During a visit to Moscow, Czech President Milos Zeman expressed insult to Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev against Leonid Maslovsky's article "Czechoslovakia should be grateful to the USSR for 1968: the history of the Prague Spring." Prime Minister Medvedev diplomatically replied that the opinion of the author of the article does not reflect the official position of Russia. This “spring” was not “strangled” by the treaty. This fact became one of the central themes in the accusatory criticism of the liberals of the CPSU and the USSR during the years of perestroika. This topic remains fashionable today.
Red Europe
After the defeat of Hitler's Germany in Europe, all right-wing bourgeois governments that collaborated with Hitler suffered a political crisis. Socialists and communists came to power relatively easily, which frightened the Anglo-Saxons extremely. In the United States and Great Britain, too, leftist ideas were gaining ground. The Anglo-Saxons and European bankers who got rich in the war had to take countermeasures.
Germany was under occupation. A moderate right-wing regime with an independent policy was established in France. It was a kind of post-war Gaullism, and the French communists, together with the Italian and Swedish ones, created a new trend in the communist movement - Eurocommunism, dissociating themselves from revolutionary Leninism. In racial America, the bankers acted harsher - McCarthyism, the American-style version of fascism, prevailed there, and any leftist idea was considered criminal, anti-state and punishable.
For a war-torn Europe, the Marshall Plan was invented, according to which American bankers took part in the restoration of the consumer market in those European countries whose governments were not socialist and communist. The economies of such countries were restored faster than in those oriented towards socialism, and in them the right in power structures strengthened its position against the left. In the end, however, Western Europe was transformed from America's creditor into America's debtor.
The secret services, including the intelligence of NATO, a military-political organization created in 1949 to counter communism, did not doze either. Since 1944, in the countries of Eastern Europe, Greece and Italy, the Anglo-Saxons created clandestine combat detachments of the guerrilla type for actions against the communists and the Red Army, which at that time crossed the border of the USSR and liberated neighboring countries from the Nazis. In Italy, this project was named "Gladio". Subsequently, the entire underground network of such organizations in post-war Europe was transferred to NATO.
British generals were also preparing a plan for Operation Unthinkable, according to which, by the end of the war, Germany and its satellites, with the support of the Anglo-Saxons, were to launch a new offensive to the East against the USSR weakened by the war. The nuclear bombing of Moscow was envisaged.
After the formation of the CMEA in 1949 and the military organization of the Warsaw Pact (OVD) in 1955 in response to the admission of the FRG to NATO, American and NATO strategists intensified their subversive activities within the countries of the Socialist Commonwealth. This strategy was conventionally called "Biting the Edge of the Pie". First of all, it was planned to "bite off" those countries in the name of which there was a definition of "socialist republic" and the Communist Party was in power. Such countries were the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), which was not a member of the CMEA and OVD, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (Czechoslovakia), the Socialist Republic of Romania (SRR), the Hungarian People's Republic (Hungary) and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), far from Europe, not part of the Commonwealth, as well as Cuba. Although other states did not remain outside the plans of such a strategy.
The CMEA and OVD organizations, according to the constituent documents, were open to all states, regardless of their political structure. Withdrawal from these organizations was also free under the terms of the memorandum of association. There was no coercion of the existing legitimate governments to build communism on the part of the USSR. But within the countries themselves with a left orientation there were many of their own ideological contradictions and supporters of Joseph Stalin, and in the parties - orthodox communist revolutionaries and conservatives. The Comintern has borne fruit.
Class Struggle, Party Conflicts and Outside "Aid"
The first political conflict in the Socialist Commonwealth arose in the GDR in June 1953. And although he was anti-government, he was not anti-Soviet. Modern historians are cunning, calling those events an action of the working people against socialism. Nevertheless, falsifications of this kind in their description are allowed. Recall that at that time the GDR did not yet have sovereignty, had not recovered from the war devastation and paid an indemnity for the results of the war. To revive the economy, the government needed funds and it went by the decision of the Politburo of the SED and with the consent of the trade unions to raise labor standards, that is, to intensify labor without increasing wages, to raise prices and reduce taxes for small private entrepreneurs in order to fill the consumer market with goods. This was the reason for the indignation, organized in mass protests and a general strike demanding a change in the leadership of the party and the country.
The organizers of those obviously not spontaneous events have not yet been named. They say it was a surprise for the United States. But this is a lie. In 1952, the United States developed a National Strategy for Germany. Part of this strategy was subversive activities to "reduce Soviet potential in East Germany." West Berlin was viewed as a "showcase of democracy" and a platform for preparing psychological operations against the GDR, recruiting and operational intelligence work with East Germans, and providing material and financial support to anti-communist organizations in order to "control preparations for more active resistance." According to high-ranking Americans, the spiritual-psychological, or rather, the information-coordinating center of the June uprising was the RIAS radio station, Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor. More than 70% of East Germans regularly listened to the radio station. The actions of the organizers of the protests on the territory of the GDR were coordinated with the help of this radio station.
The Americans did not seek to seize the initiative and take over the leadership of the general strike. First, the mass demonstrations were not clearly anti-communist. Secondly, the United States and England initially opposed a united Germany - an idea that was then popular in the GDR and was supported by the USSR at the Tehran Conference held in early December 1943. It was advantageous for America to burden the Soviet leadership with the problem of instability in the GDR and extend it to other countries with a socialist orientation. A special, key place in these plans was occupied by Czechoslovakia - the most industrially developed republic of all the others.
As it grew, the June 1953 uprising in the GDR entered the phase of violence and armed confrontation with the police and state security of the GDR everywhere. Therefore, after the introduction of the state of emergency, it was suppressed by the police and Soviet troops. For the entire time of the events, about 40 people died, including police and state security officers. The GDR government made concessions and reversed its decisions, which angered the population. The Soviet government significantly reduced the indemnity payments to the GDR. From the next year, the GDR received full sovereignty and began to form its own army. But provocations from the territory of West Berlin and the Federal Republic of Germany continued. So, in 1961, for this reason, the famous Berlin Wall arose, after the fall of which and the unification of Germany, the RIAS television and radio company was also liquidated.
The next was an armed putsch in the Hungarian People's Republic of 1956. He was essentially pro-fascist. The massacre of the putschists against the communists and the military was the same cruel sadist, which was perpetrated by the Bandera in Ukraine, as evidenced by photographic documents and investigative materials. Having begun in Budapest, the armed uprising of the putschists grew into a civil war, and the Hungarian army, which did not support the putsch, threatened to split. The special corps of the Soviet army, which was then part of the Central Group of Forces (TSGV) of the first formation, was forced by the right of the victor to intervene and stop the civil war. For the entire time of the events of the Hungarians from both sides of the conflict, about 1 thousand 700 people died. At the same time, about 800 Soviet servicemen were killed by the putschists. This was our price for someone else's reconciliation.
The coup itself was prepared and timed to coincide with the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary and Austria under the terms of the Paris Peace Treaty. That is, it was an attempt at a fascist coup. But they hurried. Or a more bloody provocation was planned with the involvement of Soviet troops. After the putsch, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary was suspended and on their basis the Southern Group of Forces of the USSR was formed with a new composition. Now the Hungarians call this putsch the 1956 revolution. An anti-Soviet revolution, of course, that is, progressive in today's terms.
The Americans unleashed a direct war against socialist Vietnam in 1965, which lasted more than nine years and was fought with extreme cruelty with all types of weapons, including chemical weapons. The actions of the US Army fall under the definition of genocide of the Vietnamese people. In this war, about 3 million Vietnamese were killed on both sides. The war ended with the victory of North Vietnam and the unification of the country. The Soviet Union provided military assistance to the North Vietnamese. In Europe, the US and NATO could not afford this until the invasion of Yugoslavia after the collapse of the USSR.
Similar to the mass protests of 1953 in the GDR, almost 20 years later, in 1970-1971, there were demonstrations of workers at shipyards and factories in the northern regions of the Polish People's Republic and weavers in Lodz. They laid the foundation for the Solidarity trade union movement. But here the people's initiative was intercepted by Western intelligence and directed in an anti-Soviet and anti-communist channel.
General Wojciech Jaruzelski, who took over the leadership of the country and the PUWP in 1981, declared martial law in the country. By saving the country from a bloody showdown, he repeated the civil feat of the Portuguese general Antonio Ramalho Eanes, who became President of Portugal in 1976 with the support of the army and did not allow extremism in politics after the so-called "Carnation Revolution" of 1974.
Wojciech Jaruzelski also directly warned the Soviet leadership against interfering in Polish events. Although neither Leonid Brezhnev nor other leaders of that time were going to do this and only the possibility of providing military support to Jaruzelski in a critical situation was discussed. On the territory of Poland, under the treaty, Soviet troops remained from the end of the war until 1990, stationed in Silesia and Pomerania, the former German lands annexed to Poland. All 20 years of Polish perestroika, the Soviet command did not react in any way to the internal political conflict in Poland.
The Poles themselves coped with the situation. About 50 people died from clashes with the police and the Polish army. This is the merit of Wojciech Jaruzelski.
The bloodiest, tragic story among the socialist countries was that of Yugoslavia (SFRY) after the Americans and NATO members began "promoting democracy" in the Balkans according to their operational plans. They never had a goal to preserve the integrity of Yugoslavia. On the contrary, they contributed to its disintegration, stimulating nationalist separatist sentiments in the union republics. Moreover, they openly opposed the Serbs, the historical allies of the Russians. NATO troops have been preparing for the invasion of Yugoslavia since 1990. Under the guise of a peacekeeping mission, according to a UN decision, in 1991 they actually started a war against Serbia. Unlike the Czechs, who took offense at the USSR and Russia for the introduction of troops in 1968, the Serbs expressed their offense for the non-interference of the USSR and Russia on the side of Serbia in its conflict with Western democracy. But Gorbachev and Yeltsin at this time themselves burst into friends of this very democracy.
In a special row are the events in Romania, where socialism had its own peculiarity. It consisted in a certain isolation of Romanian foreign policy within the CMEA and OVD framework. Socialism was built on the basis of the authoritarian character of the communist government on the Stalinist model. Its first leader was Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej until March 1965, a Stalinist and opponent of Moscow influence, a critic of Khrushchev's reforms. And after his death, Nicolae Ceausescu became such an authoritarian communist leader, who also acted contrary to Moscow. For example, he condemned the introduction of OVD troops into Czechoslovakia in 1968, admitted cautious liberalism and pro-Westernism, claimed world leadership, like the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito, also a Stalinist and Khrushchev's opponent.
Ceausescu continued the policy of his predecessor to expand economic ties with the West, increasing the external public debt in 1977-1981 to Western creditors from 3 to 10 billion dollars. But the economy did not develop, but only became dependent on the World Bank and the IMF. Since 1980, Romania worked mainly to pay off debt on loans and by the end of Ceausescu's reign, almost all of its external debt was paid off, thanks to a referendum to limit his power.
In December 1989, a coup d'etat took place in Romania, the beginning of which was the unrest of the Hungarian population in Timisoara on December 16. And already on December 25, Nicolae Ceausescu, along with his wife, was captured and executed almost immediately after the announcement of the verdict of a special military tribunal. The quick trial and execution of the Ceausescu couple indicate a strong likelihood that they were inspired from outside and carried out by a previously prepared group of conspirators. This is also evidenced by the fact that some of the participants in the trial and execution soon turned out to be dead.
Was not the sudden counter-revolution in Romania with the execution of the country's main communist not only the start of anti-communist coups and reforms in other socialist countries, but also a warning hint to Gorbachev and Yeltsin, other communist leaders?
It would seem, following the logic of anti-Soviet criticism, Soviet troops should have been sent into socialist Romania long ago, as soon as retreats from the Soviet line began there even under Khrushchev. And then, in the 70s, a series of mass anti-communist riots took place. But that did not happen. It was under Khrushchev that the remnants of the Southern Group of Soviet Forces of the first formation, which consisted of parts of the separate combined arms army of the former 3rd Ukrainian Front, were withdrawn from Romania in 1958. After the withdrawal to the territory of the USSR, the army units were disbanded.
In 1989, Mikhail Gorbachev also did not intend to send Soviet troops into Romania or resort to the help of the Department of Internal Affairs, although the Americans incited him to this, anticipating, probably, a bloody showdown between the communists. Gorbachev even supported the removal of Ceausescu, and then in 1990 sent Eduard Shevardnadze to Romania to greet the victory of Romanian democracy.
Do not reproach me unnecessarily
Against the background of all these events, the central place in criticism of the USSR is occupied by the entry of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia in 1968. The attitude to this event is still ambiguous. Hence the reproach of Leonid Maslovsky against the Czechs, and the resentment of the Czechs against Maslovsky. There is a lot of bias here, emanating from the ideological assessments of the Soviet period of our history by young generations and political fashion. Was it worth the author of the article "Czechoslovakia should be grateful to the USSR for 1968: the history of the" Prague spring "to directly blame the Czechs for something after what happened to the Soviet Union? Hardly. Maybe that's why the Czech liberals were offended, considering their country the first a swallow of the “Prague Spring”, a harbinger of change in Eastern Europe, the birthplace of “socialism with a human face.” The Soviet Union had a chance to develop and implement this idea into perestroika.
On the other hand, the Czechs, offended by the author of the article and the Soviet Union, are confident that the anti-communist reforms in Czechoslovakia would have passed 30 years earlier as peacefully and effectively as in the 90s. That the Czech Republic and Slovakia would have divided even then without mutual claims to a common inheritance. Where does this confidence come from? After all, at that time the tragic events in Romania and the civil war in Yugoslavia, fanned by Western democracies, were not before the eyes of the Czech and Slovak reformers. The fate of the Ceausescu spouses cooled many hotheads of Eastern Europe, so the subsequent liberal reforms in the CMEA countries were quite moderate, not radical. The radicalization of political ideas manifested itself already in the course of reforms and in foreign policy, when national interests had to be adjusted to the interests of globalists.
As for the very introduction of the ATS troops into Czechoslovakia, it was a collective decision after many consultations of the five Warsaw Pact countries, including Czechoslovakia itself. In this regard, there is documentary evidence. It is unlikely that the Soviet government would send its troops without such a common decision and shared responsibility, if the members of the Department of Internal Affairs and the Czechoslovak leadership itself, first of all, would say "No!" The refusal was only from Romania and Albania. And the most active in this matter were Poland, East Germany and Bulgaria.
It is also not noticed that in the event that riots in Czechoslovakia and armed conflicts between reformers and communists, and this was very likely, occurred at that time, NATO troops were ready to enter Czechoslovakia. And then reprisals against the communists, the loss of sovereignty once again would have been inevitable. American and NATO democracies have shown long ago that they have no other intentions in "promoting democracy" other than financially and violently suppressing competitors. Perhaps in Czechoslovakia in 1968 what happened later in Yugoslavia and what is happening now in Ukraine. OVD troops in 1968 preempted the invasion of NATO troops. Now the Czech Republic itself is a member of NATO of its own free will and the charter of this organization limits the sovereignty of the Czech Republic, including in ensuring its security. What to be offended at?
And the liberals are different now. The US and NATO military aggression against the Arab states, traditionally friendly to Russia and with a socially oriented economy, they mockingly called the "Arab spring" by analogy with the "Prague spring". Singing along with the Americans, they are also equating terrorists with fighters for democracy.
The army of Czechoslovakia was in the barracks during the entire operation of the Danube OVD, because it received an order from President Ludwik Svoboda not to interfere with the entry of friendly troops. The OVD troops were also given an order restricting the use of weapons. There were no special clashes between the OVD troops and the military units of Czechoslovakia, except for the disarming of the guards and the protection of administrative buildings. In general, the "velvet revolution", "velvet divorce", "velvet entry of troops" … - this is all Czechoslovakia.
After a while, some veterans of the Czechoslovak army say that the introduction of troops from the ATS countries was still justified. A coup d'état under the indecisive Alexander Dubcek or an invasion of the FRG troops could provoke a lot of bloodshed. And the participation of the army in politics would lead to its split - the forerunner of the civil war. Although, in general, all these maneuvers were the result of political games during the Cold War, ideological confrontation. Each time has its own measure of truth.
