1968 events in Czechoslovakia. The entry of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia is an urgent need

Series: Soviet holidays. Builder's Day

For the first time, Builder's Day was celebrated in the USSR on August 12, 1956. And it was like that. On September 6, 1955, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR "On the establishment of the annual holiday" Builder's Day "(on the second Sunday of August)" was issued. The conciseness of the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR is proof that the Builder's Day did not appear by chance, and that its appearance seemed to go without saying. Here is how the newspapers commented on it:
“A new manifestation of the concern of the party and the government for builders is the Decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR “On measures for further industrialization, improving the quality and reducing the cost of construction” adopted on August 23, 1955. This resolution fully and clearly analyzes the state of construction, determines the further paths for the broad industrialization of the construction business ”(“ Stroitelnaya gazeta ”, September 7, 1955).

“We builders are having a big day! Newspapers and radio carried the message throughout the country that the party and the government had adopted a resolution on a radical improvement in the construction industry. At the same time, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on the annual holiday - "Builder's Day" was published.
A sense of pride for our country, for our profession and ardent gratitude to the party and the government for taking care of us, the builders, filled our hearts ... ".

Builder's Day was celebrated on August 12. On this day, the newspapers wrote: “The Builder's Day celebrated today for the first time will henceforth be included in the calendar as a national holiday,” and this was not an exaggeration. Today it is difficult to imagine it, but in 1956 the country celebrated the holiday of builders with considerable enthusiasm, including folk festivals in parks of culture and recreation. Again, newspaper reports allow you to feel the atmosphere of those days:
“Moscow celebrated the holiday of builders with mass festivities, exhibitions, reports and lectures. It was especially crowded in the Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leisure. A meeting of the builders of the Leninsky district of the capital took place here, who built the architectural ensemble of the Moscow State University building, quarters of residential buildings in the south-west of the capital, the stadium named after V.I. Lenin, where the flag of the Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR is now hoisted. The builders of the district made a decision - to hand over by December 20, 210 thousand square meters. m of living space.
“On Sunday, the Chelyabinsk Park of Culture and Leisure was filled with about forty thousand builders. There was a rally…”

"Baku. A solemn meeting of the Baku City Council of Working People's Deputies, together with representatives of party, Soviet and public organizations, dedicated to the Builder's Day, took place here. The meeting was attended by the parliamentary delegation of Uruguay visiting here…”.

"Tbilisi. In the capital of Georgia, on August 11 and 12, festivities dedicated to the Builder's Day were held. Thousands of workers visited the Permanent Construction Exhibition that opened in the Ordzhonikidze Central Park of Culture and Leisure. It is deployed according to a new thematic plan. The main idea of the exhibition is to show elements of prefabricated reinforced concrete, large-block construction and advanced industrial methods of construction and installation works.

It is curious that many of the traditions laid down at the dawn of the celebration of the Builder's Day have survived to this day: awards for the holiday, and ceremonial meetings with the participation of representatives of government structures, and simply feasts, which the press of those years does not mention, but which, no doubt , took place. But specialized exhibitions are no longer timed to coincide with the Builder's Day. And maybe in vain ...

Whether he is in a suit, with a new tie,
Whether he is in lime, like a snowman.
Each builder in a phrase, in a word,
By interjection recognizes the foreman!
Here he rises to his full height,
Loud toast:
To everyone who levels the wall
Master level,
Who does the work
With a kind word, mother,
Who dined in the change house,
Ate sausage with radish
Who hung with their feet in the sky
On the mounting belt
To all who work in bad weather
Crowbar, drill and saw,
We wish: build happiness!
And don't stand under the arrow!

The entry of troops into Czechoslovakia (1968), also known as Operation Danube or Invasion of Czechoslovakia- the entry of Warsaw Pact troops (except Romania) into Czechoslovakia, which began on August 21, 1968 and put an end to the reforms of the Prague Spring.

The largest contingent of troops was allocated from the USSR. The united group (up to 500 thousand people and 5 thousand tanks and armored personnel carriers) was commanded by General of the Army I. G. Pavlovsky.

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The Soviet leadership feared that if the Czechoslovak communists pursued an internal policy independent of Moscow, the USSR would lose control over Czechoslovakia. Such a turn of events threatened to split the Eastern European socialist bloc both in political and military-strategic terms. The policy of limited state sovereignty in the countries of the socialist bloc, which allows, among other things, the use of military force, if necessary, has received the name "Brezhnev's doctrine" in the West.
The Soviet side did not rule out the option of NATO troops entering the territory of Czechoslovakia, which carried out maneuvers code-named "Black Lion" near the borders of Czechoslovakia.

Development of an operational plan for the invasion

Taking into account the emerging military-political situation, in the spring of 1968, the joint command of the Warsaw Pact, together with the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR, developed an operation code-named "Danube".
On April 8, 1968, the commander of the airborne troops, General V.F. Margelov, received a directive, according to which he began planning the use of airborne assault forces on the territory of Czechoslovakia. The directive stated: "The Soviet Union and other socialist countries, loyal to international duty and the Warsaw Pact, must send their troops to assist the Czechoslovak People's Army in defending the Motherland from the danger looming over it." The document also emphasized: “... if the troops of the Czechoslovak People's Army treat the appearance of Soviet troops with understanding, in this case it is necessary to organize interaction with them and jointly carry out the assigned tasks. If the ChNA troops are hostile to the paratroopers and support the conservative forces, then it is necessary to take measures to localize them, and if this is not possible, to disarm them.

Pressure on Alexander Dubcek

During April-May, Soviet leaders tried to "reason" Alexander Dubcek, to draw his attention to the danger of the actions of anti-socialist forces. At the end of April, Marshal I. Yakubovsky, Commander-in-Chief of the Joint Armed Forces of the countries participating in the Warsaw Pact, arrived in Prague to prepare exercises for the troops of the Warsaw Pact countries on the territory of Czechoslovakia.
On May 4, Brezhnev met with Dubcek in Moscow, but it was not possible to reach mutual understanding.

1st meeting of the leaders of the countries participating in the introduction of troops

On May 8, a closed meeting of the leaders of the USSR, Poland, the GDR, Bulgaria and Hungary was held in Moscow, during which a frank exchange of views took place on measures to be taken in connection with the situation in Czechoslovakia. Even then there were proposals for a military solution. However, at the same time, the leader of Hungary, J. Kadar, referring to the experience of 1956, stated that the Czechoslovak crisis cannot be resolved by military means and a political solution must be sought.

Exercises of the troops of the Warsaw Pact countries "Sumava"

At the end of May, the government of Czechoslovakia agreed to conduct exercises of the troops of the Warsaw Pact countries called "Shumava", which took place on June 20-30 with the involvement of only the headquarters of units, formations and signal troops. From June 20 to June 30, 16,000 personnel were brought into the territory of Czechoslovakia for the first time in the history of the military bloc of the socialist countries. From July 23 to August 10, 1968, the Neman rear exercises were held on the territory of the USSR, the GDR and Poland, during which troops were redeployed to enter Czechoslovakia. On August 11, 1968, a major exercise of the air defense forces "Heavenly Shield" was held. On the territory of Western Ukraine, Poland and the GDR, exercises of the signal troops were held.
July 29 - August 1, a meeting was held in Čierná nad Tisou, in which the full composition of the Politburo CC CPSU and the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, together with President L. Svoboda, took part. The Czechoslovak delegation in the negotiations basically acted as a united front, but V. Bilyak adhered to a special position. At the same time, a personal letter was received from a candidate member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia A. Kapek with a request to provide "fraternal assistance" to his country from the socialist countries.
At the end of July, preparations for a military operation in Czechoslovakia were completed, but a final decision on its implementation had not yet been made. On August 3, 1968, the leaders of the six communist parties met in Bratislava. The statement adopted in Bratislava contained a phrase about collective responsibility in the defense of socialism. In Bratislava, L. Brezhnev received a letter from five members of the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia - Indra, Kolder, Kapek, Svestka and Bilyak with a request for "effective assistance and support" in order to wrest Czechoslovakia "from the imminent danger of counter-revolution."
In mid-August, L. Brezhnev called A. Dubcek twice and asked why the personnel changes promised in Bratislava were not taking place, to which Dubcek replied that personnel matters were resolved collectively, by a plenum of the Party Central Committee.
On August 16, in Moscow, at a meeting of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, a discussion of the situation in Czechoslovakia was held and proposals for the introduction of troops were approved. At the same time, a letter was received from the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. On August 17, Soviet Ambassador S. Chervonenko met with the President of Czechoslovakia, L. Svoboda, and informed Moscow that at the decisive moment the President would be together with the CPSU and the Soviet Union. On the same day, the materials prepared in Moscow for the text of the Appeal to the Czechoslovak people were sent to the group of "healthy forces" in the HRC. It was planned that they would create a Revolutionary Workers' and Peasants' Government. A draft appeal was also prepared by the governments of the USSR, the GDR, Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary to the people of Czechoslovakia, as well as to the Czechoslovak army.

2nd meeting of the leaders of the countries participating in the invasion

On August 18, a meeting of the leaders of the USSR, East Germany, Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary took place in Moscow. Appropriate measures were agreed, including the appearance of the "healthy forces" of the HRC with a request for military assistance. In a message to the President of Czechoslovakia, Svoboda, on behalf of the participants in the meeting in Moscow, one of the main arguments was the receipt of a request for assistance by the armed forces to the Czechoslovak people from the “majority” of the members of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and many members of the government of Czechoslovakia.

Operation

The political goal of the operation was to change the political leadership of the country and establish a regime loyal to the USSR in Czechoslovakia. The troops were to seize the most important objects in Prague, the KGB officers were to arrest the Czech reformers, and then the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the session of the National Assembly were planned, where the top leadership was to be replaced. At the same time, a large role was assigned to President Svoboda. The political leadership of the operation in Prague was carried out by a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU K. Mazurov.
The military preparation of the operation was carried out by the Commander-in-Chief of the United Armed Forces of the Warsaw Pact countries, Marshal I. I. Yakubovsky, however, a few days before the start of the operation, the Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR, General of the Army I. G. Pavlovsky was appointed its leader.
At the first stage, the main role was assigned to the airborne troops. The air defense forces, the navy and the strategic missile troops were put on high alert.
By August 20, a grouping of troops was prepared, the first echelon of which numbered up to 250,000 people, and the total number - up to 500,000 people, about 5,000 tanks and armored personnel carriers. For the implementation of the operation, 26 divisions were involved, of which 18 were Soviet, not counting aviation. The troops of the Soviet 1st Guards Tank, 20th Guards Combined Arms, 16th Air Armies (Group of Soviet Troops in Germany), 11th Guards Army (Baltic Military District), 28th Air Force took part in the invasion. district), the 13th and 38th combined arms armies (Carpathian military district) and the 14th air army (Odessa military district). The Carpathian and Central Fronts were formed:
- The Carpathian Front was created on the basis of the administration and troops of the Carpathian Military District and several Polish divisions. It included four armies: 13th, 38th combined arms, 8th guards tank and 57th air. At the same time, the 8th Guards Tank Army and part of the forces of the 13th Army began to move to the southern regions of Poland, where Polish divisions were additionally included in their composition. Commander Colonel-General Bisyarin Vasily Zinovievich.
- The Central Front was formed on the basis of the Directorate of the Baltic Military District with the inclusion of the troops of the Baltic Military District, the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany and the Northern Group of Forces, as well as individual Polish and East German divisions. This front was deployed in the GDR and Poland. The Central Front included the 11th and 20th Guards Combined Arms and the 37th Air Armies.
Also, the Southern Front was deployed to cover the operating group in Hungary. In addition to this front, the operational group Balaton (two Soviet divisions, as well as Bulgarian and Hungarian units) was deployed on the territory of Hungary to enter Czechoslovakia.
In general, the number of troops introduced into Czechoslovakia was:

The date for the introduction of troops was set for the evening of August 20, when a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was held. On the morning of August 20, 1968, a secret order was read to the officers on the formation of the Danube High Command. Commander-in-Chief was appointed General of the Army I. G. Pavlovsky, whose headquarters was deployed in the southern part of Poland. Both fronts (Central and Carpathian) and the Balaton task force, as well as two guards airborne divisions, were subordinate to him. On the first day of the operation, to ensure the landing of airborne divisions, five divisions of military transport aviation were allocated at the disposal of the Commander-in-Chief "Danube".

Chronology of events

At the news of the invasion, the Presidium of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia immediately gathered in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in Dubcek's office. The majority - 7 to 4 - voted in favor of the Presidium's statement condemning the invasion. Only members of the Presidium Kolder, Bilyak, Svestka and Rigaud spoke according to the original plan. Barbirek and Piller supported Dubcek and O. Chernik. The calculation of the Soviet leadership was on the preponderance of "healthy forces" at the decisive moment - 6 against 5. The statement also contained a call for an urgent convocation of a party congress.
Dubcek himself in his radio address [ ] to the inhabitants of the country called on citizens to remain calm and prevent bloodshed and the actual repetition of the Hungarian events of 1956.
By 4:30 am on August 21, the Central Committee building was surrounded by Soviet troops and armored vehicles, Soviet paratroopers broke into the building and arrested those present. Dubcek and other members of the Central Committee spent several hours under the control of paratroopers.

At 5:10 a.m. on August 21, a reconnaissance company of the 350th Guards Airborne Regiment and a separate reconnaissance company of the 103rd Airborne Division landed. Within 10 minutes they captured the airfields of Turzhany and Namesti, after which a hasty landing of the main forces began. According to eyewitnesses, transport planes landed at the airfields one after another. The landing party jumped off without waiting for a complete stop. By the end of the runway, the plane was already empty and immediately picked up speed for a new takeoff. With a minimum interval, other aircraft with troops and military equipment began to arrive here. Then the paratroopers on their military equipment and captured civilian vehicles went deep into the country.
At the call of the President of the country and the Czech Radio, the citizens of Czechoslovakia did not provide an armed rebuff to the invading troops. However, everywhere the troops met the passive resistance of the local population. Czechs and Slovaks refused to provide Soviet troops with drink, food and fuel, changed road signs to impede the advance of troops, took to the streets, tried to explain to the soldiers the essence of the events taking place in Czechoslovakia, appealed to the Russian-Czechoslovak brotherhood. Citizens demanded the withdrawal of foreign troops and the return of party and government leaders who had been taken to the USSR.

Without suspecting anything, we arrived in Prague on the evening of August 20, we wanted to properly examine the Czech miracle - and when we woke up early in the morning on the 21st, that's when it started! For some reason, we were not afraid, but it, of course, "got on our nerves" - to see the Czechs brought to the extreme, and opposite them - the poor, innocent, the same extreme Soviet soldiers! It was crazy, and we, of course, all four days thought that it was about to "begin" - it was a devilishly conceived pure war of nerves between Prague residents and Soviet soldiers. I do not discount the incident during which one person died, and yet I must say: both groups opposing each other behaved courageously and humanely.

At the initiative of the Prague City Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, clandestine meetings of the XIV Congress of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia began ahead of schedule, on the territory of the plant in Vysochany (a district of Prague), however, without delegates from Slovakia who did not have time to arrive. Representatives of the conservative-minded group of delegates at the congress were not elected to any of the leadership positions in the HRC.

Negotiations in Moscow

The Soviet leadership was forced to look for a compromise solution. The members of the leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, who were taken to the USSR, were taken to Moscow. President L. Svoboda also arrived in Moscow together with G. Gusak, who at that moment was the deputy head of government.
On August 26, 1968, near the city of Zvolen (Czechoslovakia), an An-12 crashed from the Tula 374 VTAP (c/c captain N. Nabok). According to the pilots, the plane with a load (9 tons of butter) during landing approach was fired from the ground from a machine gun at an altitude of 300 meters and, as a result of damage to the 4th engine, crashed, not reaching the runway for several kilometers. 5 people died (burned alive in the resulting fire), the gunner-radio operator survived. . However, according to Czech historians and archivists, the plane crashed into a mountain.
Near the village of Zhandov near the city of Ceska Lipa, a group of citizens, blocking the road to the bridge, impeded the movement of the Soviet T-55 tank foreman Yu. I. Andreev, who was catching up with the column that had gone ahead at high speed. The foreman decided to turn off the road so as not to crush people and the tank collapsed from the bridge along with the crew. Three soldiers were killed.
The losses of the USSR in technology are not exactly known. In parts of the 38th Army alone, in the first three days, 7 tanks and armored personnel carriers were burned on the territory of Slovakia and North Moravia.
Known data on the losses of the armed forces of other countries participating in the operation. So, the Hungarian army lost 4 soldiers dead (all non-combat losses: accident, illness, suicide). The Bulgarian army lost 2 people - one sentry was killed at the post by unknown persons (while a machine gun was stolen), 1 soldier shot himself.

Further developments

In early September, the troops were withdrawn from many cities and towns of Czechoslovakia to specially designated locations. Soviet tanks left Prague on September 11, 1968. On October 16, 1968, an agreement was signed between the governments of the USSR and Czechoslovakia on the conditions for the temporary stay of Soviet troops on the territory of Czechoslovakia, according to which part of the Soviet troops remained on the territory of Czechoslovakia "in order to ensure the security of the socialist community." On October 17, 1968, a phased withdrawal of part of the troops from the territory of Czechoslovakia began, which was completed by mid-November.
On the territory of Czechoslovakia, the Soviet military presence remained until 1991.

International assessment of the invasion

On August 21, representatives of a group of countries (USA, Great Britain, France, Canada, Denmark and Paraguay) addressed the UN Security Council with a demand to bring the "Czechoslovak question" to a meeting of the UN General Assembly. The representatives of Hungary and the USSR voted against. Then the representative of Czechoslovakia also demanded that this issue be removed from consideration by the UN. The military intervention of the five states was condemned by the governments of four socialist countries - Yugoslavia, Romania, Albania (which withdrew from the Warsaw Pact in September), China, as well as a number of communist parties in Western countries.

Protests in the USSR

In the Soviet Union, some members of the intelligentsia protested against the entry of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia.

Protest demonstration on August 25, 1968 in Moscow

Rally in memory of Palach

The demonstration on August 25 was not an isolated act of protest against the entry of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia.
“There is reason to believe that the number of these cases is much higher than has been known,” writes the Chronicle, and gives several examples:

On January 25, 1969, on the day of the funeral of Jan Palach, two students of Moscow University went to Mayakovsky Square with a poster on which two slogans were written: "Eternal memory of Jan Palach" and "Freedom of Czechoslovakia." They stood on the square, behind the monument to Mayakovsky, for about 12 minutes. Gradually, a silent crowd began to gather around them. Then a group of young people without bandages approached the girls, calling themselves vigilantes. They took away and tore up the poster, and the students, after consulting, were released.

Leaflets

On August 21, leaflets protesting against the stay of allied troops in Czechoslovakia appeared in Moscow writers' houses at the Airport and in Zyuzino, as well as in the dormitory of Moscow State University on the Lenin Hills. One of the three texts of the leaflets was signed "Union of Communards".

Statements

On August 21 last year, a tragic event occurred: the troops of the Warsaw Pact countries invaded friendly Czechoslovakia.
This action was intended to stop the democratic path of development, which the whole country has embarked on. The whole world followed with hope the post-January development of Czechoslovakia. It seemed that the idea of socialism, defamed in the Stalin era, would now be rehabilitated. The tanks of the Warsaw Pact countries destroyed this hope. On this sad anniversary, we declare that we continue to disagree with this decision, which threatens the future of socialism.
We stand in solidarity with the people of Czechoslovakia, who wanted to prove that socialism with a human face is possible.
These lines are dictated by pain for our homeland, which we want to see truly great, free and happy.
And we are firmly convinced that a people who oppress other peoples cannot be free and happy.

Possible motivations for the introduction of troops

Military-strategic aspect: the voluntarism of Czechoslovakia in foreign policy in the conditions of the Cold War threatened the security of the border with NATO countries; Until 1968, Czechoslovakia remained the only Warsaw Pact country where there were no Soviet military bases.
Ideological aspect: the ideas of socialism "with a human face" undermined the idea of the truth of Marxism-Leninism, the dictatorship of the proletariat and the leading role of the communist party, which, in turn, affected the power interests of the party elite.
Political aspect: the harsh crackdown on democratic voluntarism in Czechoslovakia gave members of the Politburo CC CPSU the opportunity, on the one hand, to crack down on internal opposition, on the other hand, to increase their authority, and thirdly, to prevent the disloyalty of the allies and demonstrate military power to potential opponents.

Consequences

As a result of Operation Danube, Czechoslovakia remained a member of the Eastern European socialist bloc. The Soviet grouping of troops (up to 130 thousand people) remained in Czechoslovakia until 1991. The agreement on the conditions for the stay of Soviet troops on the territory of Czechoslovakia became one of the main military-political results of the entry of troops of five states that satisfied the leadership of the USSR and the Department of Internal Affairs. However, Albania withdrew from the Warsaw Pact as a result of the invasion.
The suppression of the Prague Spring increased the disillusionment of many on the Western Left with Marxist-Leninist theory and contributed to the growth of "Eurocommunism" ideas among the leadership and members of Western Communist parties - subsequently leading to a split in many of them. The communist parties of Western Europe lost mass support, as the impossibility of "socialism with a human face" was practically shown.
Paradoxically, the military action in Czechoslovakia in 1968 accelerated the arrival in relations between East and West of the period of the so-called "detente" based on the recognition of the territorial status quo that existed in Europe and the implementation by Germany under Chancellor Willi Brandt of the so-called "new" Eastern "policy" .

see also

Notes
1. Stolarik, M. Mark. The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968: Forty Years Later. - Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 2010. - P. 137–164. - ISBN 9780865167513.
2. Conflicted Memories: Europeanizing Contemporary Histories, edited by Konrad H. Jarausch, Thomas Lindenberger, p. 43
3. Back to the Business of Reform , Time Magazine(August 16, 1968). Retrieved April 27, 2010.
4. A Look Back … The Prague Spring & the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia . Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved on 11 June 2016.
5. Washington Post, (Final Edition), 21 August 1998, (Page A11)
6. http://armada.vojenstvi.cz - Střední skupina sovětských vojsk v Československu
7. Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia . Globalsecurity.org. Retrieved on 23 June 2011.
8. Invaze vojsk Varšavské smlouvy do Československa 21. srpna 1968 . armyweb.cz. Retrieved on 11 June 2016.
9. Operace Dunaj a oběti na straně okupantů (indefinite) . Regional Studies of Russia (Reálie Ruska). Zapadoceska univerzita v Plzni. Retrieved 17 November 2015.
10. Čs. armada po roce 1945 (indefinite) . Vojenstvi.cz. Retrieved 17 November 2015.
11. Russia and the USSR in the Wars of the 20th Century: A Statistical Study. - M.: OLMA-PRESS, 2001. - S. 533.
12. Skomra, Slawomir Brali udział w inwazji na Czechosłowację. Kombatanci?(Polish) (indefinite). Agora S.A. Retrieved 21 September 2013.
13. Georgi LUKOV. BULGARIAN MILITARY PARTICIPATION IN CZECHOSLOVASHKIT 1968 BATTLE. CVA, V. Tarnovo, 5 Oct. 2001 Pub. on Sat. "Army, Dzharzhava, Society" 2002
14. (Czech) August 1968 – Victims of the Occupation – Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů . Ustrcr.cz. Retrieved on 23 June 2011.
15. 21. srpen 1968 (Czech)
16. P. Weil In August 68th. Russian newspaper, August 20, 2008.
17. Jak zemřeli vojáci armád při invazi "68: Bulhara zastřelili Češi, Sověti umírali na silnicích . Hospodářské noviny IHNED.cz. Retrieved on 11 June 201.
18. Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia . European Network Remembrance and Solidarity. Retrieved on 11 June 2016.
19. Battles of Russia. Nikolay Shefov. Military History Library. M., 2002.
20. V. Musatov. About the Prague Spring in 1968
21. "We prepared to strike on the flank of NATO troops ". Interview of V. Volodin with retired lieutenant general Alfred Gaponenko. News time, No. 143. 08/08/2008.
22. The team of authors. Russia (USSR) in wars second half XX century. - M. : Triada-farm, 2002. - S. 333. - 494 p. - (State program "Patriotic education of citizens of the Russian Federation for 2001-2005". Institute of Military History of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.). - 1000 copies. with reference to "The military history of the Fatherland from ancient times to the present day." In 3 vols., T. 3. M .: Institute of Military History, 1995. P. 47.
23. "Results" No. 43 (907) dated 10/28/2013
24. Pavlovsky I.G. Memoirs about the entry of Soviet troops to Czechoslovakia in August 1968 . News. August 19, 1989
25. The team of authors.
At two o'clock in the morning on August 21, 1968, the Soviet An-24 passenger plane requested an emergency landing at Prague's Ruzyne airport. The controllers gave the go-ahead, the plane landed, servicemen of the 7th Guards Airborne Division stationed in Kaunas disembarked from it. The paratroopers, under the threat of using weapons, seized all the facilities of the airfield and began receiving An-12 transport aircraft with paratrooper units and military equipment. Transport An-12s landed on the runway every 30 seconds. Thus began the operation carefully designed by the USSR to occupy Czechoslovakia and ended with the so-called. The Prague Spring is a process of democratic reforms carried out by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia under the leadership of Alexander Dubcek.
The operation to capture Czechoslovakia, which was called the "Danube", was attended by the armies of four socialist countries: the USSR, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria. The GDR army was also supposed to enter the territory of Czechoslovakia, but at the last moment the Soviet leadership was afraid of the analogy with 1939 and the Germans did not cross the border. The Soviet Army became the main striking force of the group of troops of the Warsaw Pact countries - these were 18 motorized rifle, tank and airborne divisions, 22 aviation and helicopter regiments, with a total number, according to various sources, from 170 to 240 thousand people. About 5000 tanks alone were involved. Two fronts were created - the Carpathian and Central, and the number of the combined group of troops reached half a million military personnel. The invasion was, according to the usual Soviet habit, presented as help to the fraternal Czechoslovak people in the fight against counter-revolution.
No counter-revolution in Czechoslovakia, of course, and did not smell. The country fully supported the Communist Party, which began political and economic reforms in January 1968. In terms of the number of communists per 1,000 people, Czechoslovakia ranked first in the world. With the beginning of the reforms, censorship was significantly weakened, free discussions took place everywhere, and the creation of a multi-party system began. A desire was declared to ensure complete freedom of speech, assembly and movement, to establish strict control over the activities of security agencies, to facilitate the possibility of organizing private enterprises and to reduce state control over production. In addition, it was planned to federalize the state and expand the powers of the authorities of the subjects of Czechoslovakia - the Czech Republic and Slovakia. All this, of course, worried the leadership of the USSR, which pursued a policy of limited sovereignty in relation to its vassals in Europe (the so-called "Brezhnev doctrine"). The Dubcek team was repeatedly persuaded to stay on a short leash from Moscow and not strive to build socialism according to Western standards. Persuasions did not help. In addition, Czechoslovakia remained a country where the USSR was never able to deploy either its military bases or tactical nuclear weapons. And this moment was, perhaps, the main reason for such a military operation so disproportionate to the scale of the country - the Kremlin Politburo had to force the Czechoslovaks to obey themselves at any cost. The leadership of Czechoslovakia, in order to avoid bloodshed and the destruction of the country, took the army to the barracks and provided the Soviet troops with the opportunity to freely dispose of the fate of the Czechs and Slovaks. The only kind of resistance the occupiers faced was civil protest. This was especially evident in Prague, where unarmed residents of the city staged a real obstruction to the invaders.
At three o'clock in the morning on August 21 (it was also a Wednesday), Prime Minister Chernik was arrested by Soviet soldiers. At 4:50 a.m., a column of tanks and armored personnel carriers headed for the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, where a twenty-year-old resident of Prague was shot dead. In Dubcek's office, the Soviet military arrested him and seven members of the Central Committee. At seven in the morning, the tanks headed for Winohradska 12, where Radio Prague was located. Residents managed to build barricades there, tanks began to break through, and shooting at people was opened. That morning, seventeen people were killed outside the Radio building, and another 52 were injured and taken to the hospital. After 14:00, the arrested leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was put on a plane and taken to Ukraine with the assistance of the country's President Ludwig Svoboda, who fought the puppet government of Bilyak and Indra as best he could (thanks to Svoboda, Dubcek was saved and then transported to Moscow). A curfew was introduced in the city; in the dark, soldiers opened fire on any moving object.
01. In the evening, European time, the UN Security Council held an emergency meeting in New York, at which it adopted a resolution condemning the invasion. The USSR vetoed it.
02. Trucks with students holding national flags began to drive around the city. All key objects of the city were taken under the control of the Soviet troops.
03. At the National Museum. The military equipment was immediately surrounded by the inhabitants of the city and entered into conversations with the soldiers, often very sharp, tense. In some areas of the city, shooting was heard, and the wounded were constantly being taken to hospitals.
06. In the morning, the youth began to build barricades, attack tanks, threw stones at them, bottles of combustible mixture, tried to set fire to military equipment.
08. The inscription on the bus: Soviet cultural center.
10. One of the soldiers wounded as a result of shooting at the crowd.
11. Mass sabotage actions began throughout Prague. In order to make it difficult for the military to navigate the city, the citizens of Prague began to destroy street signs, knock down signs with street names, house numbers.
13. Soviet soldiers broke into the Church of St. Martin in Bratislava. First they fired at the windows and the tower of the medieval church, then they broke the locks and got inside. The altar, the donation box were opened, the organ, church supplies were broken, paintings were destroyed, benches and the pulpit were broken. The soldiers climbed into the crypt with burials and broke several tombstones there. This church was robbed throughout the day, by different groups of military personnel.
14. Units of the Soviet troops enter the city of Liberec
15. The dead and wounded after the military assault on the Prague Radio.
16. Unauthorized entry is strictly prohibited
19. The walls of houses, shop windows, fences have become a platform for merciless criticism of the invaders.
20. “Run home, Ivan, Natasha is waiting for you”, “Not a drop of water or a loaf of bread to the invaders”, “Bravo, guys! Hitler", "USSR, go home", "Twice occupied, twice taught", "1945 - liberators, 1968 - occupiers", "We were afraid of the West, we were attacked from the East", "Not hands up, but head up!" , “You have conquered space, but not us”, “The elephant cannot swallow a hedgehog”, “Do not call it hatred, call it knowledge”, “Long live democracy. Without Moscow” are just a few examples of such wall-mounted agitation.
21. “I had a soldier, I loved him. I had a watch - the Red Army took it."
22. On the Old Town Square.
25. I remember a contemporary interview with a Prague woman who, on the 21st, went out to the city with her university friends to see the Soviet military. “We thought there were some kind of terrible invaders, but in fact, very young guys with peasant faces were sitting on armored personnel carriers, a little scared, constantly grabbing weapons, not understanding what they were doing here and why the crowd reacted so aggressively to them. The commanders told them that they had to go and save the Czech people from the counter-revolution.”
39. A homemade leaflet from those that they tried to distribute to Soviet soldiers.
40. Today, at the building of the Prague Radio, where on August 21, 1968 people who defended the radio station died, a memorial ceremony was held, wreaths were laid, that morning broadcast from 68 was broadcast, when the radio announced the attack on the country. The announcer reads the text, and shooting in the street is heard in the background.
49. At the site of the National Museum, where a monument to self-immolated student Jan Palach is erected, candles are burning.
51. An exhibition has been arranged at the beginning of Wenceslas Square - a documentary film about the events of the Prague Spring and August 1968 is shown on a large screen, there is an infantry fighting vehicle with a characteristic white line, an ambulance of those years, there are stands with photographs and reproductions of Prague graffiti.
57. 1945: we kissed your fathers > 1968: you shed our blood and take away our freedom.
According to modern data, during the invasion, 108 citizens of Czechoslovakia were killed and more than 500 wounded, the vast majority of civilians. On the first day of the invasion alone, 58 people were killed or mortally wounded, including seven women and an eight-year-old child.
The result of the operation to remove the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the occupation of the country was the deployment of a Soviet military contingent in Czechoslovakia: five motorized rifle divisions, with a total number of up to 130 thousand people, 1412 tanks, 2563 armored personnel carriers and Temp-S tactical missile systems with nuclear warheads. A leadership loyal to Moscow was brought to power, and a purge was carried out in the party. The Prague Spring reforms were completed only after 1991.
Photos: Josef Koudelka, Libor Hajsky, CTK, Reuters, drugoi

Operation Danube. This is what the documents called the strategic exercise of the troops of the five member countries of the Warsaw Pact, the purpose of which was "to protect the socialist gains in Czechoslovakia." Under Gorbachev, the introduction of troops into Czechoslovakia on August 21, 1968 was written as “the suppression of the construction of socialism with a human face”, and after the collapse of the USSR, these events are described only in a sharply condemning and rude form, the foreign policy of the USSR is considered aggressive, Soviet soldiers are called “occupiers” etc…

Today's publicists do not want to reckon with the fact that all events in the world took place, and are taking place, in a specific international or domestic situation at a given period of time, and they judge the past by today's standards. Question: could the leadership of the countries of the socialist camp and, first of all, the Soviet Union at that time make a different decision?
International environment
At that time in Europe there were two worlds, opposite in ideologies - socialist and capitalist. Two economic organizations - the so-called Common Market in the West and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance in the East.
There were two opposing military blocs - NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Now they only remember that in 1968 in the GDR there was a Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, in Poland - the Northern Group of Soviet Forces and in Hungary - the Southern Group of Forces.
But for some reason they do not remember that the troops of the USA, Great Britain, and Belgium were stationed on the territory of the FRG, and the army corps of the Netherlands and France were ready to advance if necessary. Both military groups were in a state of full combat readiness.
Each side defended its own interests and, observing appearances, tried by any means to weaken the other.
Socio-political situation in Czechoslovakia
At the January 1968 Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, the mistakes and shortcomings of the country's leadership were subjected to fair criticism, and a decision was made on the need for changes in the management of the state's economy.
Alexander Dubcek was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, who led the reforms, later called "the construction of socialism with a human face." The country's top leadership has changed (except for President L. Svoboda), and with it, domestic and foreign policy began to change.
Using the criticism of the leadership voiced at the Plenum, the opposition political forces, speculating on the demands of the “expansion” of democracy, began to discredit the Communist Party, power structures, state security agencies and socialism as a whole. Covert preparations for a change in the state system began.
In the media, on behalf of the people, they demanded: the abolition of the leadership of the party's economic and political life, the declaration of the CPC as a criminal organization, a ban on its activities, the dissolution of the state security agencies and the People's Militia. (People's militia - the name of the armed party workers' detachments that have been preserved since 1948, reporting directly to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.)
Various "clubs" ("Club 231", "Club of Active Non-Party People") and other organizations arose throughout the country, the main goal and task of which was to denigrate the country's history after 1945, rally the opposition, and conduct anti-constitutional propaganda.
By mid-1968, the Ministry of Internal Affairs received about 70 applications for the registration of new organizations and associations. So, "Club 231" (On the basis of Article 231 of the Law on the Protection of the Constitution, anti-state and anti-constitutional activities were punished) was established in Prague on March 31, 1968, although it did not have permission from the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The club united over 40 thousand people, among whom were former criminals and state criminals. As the newspaper Rude Pravo noted, among the members of the club were former Nazis, SS men, Henlein, ministers of the puppet "Slovak state", representatives of the reactionary clergy.
At one of the meetings, the general secretary of the club, Yaroslav Brodsky, said: “The best communist is a dead communist, and if he is still alive, then he should pull out his legs.” At enterprises and in various organizations, branches of the club were created, which were called "Societies for the Protection of the Word and the Press."
One of the most striking anti-constitutional materials can be considered the appeal of the underground organization "Revolutionary Committee of the Democratic Party of Slovakia", distributed in June in organizations and enterprises in the city of Svit.
Demands were put forward in it: to dissolve the collective farms and cooperatives, to distribute land to the peasants, to hold elections under the control of England, the USA, Italy and France, to stop criticism of Western states in the press, and to focus it on the USSR, to allow the legal activities of the political parties that existed in bourgeois Czechoslovakia, to annex already in 1968 "Transcarpathian Rus" to Czechoslovakia. The appeal ended with the call: "Death to the Communist Party!"
The French weekly Express on May 6 cited Antonin Lim, editor of the foreign department of the newspaper Literarni Listy: "Today in Czechoslovakia there is a question of taking power." Underground activities were revived by the Social Democratic Party and the Labor Party.
In order to create some kind of counterbalance to the Warsaw Pact, the idea of creating the Little Entente was revived as a regional bloc of socialist and capitalist states and a buffer between the great powers.
Publications on this topic were picked up by the Western press. Noteworthy was the remark of the analyst of the French newspaper "Figaro": "The geographical position of Czechoslovakia can turn it both into a bolt of the Warsaw Pact, the pact, and into a gap that opens the entire military system of the Eastern bloc."
In May, a group of employees of the Prague Military-Political Academy published "Remarks on the development of the Program of Action of the Czechoslovak People's Army." The authors proposed "withdrawal of Czechoslovakia from the Warsaw Pact or, possibly, joint actions of Czechoslovakia with other socialist countries to eliminate the Warsaw Pact as a whole and replace it with a system of bilateral relations." As an option, there was a proposal to take a position of "consistent neutrality" in foreign policy.
Serious attacks from the position of "sound economic calculation" were also made against the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance.
On June 14, the Czechoslovak opposition invited the famous "Sovietologist" Zbigniew Brzezinski to give lectures in Prague, in which he outlined his strategy of "liberalization", called for the destruction of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, as well as the elimination of the police and state security. According to him, he fully "supported the interesting Czechoslovak experiment."
A direct undermining of the national interests of Czechoslovakia were calls for "rapprochement" with the FRG, which were heard not only in the media, but also in the speeches of some of the country's leaders.
The matter was not limited to words.
The western borders of Czechoslovakia were opened, border barriers and fortifications began to be liquidated. At the direction of the Minister of State Security Pavel, spies of Western countries identified by counterintelligence were not detained, but were given the opportunity to leave. (In 1969, Pavel was put on trial and shot by the Czechoslovak authorities.)
Activities of foreign authorities, military and media
During this period, consultative meetings of representatives of NATO countries were held, at which possible measures were studied to bring Czechoslovakia out of the socialist camp. The United States expressed its readiness to influence Czechoslovakia on the issue of obtaining a loan from the capitalist countries, using the interest of Czechoslovakia in returning its gold reserves.
In 1968, the Vatican stepped up its activities in Czechoslovakia. Its leadership recommended directing the activities of the Catholic Church towards merging with the movement for "independence" and "liberalization", as well as taking on the role of "support and freedom in the countries of Eastern Europe", concentrating on Czechoslovakia, Poland and the GDR.
The population of Czechoslovakia was persistently instilled with the idea that there was no danger of revanchism from the FRG, that one could think about the return of the Sudeten Germans to the country. The newspaper "General Anzeiger" (FRG) wrote: "The Sudeten Germans will expect from Czechoslovakia, liberated from communism, a return to the Munich Agreement, according to which the Sudetenland was ceded to Germany in the autumn of 1938."
In the program of the National Democratic Party of Germany, one of the points read: "The Sudetenland must again become German, because they were acquired by Nazi Germany within the framework of the Munich Treaty, which is an effective international agreement." This program was actively supported by the "Fellowship of the Sudeten Germans" and the neo-fascist organization "Vitikobund".
And the editor of the Czech trade union newspaper Prace, Irzicek, told German television: “About 150,000 Germans live in our country. One can hope that the remaining 100-200 thousand could return to their homeland a little later.” Of course, no one anywhere remembered the persecution of the Czechs by the Sudeten Germans.
In the correspondence of the ADN agency, it was reported that Bundeswehr officers were repeatedly sent to Czechoslovakia for reconnaissance purposes. This applied, first of all, to the officers of the 2nd Army Corps, whose formations were stationed near the border of Czechoslovakia.
Later it became known that in preparation for the Black Lion exercise planned for autumn, the entire command staff of the 2nd Corps, up to and including the battalion commander, visited Czechoslovakia as tourists and drove along the probable routes of movement of their units.
With the start of the “exercises”, it was planned to take the territories torn away by Germany in 1938 in a short throw and put the international community before the fact. The calculation was based on the fact that if the USSR and the USA did not begin to fight because of the Arab territories occupied by Israel in 1967, they will not now either.
In order to create a situation in Czechoslovakia that would facilitate the withdrawal of Czechoslovakia from the Warsaw Pact, the NATO Council developed the Zephyr program.
An article in the Finnish newspaper Päivän sanomat dated September 6, 1968 reported that in the region of Regensburg (Germany) “an agency has been operating and continues to function to monitor Czechoslovak events. In July, a special Observation and Control Center began to operate, which American officers call the "Strike Group Headquarters." It has more than 300 employees, including intelligence officers and political advisers.
The center reported information about the situation in Czechoslovakia to NATO headquarters three times a day. The remark of a representative of the NATO headquarters is interesting: “Although due to the entry of Warsaw Pact troops into Czechoslovakia and the conclusion of the Moscow Agreement, the special center did not solve the tasks assigned to it, its activities still were and continue to be valuable experience for the future.”
Choice
Thus, by the spring of 1968, the countries of the socialist camp faced a choice:
- allow opposition forces to push Czechoslovakia off the socialist path;
- to open the road to the East for a potential enemy, endangering not only the groupings of the Warsaw Pact, but also the results of the Second World War;
OR
- by the forces of the Commonwealth countries to protect the socialist system in Czechoslovakia and to assist in the development of its economy;
- once and for all put an end to the Munich policy, discarding all the claims of Hitler's revanchist heirs;
- put up a barrier in front of the new "Drang nah osten", showing the whole world that no one will be able to redraw the post-war borders established as a result of the struggle of many peoples against fascism.
Based on the current situation, at the end of July 1968, the second was chosen. However, if the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia had not shown such weakness and tolerance towards the enemies of the ruling party and the existing state system, nothing like this would have happened.
The military-political leadership of the USSR and other countries of the Warsaw Pact closely followed the events in Czechoslovakia and tried to bring their assessment to the authorities of Czechoslovakia. Meetings of the top leadership of the Warsaw Pact countries were held in Prague, Dresden, Warsaw, Cierna nad Tisou. During the meetings, the current situation was discussed, recommendations were made to the Czech leadership, but to no avail.
In the last days of July, at a meeting in Cierna nad Tisou, A. Dubcek was told that in case of refusal to carry out the recommended measures, the troops of the socialist countries would enter Czechoslovakia. Dubcek not only did not take any measures, but also did not bring this warning to the members of the Central Committee and the government of the country.
From a military point of view, there could be no other solution. The rejection of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, and even more so the entire country from the Warsaw Pact and its alliance with NATO, put the groupings of the Commonwealth troops in the GDR, Poland and Hungary under flank attack. The potential enemy received a direct exit to the border of the Soviet Union.
From the memoirs of the commander of the Alpha group of the KGB of the USSR, Hero of the Soviet Union, retired major general Zaitsev Gennady Nikolaevich (in 1968 - the head of the group of the 7th Directorate of the KGB of the USSR during Operation Danube):
« At that time, the situation in Czechoslovakia looked as follows.
… Not even the “progressives” from the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia began to come to the fore, but non-party forces — members of various “social” and “political” clubs, which were distinguished by their orientation towards the West and hatred of the Russians. June marked the beginning of a new phase of the aggravation of the situation in Czechoslovakia and the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and in mid-August the Dub-Chek team completely lost control over the situation in the country.
It is also noteworthy that some leaders of the "Prague Spring" believed that the sympathies of the West would certainly materialize in the form of a tough anti-Soviet position of the United States in the event of forceful actions by the Soviet Union.».
The task was set: a group led by G.N. Zaitsev to enter the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Czechoslovakia and take control of it. Interior Minister I. Pavel managed to escape the day before. According to numerous testimonies, I. Pavel, as the Prague Spring developed, gradually liquidated the state security agencies, getting rid of the communist cadres and supporters of Moscow.
He threatened his employees, who were trying to neutralize the so-called "progressives" (the Club of Non-Party Activists and the K-231 organization), with reprisals. Prior to the government's decision, they were ordered to immediately stop jamming foreign transmissions and begin dismantling equipment.
... The documents contained information that the Minister of Internal Affairs I. Pavel and the head of the department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, General Prkhlik, “prepared a project for the creation of a leading Center that should take all state power into its own hands during political tensions in the country.” It also spoke about the implementation of "preventive security measures against the actions of conservative forces, including the creation of labor camps."
In other words, a covert, but quite real preparation was carried out in the country for the creation of concentration camps, where all the forces opposed to the regime “with a human face” were to be hidden ... And if we add to this the titanic efforts of some foreign special services and agents of influence of the West, who intended to tear off at any cost Czechoslovakia from the Eastern bloc, the overall picture of events did not look as unambiguous as they are trying to convince us of this.
... How did you manage to capture a by no means small European country in the shortest possible time and with minimal losses? A significant role in this course of events was played by the neutral position of the Czechoslovak army (and this is about 200 thousand people armed at that time with modern military equipment). I want to emphasize that General Martin Dzur played a key role in that very difficult situation. But the main reason for the small number of victims was the behavior of Soviet soldiers, who showed amazing restraint in Czechoslovakia.
... According to Czech historians, about a hundred people died during the introduction of troops, about a thousand were wounded and injured.
… I am convinced that at that time there was simply no other way out of the crisis. In my opinion, the results of the Prague Spring are very instructive. If not for the harsh actions of the USSR and its allies, then the Czech leadership, having instantly passed the stage of "socialism with a human face", would have found itself in the arms of the West. The Warsaw bloc would have lost a strategically important state in the center of Europe, NATO would have found itself at the borders of the USSR.
Let's be completely honest: the operation in Czechoslovakia gave peace to two generations of Soviet children. Or not? After all, by "letting go" of Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union would inevitably face the effect of a house of cards. Unrest would break out in Poland and Hungary. Then it would be the turn of the Baltic states, and after it the Transcaucasus.”
Start
On the night of August 21, the troops of five countries of the Warsaw Pact entered the territory of Czechoslovakia, and troops landed at the Prague airfield. The troops were ordered not to open fire until they were under fire. The columns were moving at high speeds, stopped cars were pushed off the roadway so as not to interfere with traffic.
By morning, all the advanced military units of the Commonwealth countries had reached the assigned areas. Czechoslovak troops were ordered not to leave the barracks. Their military camps were blocked, batteries were removed from armored vehicles, fuel was drained from tractors.
Interestingly, in early August, representatives of the People's Militia met with their commander A. Dubcek and presented an ultimatum: either he changes the policy of the leadership, or on August 22, the People's Militia will take control of all important objects, take power into their own hands, and remove him from his post General Secretary and demand the convening of a party congress. Dubcek listened to them, but did not give any concrete answer.
Most importantly, he did not tell the commanders of the party's armed detachments subordinate to him personally about the ultimatum he received in Cierna nad Tisou from the leaders of the GDR, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and the USSR. Apparently, he was counting on something. And when the Warsaw Pact troops entered Czechoslovakia on August 21, the leadership of the detachments and ordinary communists considered this an insult.
They believed that they could cope with the situation in the country themselves, without the introduction of foreign troops. Life has shown that then they overestimated their strength. Only after the defeat of the opposition in August 1969 did the opponents of the regime go underground for a long time.
The attitude of the local population
At first, the attitude of the local population towards the military personnel of the Commonwealth countries was bad. Intoxicated by hostile propaganda, duplicitous behavior of the first persons of the state, lack of information about the true reasons for the introduction of troops, and sometimes intimidated by local oppositionists, people not only looked askance at foreign soldiers.
Stones were thrown at the cars, at night the places where the troops were located were fired from small arms. Signs and signs were demolished on the roads, and the walls of houses were painted with slogans such as "Occupiers, go home!", "Shoot the occupier!" etc.
Sometimes local residents secretly came to military units and asked why the Soviet troops had come. And it would be fine, only Russians came, otherwise they brought “Caucasians” with “narrow-eyed” with them. In the center of Europe (!) people were surprised that the Soviet army was multinational.
The actions of the opposition forces
The entry of allied troops showed the forces of the Czech opposition and their foreign inspirers that the hopes of seizing power collapsed. However, they decided not to give up, but called for armed resistance. In addition to shelling cars, helicopters and locations of allied troops, terrorist acts began against Czech workers of party organs and intelligence officers.
The evening edition of the English newspaper The Sunday Times of August 27 published an interview with one of the leaders of the underground. He said that by August "the underground numbered about 40,000 people armed with automatic weapons." A significant part of the weapons was secretly supplied from the West, primarily from the FRG. However, they were unable to use it.
In the very first days after the entry of the allied troops, in cooperation with the Czech security agencies, several thousand automatic weapons, hundreds of machine guns and grenade launchers were seized from many hiding places and cellars. Even mortars were found.
So, even in the Prague House of Journalists, which was run by extremely opposition figures, 13 machine guns, 81 machine guns and 150 boxes of ammunition were found. At the beginning of 1969, a ready-made concentration camp was discovered in the Tatra Mountains. Who built it and for whom, at that time was unknown.
Information-psychological warfare
Another evidence of the existence of organized anti-constitutional forces in Czechoslovakia is the fact that by 8 o'clock on August 21, underground radio stations began to operate in all regions of the country, on some days up to 30-35 units.
They used not only radio stations pre-installed on cars, trains and in secret shelters, but also equipment captured in the MPVO, in branches of the Union for Cooperation with the Army (such as DOSAAF in the USSR), in large agricultural enterprises.
Underground radio transmitters were combined into a system that determined the time and duration of work. The capture groups found working radio stations deployed in apartments, hidden in the safes of the leaders of various organizations. There were also radio stations in special suitcases, along with tables of the passage of waves at different times of the day. Install the antenna attached to the station and work.

Radio stations, as well as four channels of underground television, disseminated false information, rumors, calls for the destruction of allied troops, sabotage, and sabotage. They also transmitted encrypted information and code signals to the underground forces.
The radio transmitters of the West German 701st psychological warfare battalion fit well into this "choir".
At first, Soviet radio intelligence officers were surprised that a number of anti-government stations were taking direction in the west, but on September 8 their guess was confirmed by the Stern magazine (Germany).
The magazine reported that on August 23, the Literarni Listy newspaper, followed by the underground radio, reported that “Allied troops fired on the children's hospital on Charles Square. Broken windows, ceilings, expensive medical equipment…” A German television reporter rushed to the area, but the hospital building was unscathed.
According to the Stern magazine, "this false information was transmitted not from Czech, but from West German territory." The magazine noted that the events of these days "provided an ideal opportunity for the practical training of the 701st Battalion."
If the first leaflets with a message about the introduction of allied troops were issued by official government or party bodies and printing houses, then there were no imprints on subsequent ones. In many cases, the texts and appeals in different parts of the country were the same.
A change of scenery
Slowly, but the situation changed.
The Central Group of Forces was formed, the Soviet military units began to settle in the Czech military towns liberated for them, where the chimneys were littered with bricks, the sewers were clogged, and the windows were broken. In April 1969, A. Dubcek was replaced by G. Husak, the leadership of the country changed.
Emergency laws were adopted, according to which, in particular, a fist shown to a Russian “cost” up to three months in prison, and a provoked fight with Russians cost six. At the end of 1969, military personnel were allowed to bring their families to the garrisons where construction battalions built housing. Construction of housing for families continued until 1972.
So, what are these "occupiers" who sacrificed their lives so that civilians would not die, would not respond with a shot to the most brazen provocations, would save people unknown to them from reprisal? Who lived in hangars and warehouses, and the beds, even in officers' and women's (for medical staff, typists, waitresses) dormitories, stood in two tiers? Who preferred to act not as soldiers, but as agitators, explaining to the population the situation and their tasks?
Output
The entry of troops of the Warsaw Pact countries into Czechoslovakia was a forced measure aimed at maintaining the unity of the countries of the socialist camp, as well as preventing the entry of NATO troops to the borders of the USSR.
Soviet soldiers were not occupiers and did not behave like invaders. No matter how pathetic it sounds, but in August 1968 they defended their country on the front lines of the socialist camp. The tasks assigned to the army were completed with minimal losses.
No matter what modern political scientists say, but in that situation the government of the USSR and other countries of the socialist camp made a decision adequate to the current situation. Even the current generation of Czechs should be grateful to the Soviet army for the fact that the Sudetes remained part of Czechoslovakia and their state exists within modern borders.
"Notes in the Field"
But here is what is interesting and raises questions.
The soldiers who were the first (!) to be called "Warriors-internationalists" are not even recognized as such in Russia, although by Order of the Minister of Defense Marshal of the Soviet Union A. Grechko No. 242 of 10/17/1968 they were thanked for fulfilling their international duty.
By order of the Minister of Defense of the USSR No. 220 of 07/05/1990 "The list of states, cities, territories and periods of hostilities with the participation of citizens of the Russian Federation" was supplemented by the Republic of Cuba.
For unknown reasons, Czechoslovakia (the only one!) was not included in the list, and, as a result, the relevant documents were not handed over to former servicemen who performed their international duty in this country.
Questions were repeatedly discussed at various levels whether or not to recognize the participants in the operation as internationalist soldiers and combat veterans.
A group of scientists, after analyzing the materials available for study and after meetings with direct participants in the Czechoslovak events, stated that “in 1968, a superbly planned and impeccably implemented military operation was carried out in Czechoslovakia, during which military operations were conducted. Both from the point of view of military science, and the real situation in the use of forces and means.
And the soldiers and officers who fulfilled their duty during the operation "Danube" have every right to be called soldiers-internationalists and fall under the category of "combatant".
However, the Russian Ministry of Defense does not recognize them as such, and answers the questions and appeals of regional organizations of the participants in the Danube operation that there were “only clashes”, and they were thanked for “fulfilling their international duty”, and not for participating in hostilities.
To date, the youngest participants in the operation "Danube" are already 64 years old, and every year their ranks are becoming rarer. The last, according to the author of the article, appeal only by the Rostov organization of the participants in the operation "Danube" was sent to the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation in January of this year. Let's wait for the new minister to respond.

In Czechoslovakia, dissatisfaction with the economic situation in the summer and autumn of 1967 increased oppositional sentiments in all sectors of society. In June, the Congress of Writers of Czechoslovakia sharply criticized the policies of the Communists, and in November there were mass demonstrations by Prague students. After these events, the opposition began to gain strength in the party. This led in January 1968 to a change in political leadership. The Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party dismissed the former leader, the conservative A. Novotny, and elected A. Dubcek as the first secretary of the Central Committee of the party. It was decided to start economic reforms. Their essence boiled down to a significant increase in the independence of enterprises, the introduction of their full self-sufficiency on the basis of self-financing. From the beginning of the spring of 1968, a broad democratization of society began: many political clubs arose throughout the country, an informal discussion of the situation took place, and demands were made for the abolition of the leading role of the Communist Party and the liquidation of the political police. At the same time, the Social Democratic Party was revived, whose authority began to grow rapidly, the initiative gradually slipped out of the hands of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. This development of events was called the "Prague Spring of 1968."

In the summer of 1968, the "unrest of society" with the continued economic tension developed into a socio-political crisis. The media got out of the censorship of the party, the authority of the CPC was rapidly falling, Dubcek practically did not control the situation either in the party or in the Central Committee. monopoly on power. Trying to regain authority in society, the leadership of the HRC decided to reform the party from above. To this end, it was supposed to amend the charter, in particular, to change the wording of the principle of democratic centralism, giving greater independence to grassroots organizations.

The situation in Czechoslovakia caused wariness and misunderstanding in the countries of the "socialist camp". Moscow received expressions of dissatisfaction from Poland, whose authorities feared the spread of the "Prague Spring" to their territory. The very loyal position of Dubcek towards the German authorities, who were considering the possibility of providing Czechoslovakia with a loan for economic reforms, irritated the GDR. In addition, Dubcek took a special, different from Moscow, position in relations with Yugoslavia and Romania. The Kremlin regarded this step both as an unification of the opposition forces within the framework of the "socialist camp", and, more importantly, as a significant weakening of the southern flank of the Warsaw Pact.

At the meeting between Brezhnev and Dubcek in Cierne nad Tisou and at the meeting of the fraternal parties (with the participation of the CPSU, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, the communist parties of Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and the GDR) on August 3, 1968, specific concessions by Dubcek to the “right” were discussed in order to maintain power. All subsequent steps taken by Brezhnev, Kadar and other leaders of the "socialist camp" strengthened their confidence that Dubcek insisted on continuing the reforms. In addition, he does not want and cannot make a compromise with the "right" forces in the party, since his authority and ability to control the situation have been exhausted. The end of Soviet socialism in Czechoslovakia was obvious to everyone. After long hesitation, Brezhnev, under strong pressure from the leadership of the GDR, decided to start the intervention of the combined troops of the Warsaw Pact member countries on the territory of Czechoslovakia.

On the night of August 20-21, 1968, troops entered the territory of Czechoslovakia. Militarily, the operation was well planned and, on the whole, bloodshed was avoided, although there were dead and wounded on both sides. However, the intervention suffered a complete political defeat: a wave of mass protests of the population swept across Czechoslovakia. On August 21, the Soviet consulate in Bratislava was surrounded by a crowd of thousands of Slovaks, who were dispersed by tank shots over the heads of the protesting people. The invasion of the ATS troops was completely rejected by the party, where, according to Moscow, "healthy forces" were absent. This forced the leadership of the CPSU to go to the second stage of negotiations with Dubcek and his supporters. In September, Dubcek was forced to sign a protocol in Moscow, according to which the August events were regarded as an "anti-socialist revolution." The process of "normalizing the situation" dragged on for many years. The first step was the removal of Dubcek and his entourage on April 17, 1969. G. Husak was appointed First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. On May 6, 1970, Husak signed an alliance agreement with the USSR in a new edition and put strong pressure on the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, which "approved" the Soviet intervention. Reforms in Czechoslovakia began to gradually curtail.

The significance of the "Czechoslovak events" went far beyond the framework of relations within the "socialist camp". The Brezhnev leadership became more and more convinced of the "limits of reforming" socialism. Economic reforms in the USSR began to be emasculated. The already conservative ideological course has become much more rigid, irreconcilable to any manifestation of dissent. Inside the country, even a slight "turn to man" was stopped. The ideas of revolutionary romanticism and communist illusions were dealt a crushing blow.

"The Brezhnev Doctrine"

The events of 1968 revealed close interweaving of interparty and geopolitical interests. The way out of the crisis seemed to be "an all-round strengthening of the unity of the socialist camp," which in these years was increasingly called the "socialist commonwealth." Although "proletarian internationalism" remained the theoretical basis of relations between the countries of the "commonwealth" in these years, its content was expanded and became part of a policy aimed at consolidation of the post-war structure of Europe.

The development of the principle of "proletarian internationalism" in the late 1960s - early 1980s was implemented in the doctrine "limited sovereignty", which received the name "Brezhnev's doctrine" in the West. It proceeded from the fact that in the chain of countries of the "socialist commonwealth", due to deviations from the "general laws of socialist construction," separate "weak links" were allowed to appear. It was in these "weak links" that the potential for the restoration of capitalism and, consequently, the threat to the independence and sovereignty of such countries from imperialism could arise. Thus, an equal sign was placed between the collapse of socialism and the loss of sovereignty. According to this logic, the unity of the "socialist commonwealth" could be broken, which posed a danger to the entire socialist bloc as a whole. From this followed the proposition that the sovereignty of any socialist state is the common property and "concern of all socialist countries."

Therefore, in a calm atmosphere, it was about "supervising" the observance by the socialist countries of the "general laws of socialism", in other words, following the Soviet model. Objectively, this led to her conservation and replication of crisis phenomena on the scale of the entire "commonwealth". If, however, a threat arose to the "cause of socialism" in a particular country, the entire community should act as a united front and render fraternal assistance to that country. "Help" was provided by virtue of the collective responsibility for the fate of socialism "of all members of the socialist community, primarily the USSR." Who exactly determined the danger to the "fate of socialism" in this or that country was kept silent. In addition, it remained unclear whether the request for assistance from the leadership of the "in distress" country was mandatory or not. At the same time, it was stated that the policy of "non-intervention" in this situation directly contradicted the interests of the defense of the "fraternal states."

The main provisions of the "doctrine of limited sovereignty" began to be especially actively promoted as the crisis in Czechoslovakia intensified, and after 1968 to justify military intervention in this country. This political line was also characterized by an increase in the economic dependence of the countries of the "socialist community" on the USSR, and constant political patronage over them. The instrument for maintaining "limited sovereignty" was the threat or use of force.