At the plenary session of the Central Committee (CC) of the KSČ in late 1967, Alexander Dubček asked for the democratization of inter-party relations. He also called for a new party program.12 In January 1968, Novotný was replaced as the first secretary of the KSČ by “our Sasha,” as an initially happy KGB was calling Dubček.13 Things started to change rapidly. During Tito’s week-long visit to Czechoslovakia in 1965, politicians who had accompanied the Yugoslav leader during his brief visit to Bratislava reported how his host, Sasha Dubček, was radiating pleasure. Judging from future developments, he had sincerely admired Tito and was not just being polite. For Moscow, even the remote possibility of being inspired by the Yugoslavs was scary.
After the loss of Albania in 1961 and Romania’s policy that was increasingly independent of Moscow, the Soviets were getting nervous.14 Since the early 1960s, the Chinese had been trying to foment discord within the Lager. Although Beijing’s efforts in Europe as well as in the Third World were unsuccessful, problems facing the Soviets did not evaporate.15 With the increasingly disturbing developments in Czechoslovakia—groups who were asking for the revival of the multiparty system and voices who were talking of the Little Entente, a prewar grouping of Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia—danger for Moscow in the ideological and geopolitical realm was still acute.16 All three Eastern European countries were Socialist. Two were members of the Warsaw Pact, but only Prague was vital in the military considerations for the Soviet Union. Yugoslavia was nonaligned and outside Moscow’s orbit. Taking into account the positive impressions Americans had of Yugoslavia, the liberalization in Czechoslovakia, and the independent attitude of Romania, one could expect Washington to be interested in the further liberalization of those countries. As it turned out, because improved relations between Moscow and Washington occurred at a time when the USSR was becoming its approximate equal and the United States was in crisis, the existence of a peaceful environment in the buffer countries between the West and the East turned out to be much more important to the United States than supporting liberalization in Eastern Europe.17
YUGOSLAVIA AND CZECHOSLOVAKIA (JANUARY TO AUGUST 1968)
For the Yugoslavs, the 5 January change in Prague was something they had been anticipating since the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. János Kádár, the Hungarian Communist Party boss, stressed at the session of the CC in June 1968 how Belgrade, although not revisionist and not for the counterrevolution in Prague, was supporting developments there in the same way as in Hungary a decade ago. Tito’s final goal, Kádár concluded, was to see these developments fully approach a “Yugoslav type of socialism.”18 During the mid-1960s, reforms and decentralization of the economy were undertaken in several eastern countries, including the notoriously Soviet-subservient Bulgaria.19 Hungary was cautious enough to avoid using “Yugoslav terminology,” but in a report written by Kiro Gligorov, the vice president of the Yugoslav government after his April visit, Hungarian hosts were stressing “similarities of their reform, with ours and Czechoslovakia’s.”20 Although Dubček and his allies immediately stressed how no changes in foreign policy were to be expected, many politicians in the Lager were unhappy with the developments in Prague, including Leonid Brezhnev and Mikhail Suslov, as were others in Berlin, Warsaw, and Bulgaria.21 Reforms in and of themselves were, of course, not problematic, but those with the hint of Yugoslav revisionism, especially if conducted by the Soviet-dominated Socialist country, were.
If the Yugoslav example was inspirational for Dubček, it was observed from far and not followed closely. Bilateral cooperation between the Yugoslav League of Communists and the KSČ in the first half of 1968 was nonexistent. Although agreed upon in early February 1968 and despite Czechoslovakia stressing how an exchange of experience was essential, until mid-July none of the agreed upon visits were realized, and all were postponed until the second half of the year.22 On the state level, however, the Yugoslavs were asked to advise their Czechoslovak colleagues on different foreign policy and European issues. Marko Nikezić, state secretary for foreign affairs, was invited to visit Prague in mid-May.23 Shortly after him, Kiro Gligorov and Marin Cetinić, representatives of the Federal Executive Committee, also paid a visit to Prague. Gratitude for the Yugoslav support was always stressed, but both teams could report only on the numerous possibilities for undertaking cooperation in many fields.24 Still, cooperation remained cautious, more friendly than deep. Probably the Czechs and the Slovaks were unwilling to show any connection with the Yugoslavs, in order to avoid provoking the Soviets.
Tito, however, did a lot. Issued an invitation to visit Moscow while in Japan and Mongolia in April 1968, Tito had agreed to pay a short visit to the Kremlin where he met Leonid Brezhnev, Aleksei Kosygin, Nikolai Podgornyi, and Andrei Gromyko at the very end of April 1968.25 Brezhnev harshly criticized the situation in Prague. Antisocialist elements, foreign influences, restoration of capitalism, and a revival of the bourgeoisie were all at work in Czechoslovakia, the Soviet leader stated.26 Tito’s opinion was totally the opposite: their Czechoslovak comrades were capable of controlling the situation. The only thing they needed was brotherly help. Probably some unfriendly elements existed in Prague, but the Communists in charge were not counterrevolutionaries.27 Tito even recalled his own experiences from Čenkov in 1912. In his opinion, it was unlikely to see the counterrevolutionary forces overwhelming the working class who possessed as glorious a tradition as the Czechoslovaks had. Brezhnev was annoyed by Tito’s comments. He cut the Yugoslav leader short, saying how in his country developments similar to those in Czechoslovakia existed:28