Soviet leaders, as the new evidence shows, were unnerved by this sort of rhetoric and by the rise of influential political groups outside the KSČ. Officials in Moscow worried that even if Dubček did not intend to push in a radical direction, the outspoken proponents of liberal democratic reform in Czechoslovakia would increasingly eclipse him and steer the country along an “antisocialist” path. Such a development, they feared, would, if left unchecked, create an ominous precedent for the rest of the Soviet Bloc. Although the process of political, economic, and cultural revitalization in Czechoslovakia in 1968 was peaceful throughout, the lack of any violent turmoil did not prevent Soviet leaders from repeatedly drawing analogies to an event they had collectively experienced twelve years earlier—the violent rebellion in Hungary in October–November 1956, which was eventually subdued by the Soviet Army. As early as 15 March 1968, at a meeting of the CPSU Politburo, the head of the Soviet state security committee (KGB), Yuri Andropov, who had served as Soviet ambassador in Budapest during the 1956 revolution, claimed that events in Czechoslovakia “are very reminiscent of what happened in Hungary.”5 The CPSU general secretary, Leonid Brezhnev, who in 1956 had taken part in all the high-level discussions that led to the Soviet invasion of Hungary, concurred with Andropov’s assessment, adding that “our earlier hopes for Dubček have not been borne out.” Brezhnev phoned Dubček during a break in the CPSU Politburo’s deliberations and emphasized his “grave concern” about the situation in Czechoslovakia, especially the “growth of patently antisocialist forces.” The Soviet leader warned Dubček that “the Hungarian events of 1956 might soon be repeated in [Czechoslovakia],” but, to Brezhnev’s disappointment in subsequent weeks, the phone call did not spur Dubček to rein in the Prague Spring.6
When the Soviet Politburo reconvened on 21 March, the assembled leaders expressed dismay that political liberalization in Czechoslovakia was continuing and that orthodox members of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) were in danger of being removed from the scene altogether.7 Likening the situation to the changes that occurred in Hungary just before the 1956 revolution, Brezhnev claimed that events in Czechoslovakia were “moving in an anti-Communist direction” and that many “good and sincere friends of the Soviet Union” had been dismissed. He also noted that the Prague Spring was beginning to spark ferment among Soviet “intellectuals and students as well as in certain regions” of the USSR, notably Ukraine. Brezhnev’s misgivings were echoed by other Politburo members, including Soviet prime minister Aleksei Kosygin, who insisted that the Czechoslovak authorities were “preparing to do what was done in Hungary” in 1956. The Ukrainian party leader, Petro Shelest, also stressed the potential for violence to erupt in Czechoslovakia and to spill over into Ukraine—a development that in his view would determine “not only the fate of socialism in one of the socialist countries, but the fate of the whole socialist camp.” Aleksandr Shelepin and Mikhail Solomentsev spoke in similarly ominous tones about the effect of the Prague Spring on Soviet students and intellectuals. They joined Shelest in urging the Soviet Union to prepare to take “extreme measures,” including “military action.” This proposal was strongly endorsed by Andropov, who argued that “we must adopt concrete military measures” as soon as possible.8
The growing unease in Moscow was reinforced by the much harsher complaints expressed in other East Bloc capitals, especially Warsaw and East Berlin. From the outset, the Polish leader Władysław Gomułka and the East German leader Walter Ulbricht were determined to counter the “growth of inimical, anti-socialist influences” along their borders. The two men feared that events in Czechoslovakia would prove “contagious” and would create political instability in their own countries. As early as mid-January, when a high-level Soviet delegation led by Brezhnev paid an unofficial visit to Poland and East Germany, both Gomułka and Ulbricht expressed disquiet to their Soviet counterparts about recent developments in Czechoslovakia.9 Gomułka reiterated his concerns in a private conversation with Dubček a few weeks later in the Moravian city of Ostrava, warning that “if things go badly with you [in Czechoslovakia], we in Poland, too, will find hostile elements rising against us.”10 In subsequent weeks, Gomułka’s and Ulbricht’s views of the Czechoslovak reform program took on an increasingly alarmist edge; and before long, both of the East European leaders were calling, with ever greater urgency, for intervention by Warsaw Pact troops to halt the Prague Spring.
THE ROAD TOWARD CONFRONTATION
The concerns expressed by Polish and East German leaders, combined with the disquiet that senior officials in Moscow were beginning to feel, induced the CPSU Politburo to give high priority to the “Czechoslovak question.”11 From mid-March 1968 on, the issue was constantly at the top of the Politburo’s agenda. The transcripts of the Politburo sessions and the records of other high-level CPSU bodies, as well as materials from Brezhnev’s personal papers (lichnyi fond), reveal that the CPSU general secretary consulted and worked closely with his colleagues on all aspects of the crisis, thereby ensuring that responsibility for the outcome would be borne collectively. Unlike in December 1967, when Brezhnev resorted to “personal diplomacy” during a sudden visit to Prague as the pressure for political change in Czechoslovakia was coming to a head, the growing “threat” in Czechoslovakia by the spring of 1968 gave him an incentive to share as much of the burden as possible with the rest of the Politburo and Secretariat. In particular, he ensured that his two top colleagues (and potential rivals), Aleksei Kosygin and Nikolai Podgornyi, were prominently involved in all key decisions and negotiations, linking them in an informal troika (with Brezhnev) that represented—and often acted on behalf of—the full Politburo. Much the same was true of Brezhnev’s reliance on two other senior Politburo members: Mikhail Suslov, who oversaw ideological matters; and Petro Shelest, whose responsibilities in Ukraine did not prevent him from playing a key role during the crisis.
At the same time, Brezhnev was careful not to get bogged down by lowerlevel bureaucratic maneuvering. Throughout the crisis the CPSU Politburo, led by Brezhnev, exercised tight control over Soviet policy. The Politburo eventually set up a high-level “commission on the Czechoslovak question,” consisting of Podgornyi, Suslov, Arvı-ds Pel’she, Aleksandr Shelepin, Kirill Mazurov, Konstantin Rusakov, Yuri Andropov, Andrei Gromyko, and Aleksei Epishev. The commission kept a daily watch on events in Czechoslovakia, functioning as an organ of the Politburo that was directly accountable to Brezhnev. (Six of the nine members of the commission, including Podgornyi and Suslov, were full or candidate members of the Politburo, and the three other commission members had been taking an active part in the Politburo’s deliberations on Czechoslovakia.)12 The commission’s updated findings and recommendations were regularly brought before the full Politburo for consideration. Brezhnev himself carefully guided the Politburo’s proceedings and took direct responsibility for bilateral contacts with Dubček.
Throughout the spring and summer of 1968, analogies with the violence in Hungary in 1956 remained salient in the Soviet Politburo’s deliberations about the Prague Spring, despite the lack of any violent unrest in Czechoslovakia. When Dubček and other reform-minded Czechoslovak officials spoke with Soviet leaders, they tried to convince them that the situation was not at all like Hungary twelve years earlier: