by preventing structural change in Czechoslovakia, prepared the ground for the unraveling of “actually existing socialism” (Brezhnev dixit). To be sure, there is tough competition for the title of “who contributed most” to the demise of the Soviet empire. The Hungarians point to the revolution of 1956, the Poles see Solidarity (Solidarność) in 1980, the largest social movement in post-war Europe, which, despite being put down by Jaruzelski’s military coup, was the swan song of the communist regime. The contribution of the Prague Spring of 1968, even crushed violently, should not be underestimated.

Appropriately, for a major Czechoslovak crisis in the twentieth century, the ‘Velvet Revolution’ of 1989 came late. It had initially been planned for 1988. Gorbachev’s procrastination and other circumstances probably account for the minor delay that put the Velvet Revolution among the fateful eights of the country’s history.15 It should be noted, however, that although it was obviously understood as the undoing of the legacy of the 1948 communist takeover, it was not framed as a continuation of the “interrupted revolution” of 1968. To be sure, some sidelined 68ers and a number of western observers were inclined to point to that continuity with the aspirations of the Prague Spring, but the main protagonists of 1989 in Prague were eager to distance themselves from the “illusions of 1968.” The aim was no longer the democratization of socialism but simply democracy. Instead of searching for a ‘third way’ between capitalism and Soviet-style Socialism, the goal was the introduction of markets without adjectives: “the third way leads to the Third World” said Václav Klaus, the promoter of radical free-market economic reforms. Furthermore, the “return to Europe,” translated into foreign policy terms, was no longer about extending the margins of maneuvering in central Europe between east and west, but to join western (“Euro-Atlantic”) institutions as quickly as possible. Václav Havel rather than Alexander Dubček became president and the embodiment of these goals.

The reasons are understandable: it was not easy in 1989 to identify with a project that crashed tragically and was followed by twenty years of relentless ‘normalization.’ In dealing with the divide between ’68ers and ’89ers, it may be useful to distinguish between “illusions” (ideas that you can reform the system from within the Communist Party) and utopias (which entail a future-oriented project known as ‘socialism with a human face’). All one can add is that 1968 was the last Czech attempt to propose not a blueprint but a vision (deemed utopian or inconsistent afterwards), which transcended the country and concerned Europe as a whole. By way of contrast, 1989 was the first revolution not to propose a new social project; a revolution without violence and utopias, but also without a strong new idea. It was indeed, as historian François Furet called it, a “revolution-restoration” or, as Jürgen Habermas called it, “catch-up revolution” (Nachholende Revolution).16 The aim was to restore national and popular sovereignty, the rule of law, private property, and to imitate the western model. For that reason, the Velvet Revolution of 1989 has since the 1990s been considered in Prague as an “anti-1968,” and today the commemorations concern the tragedy of the invasion of August 1968 rather than the hopes and aspirations of the Spring.

Understandable as the distancing from the ideas and illusions of 1968 may be, it has, two potential snags: if your aim is to imitate western economic and political models, you cease to be interesting for the west. In addition, and more importantly, what if you are imitating a model in crisis? In thinking that one through, you may be forgiven for straying and stumbling upon ideas, projects, and utopias associated with the Prague Spring of 1968.

1 Philip Windsor and Adam Roberts, Czechoslovakia, 1968: Reform, Repression, Resistance (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969).

2 Václav Havel, “La citoyenneté retrouvée,” Introduction to J. Rupnik and F. Fejtö, eds., Le printemps tchécoslovaque 1968 (Bruxelles: Editions Complexes, 1999), 12.

3 Gordon H. Skilling, Czechoslovakia’s Interrupted Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976); Archie Brown and Gordon Wightman, “Czechoslovakia: Revival and Retreat,” in Archie Brown and Jack Gray, eds., Political Culture and Political Change in Communist States (New York: Macmillan, 1977), 159–96.

4 Milan Kundera, “Český úděl,” Literarni Listy 7–8, December 19, 1968, (“Czech Destiny”), trans. Tim West; Václav Havel, “Český úděl?” (“Czech Destiny”), Tvar, April 1969. The three articles (with Kundera’s reply to Havel) reprinted in Literarni Noviny, December 27, 2007.

5 Milan Kundera, “Český úděl,” 5.

6 Václav Havel, Český úděl?

7 1968 was the year Karel Kosik’s Dialectic of the Concrete (Dialektika konkrétniho, 1966) and Radovan Richta’s Civilization at the Crossroads (Civilizace na rozcesti, 1967) were translated in western Europe.

8 Jan Patocka, Sebrané Spisy, vol. 12 (Prague: OIKOYMENH, 2016), 241–43.

9 Antonin J. Liehm, “Generace znamena v cestine singular i plural,” Introduction to Generace (Praha, 1969 [banned before distribution] and 1990). The book was translated in several languages with a lengthy afterword by Jean-Paul Sartre, “The Socialism that Came in from the Cold,” Introduction to Antonin J. Liehm, The Politics of Culture (New York: Grove, 1973).

10 Their radicalism in undoing what they had helped to bring about two decades earlier perplexed the non-communists and particularly those belonging to an in-between generational group: see the samizdat volume Zivot je vsude, Almanach roku 1956 (Praha: Paseka, 2005), edited by Josef Hiršal and Jiří Kolář, with contributions of Skvorecky, Hrabal, Julis, Kolar, Hirsal, Zabrana, Kubena and a certain Václav Havel.

11 Milan Kundera, Preface to the French edition of Josef Skvorecky and Claudia Ancelot, Miracle en Bohème [Mirákl: Politická detektivka in original Czech] (Paris: Gallimard, 1978), x.

12 Ibid., x–xi.

13 Zdenek Mlynar, Mraz prichazi z Kremlu (Köln: Index, 1979), 306–7. Translated into English as Nightfrost in Prague: The End of Humane Socialism (New York: Karz Publishers, 1980).

14 J. Dienstbier, quoted in G.E. Castellano and D. Jun, “The Awkward Revolution,” The New Presence (Winter 2008): 17.

15 The national independence and formation of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918, the Munich Agreement of 1938, the seizing of complete power by the Communist Party in 1948, 1968 and the ‘Velvet Revolution’ of 1988/89.

16 See for example, François Furet, L’Enigme de la désagrégation communiste (Paris: Fondation Saint Simon, 1990); and Jürgen Habermas, Die nachholende Revolution: Kleine Plotisiche Schriften VII (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1990): 179–94.

03
The Prague Spring and the Evolution of the Position of Leonid Brezhnev

Alexander Stykalin

Institute of Slavic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow

The reforms of 1968 in Czechoslovakia, stopped by the August 21 intervention, continue to attract attention of historians in Russia, as we can see from the considerable number of documentary publications as well as scholarly studies based on archives research.1 The published documents reveal the dynamics of the view of the Soviet leadership towards the internal processes in Czechoslovakia, the measures taken to disturb the reforms (especially the reforms of political structure which threatened the monopoly of the Communist Part), the preparation for military action, its propaganda and political support, as well as the response of intellectuals and wider circles of the Soviet society on the intervention.2 The documents provide a more complete picture of the position of the Soviet political elite concerning all the sides of the development in Czechoslovakia, including the settlement of relations between Prague and Slovakia3. The documents let us see whether there was complete unity in the highest Soviet leadership on the use of force in Czechoslovakia, or there were some differences in the positions of individual representatives of the Soviet elite.

According to various sources, Kremlin anxieties at the situation in Czechoslovakia—including worries about Czech ideological and cultural policy Soviet leaders deemed too liberal—was manifested a few years before the Prague Spring. In 1966, Leonid Brezhnev visited the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and, returning to Moscow, shared his impressions with his comrades at the meeting of party activists. He expressed displeasure with too sharp criticism in the speeches of some speakers at Prague’s Congress. “Here in Moscow we need to protect ourselves from such things”, he noted.4

Nevertheless, there was not too much anxiety, and if anybody who visited Czechoslovakia tried to sound such an alarm, it was not supported. One Komsomol functionary, who visited Czechoslovakia in 1964, wrote in his report that the Communist Party had completely lost its influence over Czechoslovak youth, who took their lead now from Western values. As the result he was accused of spreading slander and attempting to undermine the Czech-Soviet youth relations. The case was closed and he was not expelled from the Communist party only because his information about the weakening of party control over the youth in Czechoslovakia was confirmed from other influential sources5.

Soviet leaders were well informed of the increasingly active demands by Slovak people for reform—and of the need for decentralization (felt and expressed by party members too), The sharp criticism of Antonín Novotný by Alexander Dubček in the fall of 1967 was no of secret in Moscow especially since Dubček on his own initiative had contacts with Soviet journalists and made them clear his position both on the Slovak question and the necessary reforms in the whole country6. In December 1967, when Brezhnev himself went to Prague to see with his own eyes and to assess the state of affairs, the question of the relationship between the center and Slovakia seemed to him one of the priorities in terms of stability in the country7.

It is known that on the eve of the final session of the plenum of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, where in early January 1968 Novotný’s successor was chosen, Dubček’s candidacy as the first secretary of the Communist Party did not raise opposition of the official Moscow8. In childhood, he lived a long time in the USSR, he was a veteran of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, had long-standing and close ties with Soviet party functionaries and was not considered to be a politically unpredictable person. He was known as one of Antonín Novotný’s active opponents but Novotný was not perceived at that time to be a guarantee of stability and his support as the party leader has long ceased to be an axiom for Moscow. Brezhnev, during his conversations with high-ranking Czechoslovak Communists, qualified the question of re-electing the party’s first secretary as an internal Czechoslovak affair.9

This made the subsequent disappointment in Dubček all the stronger. Moscow’s anxiety over the course of events in Czechoslovakia was manifested later, in March, under the influence of information received from the Soviet Embassy. The weakening of censorship and the resignation of many functionaries who were considered to be reliable partners of Moscow caused the greatest concern in the Kremlin, where they were afraid not only to lose control over Czechoslovakia but that the Czeh and Slovak reformers would set an example to those elsewhere in the USSR who were tempted by the prospect of liberalizing the Soviet system. It is well-known however that on March 23rd in Dresden (Eastern Germany), where the first meeting of the Soviet and East-European Communist Party leaders was held to assess the situation in Czechoslovakia, Brezhnev’s speeches were much more calm and moderate than Walter Ulbricht’s and Władysław Gomułka’s. This is confirmed by some lesser known sources, including the notes of the leader of the Ukrainian Soviet Communist Party organization in 1968 Petro Shelest, one of the main hawks in the Soviet leadership, who took part in Dresden talks as a member of the CPSU delegation. Shelest in his notes strongly criticized Brezhnev’s position (including that on the Dresden talks) as not too resolute and irreconcilable10. If we would try to explain the roots of his position, it must be taken into account the KGB information from Eastern Slovakia concerning some attempts to revitalize the Greece-Catholic Church11—that was the principal question for Western Ukraine where this Church was one of the foundation stones of Ukrainian anti-communist national movement. The Ukrainian Communist elite feared that impulses from Czechoslovakia, especially from Slovakia, will provoke national trends in Western Ukraine.

It is known that in early April the Action Program of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was adopted—the main conceptual document that brought the views of the Prague Communist reformers into system. The reaction in Moscow was quite negative. The document was qualified as the challenge to the indisputable right of the CPSU to form the guidelines of the Communist movement and the basic concepts of Socialism. It is precisely after the publication of the Action Program that Moscow’s view on the reform process in Czechoslovakia became tougher—the program of the Czechoslovakian reformers was criticized at the April Party plenum of the Central Committee CPSU12, the campaign of criticism in the central Soviet press of the entire reform process in Czechoslovakia was launched at that time. According to some sources as early as in April the Soviet military headquarters intensified the working out of concrete plans for military action in Czechoslovakia in case the political leadership would prefer the force variant of actions to stop “revisionist” trends. It is known from the memoirs of general A. Maiorov who was in 1968 the commander of the Karpatian military district that as early as in middle-April the instructions were got how to act in the case of the preparation of the military operation13. On April 8, 1968, the commander of the airborne troops, General V. Margelov, according to the directive received, began to elaborate the plan of using airborne forces in Czechoslovakia14.

On April 28, 1968 the Yugoslavian leader Iosip Broz Tito came to Moscow after a long tour of the Asian countries and the next day had a long conversation with Brezhnev. The situation in Czechoslovakia became the main subject of discussion between leaders of the two countries15. The Soviet side hoped for the proximity of the Soviet and Yugoslav viewpoints, bearing in mind that relations between the USSR and Yugoslavia had been improving since 1965—Yugoslavia supported the Soviet view on the middle-Eastern crisis of June 1967 (the six day war between Izrael and three Arabian countries) and in November Tito visited Moscow and took part in the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Bolsheviks’ revolution. Moscow attached importance to the Yugoslav view on the reform processes in Czechoslovakia, taking into account the international prestige of Tito as not only one of the founders and leaders of non-alignment movement, but as a person who at one time had the courage to challenge Stalin. Brezhnev did not hide from the Yugoslav leader his concern about the weakening of the CPCz leadership’s control over the political processes in the country, and at that time, for 4 months before the intervention, frankly expressed his opinion. In many respects, that opinion corresponded to the so-called Brezhnev doctrine (the doctrine of limited sovereignty), formulated later in the Declaration of Communist Parties in Bratislava in early August 1968 and—especially—in a number of the Soviet program declarations, ‘Pravda’ articles and the speeches by Soviet leaders after August 21. On April 29, 1968, during the talks with Tito, Brezhnev noted:

We need some radical steps on our part in order to help Czechoslovakia stand on the positions of socialism. Do not be afraid of the word ‘intervention’. After all, we are proletarian internationalists and we are not indifferent to the fate of socialism in other countries. There are issues that can not be regarded as purely Soviet or purely Yugoslav. We have common tasks and responsibilities arising from the principles of proletarian internationalism. We are very concerned and we are not indifferent to how our friends are doing, including in Yugoslavia, ‘where economic reform,’ in comradely terms, it seems to us, has not yet yielded positive results.16

In such remarks, Tito could see the exposition of the program, which posed a challenge not only for Czechoslovakia, but also for Yugoslavia. For his part, the Yugoslavian leader made some critical remarks on the policy of Dubček and his team, but at the same time made it clear that he supported the current Czechoslovak leadership, suggesting that, if assisted, it could cope with the situation. Thus, the Soviet leaders had to take note that any military or otherwise coercive action against Czechoslovakia would hardly find the support of the Yugoslav side. The negative reaction of Titoist Yugoslavia as well as of the national-Communist Romania on the August Intervention is well known. Recently published documents give us some new details. His extremely negative attitude to the intervention (which dealt in his opinion a severe blow to the idea of Socialism on the international level), Tito expounded to the Soviet ambassador Ivan Benediktov, whom he received on August 31. As for Yugoslavia, Tito made it clear to the ambassador that the Yugoslavs themselves solve their problems and will not allow anyone from outside to interfere in their affairs. If anybody threatens, it does not matter from the West or from the East, “Yugoslavia,—as Tito put it,—will fight resolutely, defending its independence. This can not be doubted”.17

Some months later this line changed to some extent. The next meeting with Benediktov Tito held on October 19. By this time, under pressure of Moscow an agreement on the temporary stay of Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia had already been signed (following the results of the bilateral Soviet-Czechoslovak summit meeting held on October 3–4, 1968). This somewhat calmed the Yugoslav leader, who apparently decided to stop raising the Czechoslovak question. Tito told the Soviet ambassador: “Goodwill is important now. I said today that I see no reason that every day in our newspapers be written about Czechoslovakia. In Moscow, an agreement was signed. We would not want to interfere in its implementation”.18 And on September 4, 1969 (already after considerable personnel changes in the party-state apparatus, the removal of many reformers from responsible positions) Tito, receiving the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Andrei Gromyko developed his position. He confirmed his and the entire Yugoslav leadership’s view that the military invasion caused “great damage both to socialism in Czechoslovakia and to socialism in general”. “We spoke”, he continued, “we took our principled position on the events in Czechoslovakia and we do not back down from it. But at the same time, we considered that the situation around Czechoslovakia should not be dramatized, and we were able to minimize publications in our press. In the end, we cannot be more Czech than the Czechs. Let the Czechs and Slovaks themselves decide this question. And with Czechoslovakia, despite the fact who is now in power, we seek good relations”.19 By the autumn of 1971, when the first meeting between Brezhnev and Tito after a 3-year interval took place, the disagreements on the Czechoslovak issue were not more a factor which seriously affected the Soviet-Yugoslav relations.

In May 1968, Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin visited Czechoslovakia, hе met with many members of the Communist elite and came to the conclusion that the positions of those whom Moscow considered to be some kind of alternative to the reform line of Dubček’s team were very weak. The idea of conducting military maneuvers on the territory of Czechoslovakia in order to exert forceful pressure on its leadership was not abandoned (the maneuvers took place in late June). At the same time, the decision was made to influence Dubček and his team, in order to correct their course, which was considered in Moscow to be unacceptable. In June such kind of line was dominant in Moscow. It was reassessed only in the end of June after the publication on June 27 of the program document of the Czech non-communist intellectual opposition “2000 thousand words”, written by Ludvík Vaculík This document was perceived by the Soviets as a sign that the communist leadership in Czechoslovakia had absolutely lost the control over the situation, the non-Communist opposition had seized the initiative in developing a reform program, and this created a real threat to the Communist monopoly on power20.

In July, the leaders of the USSR prepared military action—covering all details, including propaganda. The declarations of the new Czechoslovak government were worked out and approved at the Politburo session on July 26–27,21 but the Soviets also gave Dubček’s team the last chance to “improve” the situation according their expectations. As is known well, new attempts to exert pressure on him were made in late July during bilateral talks at Čierna nad Tisou and in early August at a multiparty summit in Bratislava (the final declaration, which anticipated some of the theses later at the core of the Brezhnev doctrine)22.

The views of all the members of the Soviet leadership can be reconstructed on the basis of records of their notes both at meetings of the Soviet Politburo and during bilateral talks at Čierna nad Tisou.23 Without exception, all were sure that it was necessary to put an end to the reform processes in Czechoslovakia, since they were leading to a weakening of the monopoly power of the Communist elite. However, there were some differences in assessing the methods of action. This was manifested, for example, in a clash at a Politburo meeting by the more moderate Kosygin with a more radical Yurii Andropov, KGB chief. Andropov was at that time only a candidate member of the Politburo, but the comrades paid special attention to his opinion because they knew that he had a real experience in Hungary as the Soviet ambassador during the 1956 revolution24. Andropov often turned to the experience of the Hungarian events, trying to draw parallels with what was happening in Czechoslovakia. He used to remind his colleagues that the so-called “counterrevolution” was preceded by a lengthy ideological preparation led by writers, journalists, intellectuals25.

As for Brezhnev, caution and indecisiveness were fully manifested in all his activities before intervention. On the one hand, he knew very well that if Communist power in Czechoslovakia were to weaken and the political system and economic model were to be reformed and become less like Soviet models, his party comrades would use it against him as the party leader. His position at the head of the party was not yet sufficiently strong in 1968 and the weakening of Soviet influence in Czechoslovakia could be used by his rivals as an occasion for removing him from office, as well as Khruschev just four years before. On the other hand, Brezhnev for a long time did not see in Czechoslovakia any strong and influential alternative to Dubček’s team which would be realistically supported by Moscow. Gustáv Husák was supported as the candidate for the top position in the party only after August 21 when—after the examining other candidates—Moscow came to the conclusion that they were even weaker and unacceptable for various reasons (not least their unpopularity, the lack of minimal support from below). We can also deduce that in the Kremlin they could realize that it was possible to make more active use of Slovak nationalism against the Prague reformers, and that this was an important argument in favor of Husák.

When in July 1968 the Soviets started to prepare the decisive forceful action, the naturally cautious Brezhnev showed repeatedly at Politburo meetings his concern about the fact that poorly prepared intervention could only complicate the situation. Even in August, after the Bratislava summit, he exerted considerable effort (during telephone conversations) to influence Dubček in order to take control of the media, to limit the public activity of intellectuals and replace the most unacceptable for Moscow members of his team, including František Kriegel. Brezhnev’s hesitation was a factor slowing to some extent the decision-making on military intervention. Thus, on July 19 he exclaimed at the session of the Politburo: have we exhausted all the means from the arsenal of political influence; have we done everything to avoid the extreme measures?26 The delay over a military solution which might take place as early as in late July, just after the summit in Warsaw (July 14–15), was not the result of any polemics in the Soviet leadership, but primarily the internal doubts from Brezhnev himself, who by 1968 had become the first number in the country’s leadership and used the opportunity to demonstrate to his comrades his political will and weight. Prone to hesitation, he was inclined to take extreme measures only under the pressure of immutable circumstances.

Brezhnev made his final choice when it became clear to him that he had not succeeded in persuading the Czechoslovak side to reject the idea of holding the extraordinary party congress where, as it was expected, would be made decisive personnel changes.

As early as on August 21 they realized in Moscow that the plan to lead the new government to power had failed and it would be necessary to resume negotiations with the acting political team. Famously, Dubček’s team, in its desire to avoid bloodshed, went on a far-reaching compromise with Moscow. Brezhnev from his side clearly feared a lot of bloodshed, which can cause new complications. It was just his initiative to send to Prague on the eve of the intervention Kirill Mazurov: one of the members of Politburo should leave for Prague for control the whole operation, otherwise the generals would act too rudely. It is known also that during long discussions on Czechoslovak issue on August 20 Berzhnev expressed his principal view that the borders would be opened: if anticommunists and “counter-revolutionaries” would prefer to leave the country, the Soviets would welcome. Otherwise, they would have to intern too many people and would not know what to do with them—a problem that indeed never existed for Stalin. Brezhnev’s caution and indecision made it possible to prevent additional troubles that could occur due to the low level of political culture and to the political mood of the Soviet communist elite of that time.

Today, from the historical distance of 50 years we try to define the processes that took place in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and to reveal their main content. But even if we now read the attempts by Dubček and his associates to create socialism with a human face as utopian, we must nevertheless recognize that these people were motivated by sincere and noble intentions. The task of giving the existing system a more human face will never lose its relevance, even with respect to the most sophisticated political systems.

1 The most important volume of studies in Russian is: 1968 год. “Пражская весна”. Историческая ретроспектива [1968. The Prague Spring. The Historical Retrospective]. Москва (М.), 2010. The book is based on the reports of the large-scale international conference held in October 2008, the studies touch the main aspects of the subject and especially the Soviet-Czechoslovak relations at the high level, the activities of the Soviet Embassy, the international context of the intervention, the reaction of the Western communist movement, the response of the Soviet public and especially of the intellectuals. The view of the official Moscow on the problem of Czechoslovak federalism and the settlement of relations between Prague and Slovakia was also reflected in the volume.

2 See the collections of documents: “Пражская весна” и международный кризис 1968 года. Документы [The Prague Spring and the International Crisis of 1968 in Czechoslovakia. Documents] М., 2010; Чехословацкий кризис 1967–1969 годов в документах ЦК КПСС [The Crisis of 1967–1969 in Czechoslovakia in the documents of the Central Committee of the Soviet Union]. М., 2010. These publications are based first of all on the documents of the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (RGANI), former Archive of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party. The first of these projects was realized by RGANI and Ludwig Boltzmann-Institut für Kriegsfolgen-Forschung (Graz, Austria), headed by Stefan Karner. The other joint project was realized by RGANI in cooperation with the Czech colleagues. The volumes contain some hundreds of documents—the records of the meetings of the Soviet and Eastern-European Communist leaders where the situation in Czechoslovakia was discussed since March 1968, the interparty correspondence, the reports of the Soviet Embassy in Prague, the instructions for the internal party organizations aimed at the explanation of the Soviet policy at a lower level of the Soviet Communist Party.

3 We refer here first of all to the records of the sessions of the Politburo of the Soviet Communist Party, of the Soviet-Czechoslovakian high-level talks and of the summits of the leaders of the Soviet and Eastern-European Communist Parties.

4 Testimony of the well-known Russian journalist Alexander Bovin, who in the 1960s was a speechwriter for Brezhnev: Бовин А. XX век как жизнь [XX century as a life]. М., 2003. С. 175.

5 На идеологическом посту: 1960-е. Воспоминания сотрудников ЦК КПСС [On the ideological post: 1960s. Memories of the functionaries of the CPSU Central Committee] // Неприкосновенный запас. Дебаты о политике и культуре. М., 2008. № 4. С. 154–158.

6 See the testimony of V. Krivosheev who was the correspondent of “Izvestiya” in Prague in 1965–1968: Вторжение: Взгляд из России. Чехословакия, август 1968 [Intervention: the view from Russia. Czechoslovakia, august 1968]/Составитель Й. Паздерка. М., 2016. С. 131–138.

7 Brezhnev visited Prague on December 8, 1967. See: Латыш М.В. “Пражская весна” 1968 г. и реакция Кремля [The Prague Spring of 1968 and the reaction of the Kremlin]. М., 1998. С. 17–18.

8 See about the reaction of the Soviet Embassy on the election of Dubček as the first secretary of the Party: Ibid., p. 23.

9 Ibid., p. 18.

10 See: Шелест П.Е. Да не судимы будете: Дневниковые записи, воспоминания члена Политбюро ЦК КПСС. [Let not be judged. The Notes of Diaries, the Memories of the member of the Politbiuro CC CPSU]. М., 1995. С. 301.

11 30 Октября [October 30] (издание общества “Международный Мемориал”). М., 2008. № 89. История инакомыслия. С. 7.

12 On April 10, Brezhnev spoke at the plenum with the report “On the actual problems of the international situation and the CPSU’s struggle for the unity of the world communist movement”, which was not fully published in the Soviet press in order to avoid aggravating the Soviet-Chinese controversy. The report also criticized the Czechoslovak Communists for their concessions to revisionism and the weakening of the role of the ruling party.

13 Майоров А. Вторжение. Чехословакия 1968. Свидетельства командарма [Intervention. Czechoslovakia 1968, The Testimonies of the Commander of the Army]. М., 1998. С. 19–21.

14 Кыров А. Десантники в операции “Дунай” (Советско-чехословацкие военно-политические отношения, 1968 [Paratroopers in Operation Danube (Soviet-Czechoslovak military-political relations, 1968]. М., 1996.

15 Встречи и переговоры на высшем уровне руководителей СССР и Югославии в 1946–1980 гг. [Meetings and negotiations at the highest level of the leaders of the USSR and Yugoslavia in 1946–1980] Том второй. 1965–1980. М., 2017. С. 211–230.

16 Ibid., p. 223–224.

17 Ibid., p. 236.

18 Ibid., p. 243.

19 Ibid., p. 263.

20 We can also note that it was precisely after the publication of the ‘2000 words’ that the position of the Hungarian leadership, and in particular of János Kádár, who so far generally supported the economic component of the Czechoslovak reforms, became noticeably tougher. This follows both from public speeches by Kádár, including that he made during his visit to Moscow in early July, and from his position, outlined at his talks with Dubček, not long before the Warsaw meeting of leaders of the Communist Parties which took place in middle June (the Czechoslovak delegation did not come to Warsaw). Despite the increasing convergence of positions of Brezhnev and Kádár it was Kádár who tried to persuade the communist leadership of Czechoslovakia to seek a compromise demonstrating to Moscow the desire to take measures against non-communist opposition, but Kádár’s mission was not successful (see in this volume the study of Miklós Mitrovics).

21 See the materials: Чехословацкий кризис 1967–1969 годов в документах ЦК КПСС.

22 See: Суверенитет и интернациональные обязанности социалистических стран [Sovereignty and international obligations of socialist countries] // Правда, 1968, 26 сентября.

23 The first study where the subject was deeply examined is: Латыш М.В. “Пражская весна” 1968 г. и реакция Кремля.

24 For more on his position and his activities in Hungary of 1956, see: Советский дипломат перед национал-коммунистическим вызовом. Ю.В. Андропов в Венгрии (1953–1957) [Soviet diplomat in front of the national communist challenge. Yu.V. Andropov in Hungary (1953–1957)] // Стыкалин А.С. Венгерский кризис 1956 года в исторической ретроспективе. М., 2016. С. 33–78.

25 See in detail: Стыкалин А.С. Память о венгерских событиях 1956 г. в период Пражской весны 1968 г. [The memory of the Hungarian events of 1956 in the period of the Prague Spring of 1968] // Социальные последствия войн и конфликтов XX века: историческая память. М.–Спб., “Нестор”, 2014. С. 279–287.

26 Пихоя Р.Г. Чехословакия, 1968. Взгляд из Москвы. По документам ЦК КПСС [Czechoslovakia, 1968. View from Moscow. According to documents of the Central Committee of the CPSU] // Новая и новейшая история, 1995. № 1. С. 35.

04
Limits of Washington’s Position Towards the Invasion of Czechoslovakia in the Summer of 1968

Slavomír Michálek

Institute of History, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava

In the evening hours of the 20th of August 1968, the Soviet Ambassador to Washington, Anatoly F. Dobrynin visited the President of the USA Lyndon B. Johnson. State Secretary Dean Rusk was also present during the meeting.1 The Ambassador Dobrynin claimed to have urgent instructions from his government to inform the president on an extremely serious issue:

The government of the Soviet Union considers necessary to inform president Johnson in person … in relation with further worsening of the situation caused by conspiracies of external powers of aggression against the existing social establishment in Czechoslovakia and against the statehood established by the constitution of this country, Czechoslovak government requested its allies, among them the Soviet Union, for direct help, military power included. The Soviet government repeatedly stresses the fact that the events in Czechoslovakia and around it are of vital importance to the Soviet Union and to the other countries bound by contractual obligations and that, the threat for the socialist order in Czechoslovakia creates at the same time a threat for the peace in Europe and security in the world. Therefore, the Soviet government and the governments of the allied countries have adopted a joint decision to fulfil the request of the Czechoslovak government who asked for indispensable help for the people of Czechoslovakia. Competent Soviet troops received the order to enter Czechoslovakia. Naturally, they will be immediately withdrawn as soon as the threat on security ends and we come to the conclusion their presence is no longer necessary. We want President Johnson to know that our steps, performed on basis of the request of the Czechoslovak government, are completely in accordance with the idea of strengthening the peace and under no circumstances an intention of threat for the state interests of the USA or other countries. We consider these events will not damage the Soviet-American relations, the Soviet government believes their development is, like in the past, of great importance.2

President Johnson thanked Dobrynin for the information and informed him he would consult Dean Rusk and—if he considered it appropriate—give him his answer. After a while, he unexpectedly changed the subject of the conversation and focused on his journey to the USSR. The end of the conversation was held in an almost free and friendly atmosphere, whisky was served and Johnson told Dobrynin funny stories from Texas.3

After the Ambassador’s departure, the president immediately called an extraordinary meeting of the Council of National Security of the USA.4 Those present were surprised at the newest events. The president told them about A. Dobrynin’s visit, and about Dobrynin having informed him that the allied troops had entered Czechoslovakia on invitation of the Czechoslovak government. The event in which troops of one Communist country occupied another, friendly Communist country, was described by Johnson as aggression of one Communist country entering into the territory of another communist country. In his opinion, any kind of aggression is dangerous, and a position was therefore necessary. State Secretary Deak Rusk stated that, due to the fact the CSSR reaction was unknown, the USA did not have many possibilities, especially in the case that Czechoslovakia did nothing. He proposed that—after further conversation with Dobrynin and awareness of Czechoslovakia’s reaction—the USA should adopt a written position. The president eventually approved the following steps: to invite Dobrynin and inform him that the USA would not make any statement on the Soviet offer of negotiations over the peaceful use of nuclear energy. However, they would inform him at the same time that they intended to call the UN Security Council.5

After the meeting of the Council of National Security, there were negotiations during the night between the US Secretary of State Dean Rusk and the Ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin. Rusk informed him that the USA were concerned about Soviet information on the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and did not understand its causes, since those mentioned by the Soviet Union—that the Czechoslovak government had asked the allies for help—were not true and he said there was no threat of an external act of aggression towards Czechoslovakia.6

The extraordinary meeting of the US National Security Council followed the next morning. Dean Rusk spoke about the night meeting with Dobrynin and confirmed that he had informed Dobrynin of the US position not to publish a positive statement on accepting the mentioned Soviet proposal on negotiations on atomic energy. President Johnson stated that the US Ambassador to the UN, George Ball, was given an order to express the American protest against this unjustifiable action in the UN and to insist on observance of the UN Charter.7 The steps of the Administration and the President proved that, apart from verbal protests, the USA would not engage in any way. The US State Department showed an interest in gaining further information on the invasion, confirmed also by the negotiations of the Czechoslovak Ambassador to the USA, Karel Duda, who was invited to a meeting by the Deputy State Secretary and Head of the European Affairs Department, John Leddy. Leddy informed Duda of the President’s night negotiations with Dobrynin, as well as about the contents of the meeting of the US National Security Council, and asked him to add some details on which the USA lacked sufficient information. In particular, the issue of the invitation of the troops, and anti-western propaganda that the CSSR faced the threat of external aggressive forces.8 Ambassador Duda refused the Soviet interpretation about an invitation and about an external threat to Czechoslovakia, as evidenced by a message sent to the Ministry in Prague. The US government, Duda said, expressed its worries over the practice of the USSR and centred on two points in the Soviet statement: in the first place, it did not understand the part about the CSSR government request, because according to the Prague radio, the troops entered the territory without the knowledge of the President, Prime Minister, 1st Secretary of the Central Committee KSČ and the National Assembly; and in the second place, it did not understand what those “external forces” are that are against the order of CSSR, because the US government “does not have any information which would confirm the allegations that any non-socialist countries are involved or considering aggression against CSSR.”9 Both sources, the American as well as the Czechoslovak one, described the negotiations of Leddy and Duda identically.

Another document, describing the Czechoslovak development, was received by the US State Department from Moscow on 21st August. The American Ambassador to the USSR, Llewellyn Thompson informed the State Department on the obtained news, stating also that many diplomats were surprised at the invasion of Czechoslovakia but others expected it even sooner. He also stated that the pro-invasion spirit prevailed in the Soviet Politburo already after the negotiations in Bratislava and there was no doubt it would happen. He described the Bratislava declaration as a tactical compromise, containing such fundamental differences that the Soviet leadership was sure Dubcek’s group was inacceptable. The invasion was thoroughly timed so the maximal psychological and tactical effect of surprise was reached.10

On the basis of information from several sources, the American government issued on August 21, 1968 the official statement on the invasion of troops of five states of the Warsaw Pact:

Tragic news from Czechoslovakia shocked the world. The Soviet Union and its allies invaded a country that did not defend itself, in order to suffocate the recreation of common human freedom. It is sad to see the communist way of thinking that an attempt of freedom in Czechoslovakia is considered a fundamental threat to the safety of the Soviet system. The justification of the Soviet Union is clearly unnatural. Czechoslovak government did not ask its allies to interfere in its internal affairs. Czechoslovakia was under no threat of external aggression. The action of the allies of the Warsaw Pact is a blatant breach of the UN Chart. We are consulting the other participants on what steps must be taken within the UN.11

The USA decried the invasion with this statement, but they merely wanted to consult the steps to be taken through the UN. And everybody knew that even if there were any UN steps, these would be on the verbal level only. The American government met due to the Czechoslovak events also during the next two days—August 22 and 23, 1968. The meeting on August 22 analysed the situation in Czechoslovakia and possible American positions arising from it as well as debated the events of the previous two days.

An employee of the President’s Office, Tom Johnson summed the notes up in several points: they did not expect military intervention by the USA; the Warsaw Pact troops were ready on the borders; Dobrynin’s visit to the President; the National Security Council’s debates; instructions for the Ambassador George Ball; the US resolution of August 21; the USA had no obligation for military intervention; it was not either in their interest or the interest of Czechoslovakia; the Cold War had not ended. In another, more general note, Tom Johnson captured especially the speeches of the Secretaries Dean Rusk, William Wirtz and Clark Clifford. According to Tom Johnson, Dean Rusk said that one of the main reasons why the US did not expect a Soviet military intervention was the fact that the USSR would pay too high a price, especially on a political level. Supposedly, if the US decided on a military intervention, it could cause a world war. He informed the present on the negotiations of the UN Security Council and recommended the US remain active on the issue of Soviet invasion only at the level of statements.12 In connection with similarities between Czechoslovakia and Vietnam, he did not see in the American position any relation. Also, Secretary of Labour William W. Wirtz agreed on the opinion that Czechoslovakia and Vietnam were not related but he stated that people must be confused since many did not see any difference between the invasion to Czechoslovakia and Vietnam. Secretary of Defence Clark Clifford said the US are not bound with Czechoslovakia by any treaties or agreements on mutual help, therefore, they do not have any obligation to interfere on Czechoslovak side13

The government meeting on the next day, August 23, was focused on a new problem—if the next target of the Soviet invasion would be Romania. Head of the CIA, Helms warned that the Romanian were worried of a potential Soviet military action, since Romania presented clear public support of Czechoslovakia. He suggested the US declare clearly it was not a bilateral issue between the USSR and the USA, but an issue of Moscow against the rest of the world. It was only verbal muscle-flexing, confirmed also by Rusk stating that the US did not intend any military action in support of Czechoslovakia, who had not even asked for it. Clark Clifford described the invasion of Czechoslovakia—from the military perspective—as well planned, effective and sophisticated. At the same time, he said the USSR proved it could do the same in any part of its bloc and the Soviets had a costly marine and submarine program. That was also a reason why Clifford appealed to the US responsibility to see the case of Czechoslovakia as evidence of a considerable increase in the Soviets’ military power. General Wheeler reacted to Clifford, who also described the intervention in the CSSR as a fast, effective and long-term planned military operation, and gave as his evidence the detailed and exact movement of divisions in six to ten days around the the CSSR borders. He also mentioned the preparation—military training “Šumava”. However, he identified some military flaws in the Soviets’ approach. In his opinion, too many troops had participated in the operation—more than were necessary. Overall Wheeler came to a fundamental conclusion for the USA regarding the Soviet invasion: that the present situation proved that American could not afford to reduce her armed forces in Europe and they needed to ask their allies to improve their own.14

No matter how little the American administration wanted to be actively opposed to the invasion (for the reasons already mentioned), it still performed some diplomatic activities. It withdrew its ambassador for consultation and on August 25, the US Embassy in Prague issued a note requesting all American citizens to leave Czechoslovakia as soon as possible for safety reasons. The first conversations between the ambassador to Moscow, Thompson, and the State Department in Washington, were of informative nature. Ambassador Dobrynin participated in the next two conversations, on August 23 and 27. According to the memorandum of negotiations (with the participation of Dean Rusk, Llewellyn E. Thompson and Anatoly Dobrynin), issues dealing with Czechoslovakia and broader Soviet-American relations were discussed. Dean Rusk asked Dobrynin to confirm if the American reaction to the invasion was clear to him, as it had been presented in the previous conversations. Dobrynin said the American reaction was predictable and that the decision over the military operation was not easy to reach in the USSR. At the same time, he defended the invasion as a result of internal struggles in Czechoslovakia. Rusk said there had been no evidence from Czechoslovakia that it planned to depart the Socialist camp, upon which Dobrynin replied that Alexander Dubček was weak and had lost control over the situation, a development which had led to an unsustainable sate of affairs within the Warsaw Pact. Rusk at the same time ensured the Ambassador of Kremlin on the US President’s deep commitment to maintain peace. After expressing the hope that President Ludvík Svoboda’s journey to Moscow would be successful, and that Alexander Dubček and the others interned in the USSR would have their safety guaranteed, Rusk changed the subject and asked Dobrynin if the information he had received was true, that there was allegedly an invasion of Romania being prepared. Dobrynin denied this. On the contrary, he said the Soviet leaders have sent cordial greetings to the Romanian representatives on the occasion of their national holiday.15

Another Memorandum of Conversation between A. Dobrynin and L. E. Thompson on August 27 only dealt with the newest development in Czechoslovakia. Thompson, thinking about the length of stay of the Soviet troops, asked Dobrynin how he understood the notion of “temporality”. Dobrynin’s answer was clear: “it will depend on how successful the Czechs are in the fulfilment of our agreement. The Soviet would naturally be glad if this period was the shortest possible”.16 Obviously, this did not correspond with the aims and intentions of the USSR to settle in Czechoslovakia. In fact, the Americans protested also on this issue—only on verbal level, without stress, and poorly. The Embassy in Prague was sending to Washington more reports on the occupation of the country but in a more or less disinterested spirit.17

An excellent American diplomat and one of the main advisers to the State Secretary Dean Rusk during this period, Charles E. Bohlen depiected the USA’s dry approach to the Prague Spring and Soviet invasion, in his memoirs Witness to History 1929–1969. The American policy that he called the policy of disinterest, was, in his opinion, a reflection of several factors, including the fact that in Lyndon Johnson’s administration there was not a uniform idea on the position of Moscow in case of an unexpected development in Czechoslovakia. Bohlen in a meeting with the State Secretary described the decision of Soviet invasion as a symbiosis of four elements. The first one was ideological—Czechoslovakia under Dubček’s leadership represented the liquidation of the Soviet system. The second element was the weakening of the satellite zone around the borders with the West. The third one was Ulbricht’s worries that a successful centrifugal movement in Czechoslovakia would cause similar intentions in East Germany. The fourth element or factor stated by Bohlen were Moscow’s worries that this “infection” could spread from the arm—that was Czechoslovakia—Ukraine—right to the heart—the USSR.18

Bohlen’s opinions were well founded. Although he presented them in public ex post as a private person, they contribute to our knowledge of the American Administration of that period.

George F. Kennan, former American ambassador to Moscow and author of the detention strategy, expressed a similar opinion to Bohlen’s. During a private lecture tour in the Scandinavian countries, he stopped at the American Embassy in Copenhagen. There, he expressed serious worries about the irrational Soviet position in the occupied Czechoslovakia. These events obliged him and people of similar thinking to change their political thinking when an incorrect estimation from the past cast doubt on the Soviet reliability. According to Kennan, the whole western world will have to change its political and military construction due to the impossibility of fully revealing Soviet positions. In the light of the development, Kennan expressed the opinion that the American administration should be very cautious in its obligations towards Prague. He considered incomprehensible the compromise from Moscow between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet leaders while the occupation lasted. And Washington should publicly put pressure on Moscow for an explanation—when you have done this in Prague, what are the guarantees you will not do similar things again. Kennan also speculated on how, why and when Moscow reached the decision for the intervention. In his opinion, it was not only about a missing political guarantee from the Czechoslovak Party and government, but it also needed to get into the structures of middle groups and among the workers to gain control over the counterrevolution. In Kennan’s opinion, the Kremlin was responding to the idea of individual freedom as an internal threat to the safety of the system. The loss of internal political control, too, was seen as something that could infect the whole Soviet system.19 On this subject, he held a similar opinion Charles Bohlen.

President Lyndon Johnson presented the basic philosophy of his foreign policy in this period and also of the invasion to Czechoslovakia on 11th September 1968, when he said:

It seems the USSR leaders have decided that the movement towards a human version of Communism in a small befriended country is a threat to their security—in spite of the fact that the Czech remained their allies in the Warsaw Pact. Since this aggressive act, the military and political threats have risen and require a closer and deeper cooperation of the western allies. We have taken undoubtedly clear steps that the use of power or power threats will not be tolerated in the spheres of joint responsibility, such as, for example Berlin.20

How was Czechoslovakia, occupied by the tanks of five countries, supposed to decipher this general statement from the first man of the most powerful country in the world? The US accepted the given state but regarded further power expansion from the East as a potential problem, but only in case it did not affect the Soviet bloc. This US position, the position of the whole democratic West, was confirmed in his messages also by Ambassador Duda from Washington. In a dispatch from 20th September 1968 for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague on the reaction of western diplomats to Czechoslovakia’s event, he wrote that among the diplomats of the western countries in the USA there are strong feelings that the West should demonstrate political disagreement with the intervention of the five countries of the Warsaw Pact by selective restrictions in the bilateral relations. On the other hand, the situation of intensive Cold War should not be renewed so as not to break the results of political contacts. According to the message of Ambassador Duda, an escalation of the situation in Europe would result in a smaller space for autonomous Czechoslovak policy. In addition, the American side did not even have an interest in overstepping a certain line in the world power disputes, as it did not want to worsen Soviet-American relations. In addition, the Democrats in Congress confirmed this opinion when they publicly said that the relations between the two world powers were far more important than Czechoslovakia.21 Karel Duda further informed the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs that the western diplomats prefer the idea of dialogue development between the East and the West in spite of the Soviet intervention in the CSSR.22

The American administration had not set a permanent position on the CSSR by the beginning of October 1968. Its only position was to accept the new reality in Czechoslovakia. The US position was confirmed by a secret dispatch of the Czechoslovak Embassy to Washington on bilateral Czechoslovak-American relations, addressed on October 10, 1968 to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague. It stated that the USA adopted a waiting position towards the USSR and the CSSR. Apart from home affairs (the upcoming change of administration), a decisive role was played by America’s insecurity that the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops was not only an isolated, partial step, but part of a broader plan against several countries that would eventually jeapardise West Berlin. As far as Czechoslovakia was concerned, American thoughts were pessimistic as well as optimistic depending on what alternative of Czechoslovakia’s future was foreseen. American opinions on the USSR were also different, depending on if it the invasion was considered a temporary episode or the return to Stalinism. According to the dispatch, the US would certainly try to use the situation in Czechoslovakia for propaganda to discredit Socialism and break the unity of the Communist movement and they already froze the contacts with the countries of “the five”. In case of Czechoslovakia, they would wait further how the situation develops in the near future. For this reason, the US would “have a clear tendency not to undergo nor propose any activities from their own initiative”,23 and reason this passivity by intentions not to worsen the position of the Czechoslovak government.

In autumn 1968, the issue of Czechoslovakia appeared only sporadically in the State Department. The US Embassy telegraph from November 29, 1968 addressed to the State Department, proves this since it was only a brief evaluation of the current status of Czechoslovak-American relations. Ambassador Jacob Beam informed in it that a turn in the Czechoslovak development does not mean a complete end of the reforms and offered proposals for problem solutions that were within the bilateral issues still open and the two countries had a different view of. In the first place, he described the development of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia from the beginning of the year, the new Party leadership, intents of an economic reform, the issues of federation, cancellation of the censorship, freedom to travel, demonstrate and the Action Programme. Regardless to the Soviet motivation, according to Beam the brutal invasion had been a shock for the Czechoslovak society on its way to a new way of life. In spite of the fact that the “socialism with a human face” still lived in the society, Alexander Dubček “has become merely a faded symbol”.24 In his opinion, Czech foreign policy was fully in accordance with the line of the Warsaw ‘five’, which offered Czechoslovakia a minimal space and influence in international issues.

President Richard Nixon’s administration, that took office in January 1969, refused to do anything that would be an intervention in the internal affairs of the Soviet camp in the light of new political world problems of the beginning of the 70’s. The rhetoric of “freeing the satellites” from the 50’s was completely forgotten after August 1968 in Czechoslovakia. Nixon’s administration followed the direction of Lyndon Johnson and went on building bridges with Central Europe—that is, with gradual steps to overcome the division of the old continent and replace the confrontation of the Cold War with cooperation and mutual safety.25

American intelligence services followed in detail the Czechoslovak reformation under the leadership of Alexander Dubček from its beginning in January 1968, and during the following months until the military invasion and its end in the summer of 1969. The intelligence service also created extensive, more general rather than analytical materials. A document with the title, Czechoslovakia: problem of Soviet control was created for the CIA Headquarters on January 1970 by the analyst James Ogle, and presented by the head of CIA special research committee John Kerry King. Several analysts from different CIA departments had worked on it. The material described the mechanisms and assumption of the Soviet control over Czechoslovakia, its loss in the period of time between January and August 1968, consequent military intervention and political compromise as well as the creation of preconditions for the renewal of the control from September 1968 until March 1969 and their control from April until September 1969.26 The final evaluation of the memorandum did not contain any new facts or context. The Soviet Union, with the help of the armed forces and support of Czechoslovak conservatives established a regime that turned Prague again into an obedient and model satellite.

As a conclusion, it is necessary to evaluate the facts that influenced the US position to the invasion. Lyndon Johnson’s Administration (as well as the British, French and others in the West) welcomed in the beginning the Czechoslovak reform process. At the same time, it was informed by Kremlin through its diplomatic representatives on the prepared invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops to Czechoslovakia. They also knew it from the information of the intelligence service, as well as from the NATO headquarters that monitored the movement of Soviet and other “befriended” troops. However, they evaluated the situation as a non-breach of American national interests or the US national security. Therefore, apart from verbal condemnation of the invasion, they did not interfere. The US simply refused to cease the fragile, gradual improvement of wider American-Soviet relations represented by the disarmament process and the peaceful use of atomic energy.

Czechoslovak crisis broke out at an inconvenient moment for the West, for the USA. The US were at that time completely engaged in Vietnam and going through a period of internal anti-war mood. In fact, Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration showed clearly in the summer 1968 that it wanted to avoid the errors of Dulles’s policy in the mid 50’s—a policy based on preparing to “end” Soviet hegemony in Central Europe. However, Johnson’s policy of “building bridges” from 1966 was never actually brought into practice. It remained only an empty phrase.

There was improvement in East-West relations in the sphere of commerce, but the US did nothing to considerably improve the situation in Central Europe. Between June and August 1968, the creators of Soviet foreign policy were sure that the US turned its “policy of bridges” into a limited American-Soviet relaxation. Another reason why Johnson’s administration did not want to do anything for Czechoslovakia—not even at the time of real threat of invasion—was the Czechoslovak support (military and economic) of North Vietnam. In that time, Czechoslovakia was, after the USSR and China, the third largest supplier of Vietnam. These were also the reasons of the USA’s unwillingness to support Dubček’s regime. The opinions that such lack of US interest could influence the decision of the USSR to use military sources against the CSSR are not surprising. At the same time, it is not possible to claim that a different US position would have discouraged the USSR from the intervention and it really is questionable if the USA could have done such a step that would have discouraged the USSR from using its power. I believe that at that time there was no power in the world that could have ordered the Soviets of what to do in their bloc.

Just like the February coup of 1948, the invasion of 1968 too became a subject of negotiations of the UN Security Council. And just like the Prague communist coup 1948, the invasion was thanks to the Soviet veto in the UN left unattended. The resolution requesting the departure of the troops was refused. The similarity of both events lies also in the fact that the US as well as the other western powers did not act in favour of Czechoslovakia in the UN negotiations. The USA, NATO and other western structures understood the invasion of five Warsaw Pact members’ troops to Czechoslovakia in the summer 1968 as an internal affair of the Soviet bloc and therefore, not an issue directed against the interest of the West.

1 The study presented is a partial result of the project n. APVV-15-0349 “Indivíduum a spoločnosť—ich vzájomná reflexia v historickom procese,” of the Institute of History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences/SAV.

2 Foreign Relations of the United States (further FRUS) 1964–1968, Volume XVII, Eastern Europe, Summary of meeting, Washington DC, August 20, 1968, 8:15–8:42 p.m., or, Anatoly Dobrynin, In confidence. Ambassador to America’s Cold War Six Presidents (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1995), 179, or Karel Durman, Útěk od praporů: Kreml a krize impéria 1964–1991. (Praha: Karolinum, 1998), 112.