Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia

Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia
Part of the Cold War
Date 20 August 1968 – 20 September 1968 Location Czechoslovakia Result Moscow Protocol, Soviet military presence until 1991
Belligerents
Soviet Union Bulgaria  East Germany Hungary Poland	Czechoslovakia
Commanders and leaders
Leonid Brezhnev Ivan Pavlovsky	Ludvík Svoboda Martin Dzúr
Strength
200,000-500,000	unknown
Casualties and losses
12 KIA, 25 WIA 4 KIA 2 KIA	72-108 KIA, over 500 WIA. Mostly civilians.

On the night of August 20 - August 21, 1968, the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Hungary and Poland invaded the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in order to halt Alexander Dubček's Prague Spring political liberalization reforms.^[1]

In the operation, codenamed Danube, varying estimates of between 175,000 and 500,000 troops^[2] attacked Czechoslovakia; approximately 500 Czechoslovaks were wounded and 108 killed in the invasion.^[3][4] The invasion successfully stopped the liberalization reforms and strengthened the authority of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. The foreign policy of the Soviet Union during this era was known as the Brezhnev Doctrine.^[5]

Czechoslovak negotiations with the USSR and most of the Warsaw Pact states

Leonid Brezhnev and the leadership of the Warsaw Pact countries were scared by Alexander Dubček's reforms centering on the reduction of the importance of the Communist Party (KSČ), later termed the "Prague Spring", were weakening the influence and position of the Communist Bloc. The Soviet leadership at first tried to stop or limit the impact of Dubček's initiatives through a series of negotiations. Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union agreed to bilateral talks to be held in July 1968 at Čierna nad Tisou, near the Slovak-Soviet border.

At the meeting, Dubček defended the program of the reformist wing of the KSČ while pledging commitment to the Warsaw Pact and Comecon. The KSČ leadership, however, was divided between vigorous reformers (Josef Smrkovský, Oldřich Černík, and František Kriegel) who supported Dubček, and conservatives (Vasil Biľak, Drahomír Kolder, and Oldřich Švestka) who adopted an anti-reformist stance. Brezhnev decided on compromise. The KSČ delegates reaffirmed their loyalty to the Warsaw Pact and promised to curb "anti-socialist" tendencies, prevent the revival of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party, and control the press more effectively. The USSR agreed to withdraw their troops (still stationed in Czechoslovakia since the June 1968 maneuvers) and permit the September 9 party congress.

On August 3, representatives from the Soviet Union, East Germany, People's Republic of Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia met in Bratislava and signed the Bratislava Declaration. The declaration affirmed unshakable fidelity to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism and declared an implacable struggle against bourgeois ideology and all "antisocialist" forces. The Soviet Union expressed its intention to intervene in a Warsaw Pact country if a bourgeois system—a pluralist system of several political parties representing different factions of the capitalist class—was ever established. After the Bratislava conference, Soviet troops left Czechoslovak territory but remained along Czechoslovak borders.

As these talks proved unsatisfactory, the USSR began to consider a military alternative. The Soviet Union's policy of compelling the socialist governments of its satellite states to subordinate their national interests to those of the Eastern Bloc (through military force if needed) became known as the Brezhnev Doctrine.

Intervention

The memorial plate in Košice, Slovakia

At approximately 11 pm on August 20, 1968,^[6] Eastern Bloc armies from five Warsaw Pact countries, Soviet Union, Bulgaria,^[7] Poland, Hungary, and East Germany, invaded the ČSSR. That night, 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 2,000 tanks entered the country.^[8]

The invasion was well planned and coordinated, simultaneously with the border crossing by ground forces a Soviet airborne division (VDV) captured Prague's Ruzyne International Airport in the early hours of the invasion. It began with a special flight from Moscow which carried more than 100 plainclothes agents. They quickly secured the airport and prepared the way for the huge forthcoming airlift, in which An-12 transport aircraft started arriving and unloading Soviet airborne troops equipped with artillery and light tanks.

Warsaw Pact artillery unit in Czechoslovakia, 1968

As the operation at the airport continued, columns of tanks and motorized rifle troops headed toward Prague and other major centers, meeting no resistance. The bulk of invading forces were from the Soviet Union supported by other countries from the communist bloc. Among them were 28,000 troops^[9] of the Polish 2nd Army from the Silesian Military District, commanded by general Florian Siwicki, and all invading Hungarian troops were withdrawn by October 31.^[10] Romanian troops did not take part in the invasion,^[11]

and neither did Albania, which withdrew from the Warsaw pact over the matter.^[12] The degree of participation of the East German Army is dubious, either they were withdrawn within a few days ^[13] or barely crossed the border.^[14]

During the attack of the Warsaw Pact armies, 72 Czechs and Slovaks were killed (19 of those in Slovakia)^[15] and hundreds were wounded. Alexander Dubček called upon his people not to resist. He was arrested and taken to Moscow along with several of his colleagues. Dubček and most of the reformers were returned to Prague on August 27, and Dubček retained his post as the party's first secretary until he was forced to resign in April 1969 following the Czechoslovak Hockey Riots.

The invasion was followed by a wave of emigration, unseen before and stopped shortly after (estimate: 70,000 immediately, 300,000 in total),^[16] typically of highly qualified people. Western countries allowed these people to immigrate without complications.

Letter of invitation

Although on the night of the invasion, the Czechoslovak Presidium declared that Warsaw Pact troops had crossed the border without knowledge of the ČSSR Government, the Soviet Press printed an unsigned request, allegedly by Czechoslovak party and state leaders, for "immediate assistance, including assistance with armed forces."^[17] At the 14th KSČ Party Congress (conducted secretly, immediately following the intervention), it was emphasized that no member of the leadership had invited the intervention. At the time, a number of commentators believed the letter was fake or non-existent.

In the early 1990s, however, the Russian government gave the new Czechoslovak President, Václav Havel, a copy of a letter of invitation addressed to Soviet authorities and signed by KSČ members Biľak, Švestka, Kolder, Indra, and Kapek. It claimed that “right-wing” media were “fomenting a wave of nationalism and chauvinism, and are provoking an anti-communist and anti-Soviet psychosis.” It formally asked the Soviets to “lend support and assistance with all means at your disposal” to save the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic “from the imminent danger of counterrevolution.”^[18]

A 1992 Izvestia article claimed that candidate Presidium member Antonin Kapek gave Leonid Brezhnev a letter at the Soviet-Czechoslovak Čierna nad Tisou talks in late July which appealed for “fraternal help.” A second letter was supposedly delivered by Biľak to Ukrainian Party leader Petro Shelest during the August Bratislava conference “in a lavatory rendezvous arranged through the KGB station chief.”^[18] This letter was signed by the same five as Kapek’s letter, mentioned above.

Internal plot

Long before the invasion, planning for a coup was undertaken by Indra, Kolder and Biľak, among others, often at the Soviet embassy and at the Party recreation centre at Orlík Dam.^[18] When these men had managed to convince a majority of the Presidium (six of eleven voting members) to side with them against Alexander Dubček’s reformists, they asked the USSR to launch a military invasion. The USSR leadership was even considering waiting until the August 26 Slovak Party Congress, but the Czechoslovak conspirators “specifically requested the night of the 20th.”^[18]

The plan was to unfold as follows. A debate would unfold in response to the Kašpar report on the state of the country, during which conservative members would insist that Dubček present two letters he had received from the USSR, letters which listed promises he had made at the Čierná nad Tisou talks but had failed to keep. Dubček’s concealment of such important letters, and his unwillingness to keep his promises would lead to a vote of confidence which the now conservative majority would win, seizing power, and issue a request for Soviet assistance in preventing a counterrevolution. It was this formal request, drafted in Moscow, which was published in Pravda on August 22 without the signatories. All the USSR needed to do was suppress the Czechoslovak military and any violent resistance.^[19]

With this plan in mind, the August 16-17 Soviet Politburo meeting passed a resolution to “provide help to the Communist Party and people of Czechoslovakia through military force.”^[19] At the August 18 Warsaw Pact meeting, Brezhnev announced that the intervention would go ahead on the night of August 20, and asked for "fraternal support", which the national leaders of Bulgaria, East Germany, Hungary, and Poland duly offered.

Failure of the plot

The coup, however, did not go according to plan. Kolder intended to review the Kašpar report early in the meeting, but Dubček and Špaček, suspicious of Kolder, adjusted the agenda so the upcoming 14th Party Congress could be covered before any discussion on recent reforms or Kašpar’s report. Discussion of the Congress dragged on, and before the conspirators had a chance to request a confidence vote, early news of the invasion reached the Presidium.^[17]

An anonymous warning was transmitted by the Czechoslovak Ambassador to Hungary, Jozef Púčik, approximately six hours before Soviet troops crossed the border at midnight.^[17] When the news arrives, the solidarity of conservative coalition crumbled. When the Presidium proposed a declaration condemning the invasion, two key members of the conspiracy, Jan Pillar and Frantíšek Barbírek, switched sides to support Dubček. With their help, declaration against the invasion won with a 7:4 majority.^[18]

The Moscow Protocol

By the morning of August 21, Dubček and other prominent reformists had been arrested, and were later flown to Moscow.

The conservatives asked Svoboda to create an "emergency government" but since they had not won a clear majority of support, he refused. Instead, he and Gustáv Husák traveled to Moscow on August 23 to insist Dubček and Černík should be included in a solution to the conflict. After days of negotiations, the Czechoslovak delegation accepted the "Moscow Protocol", and signed their commitment to its fifteen points. The Protocol demanded the suppression of opposition groups, the full reinstatement of censorship, and the dismissal of specific reformist officials.^[19] It did not, however, refer to the situation in the ČSSR as "counterrevolutionary" nor did it demand a reversal of the post-January course.^[19]

Reactions in Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovak political poster:
Socialism Yes, Occupation No!

Popular opposition was expressed in numerous spontaneous acts of nonviolent resistance. In Prague and other cities throughout the republic, Czechs and Slovaks greeted Warsaw Pact soldiers with arguments and reproaches. Every form of assistance, including the provision of food and water, was denied to the invaders. Signs, placards, and graffiti drawn on walls and pavements denounced the invaders, the Soviet leaders, and suspected collaborators. Pictures of Dubček and Svoboda appeared in the streets.

Initially, some civilians tried to argue with the invading troops, but this met with little or no success. After the USSR used photographs of these discussions as proof that the invasion troops were being greeted amicably, secret Czechoslovak broadcasting stations discouraged the practice, reminding the people that "pictures are silent."^[20]

The generalized resistance caused the Soviet Union to abandon its original plan to oust the First Secretary. Dubček, who had been arrested on the night of August 20, was taken to Moscow for negotiations. It was agreed that Dubček would remain in office and that a program of moderate reform would continue.

On January 19, 1969, student Jan Palach set himself on fire in the Prague's Wenceslas Square to protest the renewed suppression of free speech.

Finally, on April 17, 1969, Dubček was replaced as First Secretary by Gustáv Husák, and a period of "Normalization" began. Husák reversed Dubček's reforms, purged the party of its liberal members and dismissed the professional and intellectual elites who openly expressed disagreement with the political turnaround from public offices and jobs.

Reactions in other Warsaw Pact countries

One of the protesters' banners
"For your freedom and ours."

Ryszard Siwiec self-immolating

The first country to react against the invasion was Albania, which withdrew from the Warsaw Pact.

Many people in the Soviet Union did not approve of the invasion. On August 25, on the Red Square, 8 protesters opened banners with anti-invasion slogans. The demonstrators were arrested and later punished; as the protest was dubbed "anti-Soviet".^[21][22]

In the People's Republic of Poland, on 8 September 1968, Ryszard Siwiec had immolated himself in Warsaw during a harvest festival at the 10th-Anniversary Stadium in protest against Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and the communist totalitarianism.^[23][24] Siwiec did not survive.^[23]

A more pronounced effect took place in Communist Romania who did not take part in the invasion. Nicolae Ceauşescu, already a staunch opponent of Soviet influences and one to have declared himself on Dubček's side, held a public speech in Bucharest on the day of the invasion, depicting Soviet policies in harsh terms.

While Romania engaged briefly on the same side of the barricade as Josip Broz Tito's Yugoslavia, the alliance was purely conjectural (as Ceauşescu was already proved to be opposed to the principle of a Socialism with a human face). It did however consolidate Romania's independent voice in the next decades, especially after Ceauşescu encouraged the population to take up arms in order to meet any similar maneuver in that country: he received an enthusiastic initial response, with many people who were by no means communist willing to enroll in the newly-formed paramilitary Patriotic Guards.

In the German Democratic Republic, the invasion aroused a fair share of discontent among those who had hoped that Czechoslovakia would pave the way for a more liberal socialism. However, isolated protests were quickly stopped by the police and stasi.^[25]

Reactions around the world

Demonstration in Helsinki against the invasion

The night of the invasion, Canada, Denmark, France, Paraguay, the United Kingdom and the United States all requested a meeting of the United Nations Security Council.^[26] That afternoon, the council met to hear the Czechoslovak Ambassador Jan Muzik denounce the invasion. Soviet Ambassador Jacob Malik insisted the Warsaw Pact actions were "fraternal assistance" against "antisocial forces."^[26] The next day, several countries suggested a resolution condemning the intervention and calling for immediate withdrawal. US Ambassador George Ball, suggested that "the kind of fraternal assistance that the Soviet Union is according to Czechoslovakia is exactly the same kind that Cain gave to Abel."^[26]

Ball accused Soviet delegates of filibustering to put off the vote until the occupation was complete. Malik continued to speak, ranging in topics from US exploitation of Latin America's raw materials to statistics on Czech commodity trading.^[26] Eventually, a vote was taken. Ten members supported the motion; Algeria, India, and Pakistan abstained; the USSR (with veto power) and Hungary opposed it. Canadian delegates immediately introduced another motion asking for a UN representative to travel to Prague and work for the release of the imprisoned Czechoslovak leaders.^[26] Malik accused Western countries of hypocrisy, asking "who drowned the fields, villages and cities of Vietnam in blood?"^[26] By August 26, another vote had not taken place, but a new Czechoslovak representative requested the whole issue be removed from the Security Council's agenda.

Although the United States insisted at the UN that Warsaw Pact aggression was unjustifiable, its position was compromised by its own actions. Only three years earlier, US delegates to the UN had insisted that the overthrow of a leftist government Dominican Republic as part of Operation Power Pack was an issue to be worked out by the Organization of American States (OAS) without UN interference. The OAS accepted adherence to Marxism-Leninism as an armed attack justifying self-defense by the United States.^[26] American involvement in the Vietnam War led UN Secretary-General U Thant to draw further comparisons, suggesting that "if Russians were bombing and napalming the villages of Czechoslovakia" he might be more vocal in his denunciation.^[26]

In effect, the western countries offered only vocal criticism following the invasion — the reality of the Cold War meant they were in no position to challenge Soviet military force in Central Europe, without risking nuclear war.

In Finland, a neutral country under some Soviet political influence at that time, the occupation caused a major scandal. Like the Italian and French^[27] Communist Parties, the Communist Party of Finland denounced the occupation. Nonetheless, Finnish president Urho Kekkonen was the very first Western politician to officially visit Czechoslovakia after August 1968; he received the highest Czechoslovakian honours from the hands of president Ludvík Svoboda, on October 4, 1969.

The Portuguese communist secretary-general Álvaro Cunhal is believed to have been the only political leader from western Europe to have supported the invasion for being counterrevolutionary, along with the Luxembourgian Communist Party.

The United States government sent Shirley Temple Black, the famous child movie star, who became a diplomat in later life, to Prague in August 1968 to prepare to become the first United States Ambassador to free Czechoslovakia. Two decades later, when Czechoslovakia became independent, Mrs. Black was the first United States ambassador to the country. ^[28]

See also

• Czechoslovakia: 1948 - 1968 (provides further details)
• Normalization (Czechoslovakia)
• Ota Šik

External links

• August 1968 - Victims of the Occupation page dedicated to documenting the invasion, created by the Totalitarian Regime Study Institute

References

Eastern Bloc Soviet Union · Communism Annexed as, or into, SSRs Eastern Finland · Estonia · Latvia · Lithuania · Memel · East Prussia · West Belarus · Western Ukraine · Moldavia Satellite states People's Republic of Hungary · People's Republic of Poland · Czechoslovak Socialist Republic · Romanian People's Republic/Socialist Republic of Romania · East Germany · People's Republic of Albania (to 1961) · People's Republic of Bulgaria · Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia (to 1948) Annexing SSRs Russian SFSR · Ukrainian SSR · Byelorussian SSR Related organizations Cominform · COMECON · Warsaw Pact · WFTU · WFDY Revolts and opposition Uprising in Plzeň (1953) · Uprising of 1953 in East Germany · 1956 Georgian demonstrations · Poznań 1956 protests · Hungarian Revolution of 1956 · Novocherkassk massacre · Prague Spring and Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia · 1968 Red Square demonstration · Solidarity, Soviet reaction and Martial law · Reagan Doctrine · Jeltoqsan · April 9 tragedy · Romanian Revolution of 1989 · Black January Cold War events Marshall Plan · Berlin Blockade · Tito–Stalin split · Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948 · Berlin Wall Crisis of 1961 Conditions Eastern Bloc emigration and defection · Eastern Bloc information dissemination · Eastern Bloc politics · Eastern Bloc economies · Telephone tapping in the Eastern Bloc · List of Eastern Bloc defectors Decline Revolutions of 1989 · Fall of the Berlin Wall  · Singing Revolution · Collapse of the Soviet Union · Dissolution of Czechoslovakia · January 1991 events in Lithuania · January 1991 events in Latvia