By Nikos Mottas
It
was August 1968, in the capital of the Socialist Republic
of Czechoslovakia, Prague, where the internationalist solidarity of the
Warsaw Pact countries crushed one of the most significant
counterrevolutionary efforts of the Cold War era. The events in Prague
consist a milestone in the struggle of the socialist world against
imperialism. At the same time, the then events continue serving as a
source of anticommunist propaganda by various bourgeois and opportunist
forces.
For
many decades, the bourgeois historiography- supported by opportunists
and counterrevolutionaries (trotskyites, eurocommunists, social
democrats, etc.) refers to the “soviet tanks” which, as they argue,
“drowned Prague in blood” thus ending prematurely the effort for a
“socialism with a human face”.
The
Prague 1968 counter-revolutionary events has been used by the
international bourgeoisie in her slandering campaign against the Soviet
Union and the socialist construction of the 20th century. This
anticommunist-antisoviet propaganda is based on a phony argument: That
the process of reforms which were being promoted by the Dubček
leadership [1] was aiming in bringing a- supposedly- “humane socialism”
as an alternative to the “stalinist model” imposed by the USSR.
Today,
five decades later, there are numerous available documents, archives,
testimonials and other kind of information from which we can draw
valuable conclusions regarding the actual character of the
counter-revolution and the continuous subversive activity of
imperialism. It's about time to demolish the anticommunist lies and
expose the hideous distortion of history.
The
examination of the 1968 events in Czechoslovakia cannot take place
outside the historical framework of the period during which these events
took place. This framework is the one of the Cold War, of the
confrontation, on a global level, of two different social systems-
capitalism and socialism. Based on this confrontation, international
imperialism (primary the United States, as well as the western European
countries) had developed a quite flexible strategy for the subversion
and overthrow of socialism. Let us remind that 12 years before the
“Prague Spring”, in 1956, another counter-revolution (disguised as
“revolution”) had taken place in neighboring Hungary.
The
experience of Hungary had led to a modification of imperialism's policy
towards the socialist bloc. This policy has been explained by one of
the “architects” of the then US foreign policy, who later became
President Carter's national security advisor. Zbigniew Brzezinski was
writing that the most desired type of change would begin with an
“internal liberalization” of east European states. He was predicting
that such a “change” could take place easier in Czechoslovakia and then
in Hungary and Poland [2].
Before
Brzezinski, in the 1950s, the promotion of “internal”
counter-revolutionary activities in the socialist countries had been set
as a pillar of US foreign policy by John Foster Dulles, the US
Secretary of State during the Eisenhower administration. The concept of
“internal liberalization”, which Brzezinski had analyzed, was the “key”
utilized by the US imperialism and its allies for the “unlocking” of
counter-revolution in Czechoslovakia. The prevalence of right-wing,
opportunist forces in the leadership of the Communist Party of
Czechoslovakia, under the new General Secretary Alexander Dubček, in January 1968, paved the road to a series of “reforms” and “liberalization” of the socialist model.
 |
| Alexander Dubček (left) and Ota Šik. |
The version projected by bourgeois and opportunist forces regarding the then events is that the “Prague Spring” (that's how the Dubček leadership's
reforms were named) was aiming in the “democratization” of
Czechoslovakia's socialist model and the establishment of a- supposed-
“socialism with a humane face”. Of course, this is a historically proven
lie.
The
so-called “Prague Spring” was actually the “trojan horse” of
imperialism. Actual problems of the socialist system (e.g. in economy,
production, socialist education, etc) were used as a pretext by the
reactionary forces, within the ideological framework of revisionism, in
order to implement antisocialist policies which were leading, slowly but
steadily, to capitalism's restoration. Years later, one of the
protagonists of the “Prague Spring”, the Czech economist Ota Šik [3],
admitted the real aim of the 1968 reforms. Šik, a supporter of the
so-called “Third Way”, cynically admitted that the reforms were nothing
but a deceptive maneuver and that, back then, he was “convinced that the
only solution was pure capitalism” [4].
THE IMPERIALIST PLANS AND THE SOVIET UNION'S INTERNATIONALIST SOLIDARITY
The
plan for the restoration of a “pure capitalist” system in
Czechoslovakia in 1968 was significantly assisted by a series of
counterrevolutionary activities of international imperialism. Various
declassified CIA and State Department's documents reveal the existence
of “operational plans”, organized by the US government, for the
destabilization of Czechoslovakia. These plans included extended
sabotages, widespread anticommunist propaganda, organization and funding
of counterrevolutionary groups inside the country.
It
is characteristic that just a week before the military intervention of
the Warsaw Pact countries, approximately 10 to 12 thousand West Germans
had arrived in Prague, while numerous CIA agents were already operating
undisturbed in the Czechoslovak capital. A local newspaper in California
had published statements made by the leader of an organization called
“New Americans for Liberty”, who had just returned from Czechoslovakia.
His mission, according to the report, was to organize students' groups
against communism and prepare counterrevolutionary terrorist task forces
[5].
An
important role in the imperialist counterrevolutionary plans in
Czechoslovakia was played by the Federal Republic of Germany. In Spring
1968, thousands of secret agents, spies and saboteurs- mixed with
tourists- passed the borders. In April 1968, five passport checkpoints
opened in the Czechoslovak-West German borders; approximately 7,000 cars
were passing from each of these checkpoints every day [6].
By
the beginning of August, the counterrevolutionary noose had been
tightened around Czechoslovakia's neck. Ammunition manufactured in the
US and West Germany was found in the basement of governmental buildings
while, with the assistance of CIA and West German secret services,
high-powered mobile radio stations were transmitting anticommunist
propaganda throughout the country. It was a matter of days for the
imperialist-backed turnoil to transform into an open
counterrevolutionary coup d' etat.
 |
| Soviet troops in Prague, August 1968. |
The
military intervention of the Warsaw Pact countries, on August 20, 1968,
took place on time, exactly when the counterrevolutionary forces, with
the assistance of US and European imperialists, were “strangling”
Czechoslovakia and its people. The presence of Soviet troops in Prague
was an action of solidarity, which cancelled the imperialist plans and
saved the country's people from the bloodshed of an imminent civil war.
Not
surprisingly, the bourgeois and opportunist historiography has recorded
the internationalist intervention of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw
Pact countries in Czechoslovakia as a “Soviet invasion” which,
supposedly, trespassed the country's territorial sovereignty. This is a
blatant lie. Faced with the counterrevolutionary threat, members of the
CC of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia as well as members of the
national assembly had requested from the USSR and the Warsaw Pact
countries to intervene. Without the Soviet intervention, Czechoslovakia
would probably sink into the chaos of a bloody and destructive civil
war, before becoming another puppet-state of the US and NATO.
Today,
more than 50 years since the “Prague Spring” and 27 years after the
counterrevolutionary changes in eastern Europe, the people of the then
Czechoslovakia- now divided in Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic-
are feeling the results of “capitalist freedom”. Demolition of the
social and workers' rights, rise of unemployment, extensive
privatizations, rapid increase of homelessness, deepening of the gap
between rich and poor, are just a few of the “gifts” given by capitalism
and the EU. The monopolies and the big business groups are now the
owners of the wealth in both the Czech and the Slovak Republic.
History
is an extremely rich source of knowledge. The case of Czechoslovakia
and the “Prague Spring” provides us with interesting conclusions for the
past, but most importantly, for today and tomorrow's struggles.
Notes:
(1)
Alexander Dubček (1921-1992), served as the First Secretary of the
Presidium of the CC of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from
January 1968 to April 1969.
(2)
Alternative to Partition: For a Broader Conception of America’s Role in
Europe, Atlantic Policy Studies, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965.
(3) Ota Šik (1919-2004), Economist and Politician, one of the key figures behind the economic liberalization plan.
(4) Interview in Mlada Fronta newspaper, 2/8/1990.
(5) Gus Hall, Imperialism today: an evaluation of major issues and events of our time, New York: International Publishers, 1972.
(6) Anticommunism: yesterday and today, Ideological Committee of the CC of the KKE, Synchroni Epochi, Athens, 2006.
* Nikos Mottas is the Editor-in-Chief of In Defense of Communism.
