The election of delegates in July led to a change in generations and resulted in a clear majority of 80 percent for Dubček and the reformers.59 In Moscow, Ulbricht had realistically estimated the balance of power in the KSČ: the “healthy forces” were a minority.
The Sˇhumava (Bohemian Forest) maneuver was set to end on 30 June. The Soviet Army used it to prepare undercover the occupation of the ČSSR.60 The military demonstration and the political pressure of the Warsaw Five aroused in the ČSSR not only fear, but also resistance. This resistance was articulated in the “2,000 Words,” written by Ludvík Vaculík.61 He called upon the citizens to take the initiated democratization of their country into their own hands, to support the progressive wing of the Communists in view of the election of delegates, and not to allow a restoration. In his report of 3 July, the GDR ambassador recorded very precisely the contradictory response at the conferences of delegates to the “2,000 Words.”62 Two days after its appearance, Ulbricht received an estimate from the GDR ambassador in Prague. Florin presented a piece of “evidence”: “This document is a call for counterrevolution, which bears programmatic character and contains the methods for the implementation of the counterrevolutionary intentions.”63
This corresponded to the meaning of the “2,000 Words” for the CPSU, who also expressed this in its letter of 4 July to the Presidium of the KSČ.64 The SED received the letter at the same time as Prague did. The handwritten underlining on the German translation—presumably marked by Ulbricht himself—is important for understanding the position of the SED in its own letter to the KSČ. The underlining relates to a series of passages, above all those in the Soviet letter that concern the ČSSR’s relationship with West Germany and in which the CPSU assumes the position of the SED. The following was underlined: the “decisive question… as to whether Czechoslovakia should be socialist or not”; the behavior of the KSČ toward the “anti-socialist forces,” against whom no “effective blow” had so far been dealt; the passage on the revisionists in the party and on the intention to “legalize factions and groups” within the KSČ; and finally the questions of missing party control over mass media and the exploitation of events in the ČSSR by the “enemies of socialism [for] comprehensive ideological diversion.” Reflected in this underlining is the keyword that gave direction to the SED leadership’s perception of the “Prague Spring”: counterrevolution.
Following receipt of the CPSU letter, the Politburo of the SED convened for an extraordinary session with just one item on the agenda: the situation in the ČSSR. The committee approvingly took note of the letter from the Kremlin and finalized the text of its own letter to the KSČ.65
The letter ended, like the Moscow original, with an “offer of assistance.” In contrast to the nonspecific “promise of help” from Moscow, the SED stated the basis of its willingness more precisely by making reference to the corresponding agreements between the Warsaw Pact states and the spirit of “socialist internationalism,” while at the same time narrowing them down. This offer related only to such decisions made and steps taken by the KSČ that were suitable for strengthening the position of socialism in the ČSSR.66 All these letters by the Warsaw Five were supposed to warn Dubček to take the criticism and demands of the Warsaw Pact states seriously.
WARSAW, 15 JULY: THE DIE IS CAST!
The “2,000 Words” became in “many respects the turning-point in SovietCzechoslovak relations and characterized the beginning of the third stage, during which the better part of the Soviet leadership psychologically came to terms with the necessity of a military solution to the problem,” according to Prozumenshchikov.67
The CPSU resolved to convene a new conference of the “Five” and the KSČ in Warsaw. Under pressure from large municipal associations, Dubček cancelled his participation in the meeting and proposed instead bilateral negotiations with the individual parties.68
In Warsaw, the die was cast for an effort of collective assistance for the protection of socialism in the ČSSR, though not yet for the decision to intervene. The Soviet general secretary came to Warsaw with the draft of a letter endorsed by his Politburo.69 It was to be sent to the Presidium of the KSČ as a joint warning and at the same time legitimate externally the collective action. The letter was approved and passed on to Prague; in it, the most important parts of the existing letters were repeated. It instructed the KSČ in a threatening tone: “We, therefore, think that the decisive repulse of attacks by the anti-communist forces and the resolute defense of the socialist order in Czechoslovakia are not only your task but also ours.”70 The joint letter gave the interventionist coalition its name Warsaw Five.
The papers of the party leaders all had the character of a general reckoning with the developments of the previous months in the ČSSR. All of them emphasized the broken promises of the KSČ leadership since Dresden.71 In the assessment of the situation, all were in agreement: in the ČSSR, a change of system loomed. The Polish party head, Gomułka, precisely formulated this theory: in Czechoslovakia, “a peaceful process of change from a socialist state… to a republic of middle-class character is taking place.” This was, for him, an event that threatened “to turn into a weakening of our bloc.” His reasoning considered that, because at that moment all political problems were decided on a global scale, the action in Czechoslovakia meant a weakening of socialism “as represented by us.” Neither the Poles not the GDR were the decisive problem for imperialism; for him, the Soviet Union and its nuclear potential counted above all; it was the decisive force that held the “imperialist world” at bay. The Czech comrades were in the process of altering the European balance of power with their course. In order to do that, they had “already broken their bond with us. They have broken our bilateral and multilateral resolutions. They do not consult with us in significant matters.” Gomułka advocated “practical measures” to restore the closeness of the Bloc and “a unified line in the main issues”; this was, for him, “our unity toward the imperialist camp.”