APPENDICES
Appendix 1
“Counterrevolution” in Prague
Report by the ambassador of the GDR in the ČSSR, P. Florin, on the situation in the country.1
10 March 1968
[Prague]
The activities of the oppositional forces have been stepped up over the last few days; they are displaying counter-revolutionary traits ever more openly. Systematic attacks are being launched against the organs of the power of the state, against their representatives, against the pillars of a socialist society and against basic socialist principles. [The] writer Kohout calls for the publication of the so-called “Writers’ Manifesto,” which famously contains the demand for a return to a bourgeois parliamentary republic. On the 118th anniversary of Masaryk’s birthday articles were published containing such passages as: “Our socialist society and its political system are connected by an umbilical cord to this historical development [i.e. the era of Masaryk] and not to the Soviet system, which came into being in totally different circumstances… Masaryk is for us a living compass between the past and the present” (Mladá fronta). The Trade Union paper Prace quotes Masaryk’s phrase of a “social socialism” and states that today is the time to realize this idea.
[…] The press in general or at least the key papers, TV, radio, CTK and a large number of periodicals are in the hands of the oppositional forces. They are doing everything they can to foment an atmosphere of opposition, they allow no space for counterarguments and are working systematically to organize the counterrevolution. They have managed to bring about the abolition of censorship and a new media law, in whose drafting the journalists themselves are to be given a say. Both measures have been passed by the presidium of the CC. The presidium of the CC CPCz has also passed a resolution that allows the practically unchecked importation of foreign literature and news media.
[…] It is quite obvious that the oppositional forces are centrally coordinated. Presumably they have both an open center and an illegal one. The personages of the open center include today Smrkovský (member of the CC CPCz and Minister for Forestry), Šik (member of the CC), Goldstücker (professor at Charles University and president of the writers’ union), Pelikan (director of state TV), Kohout (writer) and several journalists and students. As can be gathered from the Western press, the illegal center is in touch with capitalist circles and their organs abroad. Some Czechoslovak comrades in leading positions have been attempting to this day to interpret the activities of the oppositional forces as isolated extremist phenomena. However in reality we are confronted with the centrally coordinated and systematically developed preparation of a counterrevolution.
To date the situation has developed in analogy to the one on the eve of the counter-revolutionary putsch of 1956 in Hungary. […] If the comrades in the party leadership do not take a determined stand soon, the other side will be able to realize their plans in regard to public violent provocations.
(Florin)2
Ambassador
1. For the policies of the GDR in connection with the events in Czechoslovakia, see Manfred Wilke’s chapter in this volume.
2. Autograph signature.
SAPMO-BA, DY 30/3616, S. 52–57 (reprinted in Karner et al., Dokumente, #3).
Appendix 2
“We Are Ready at Any Time… to Assist the Czechoslovak People Together with the Armies… of the Warsaw Pact”
Speech of the Minister of Defense of the USSR, Marshal of the Soviet Union A. A. Grechko, at the plenum of the CC CPSU.
10 April 1968
[…] The policies of our Party are continuously and fervently echoed by the Army and the Navy and meet with the unanimous approval of the entire personnel of the Armed Forces. The soldiers of the Soviet Union share the thoughts and the feelings of the party and the people. They are perfectly aware that they must be ready for international deployments, which are a consequence of the tremendous significance that our military power has for international events. They identify with everything that the party decrees, also in regard to foreign politics. Many of our soldiers have to serve outside the country. At present tens of thousands of communist and non-party soldiers are serving abroad in thirty-six different countries, where, as I am proud to report to the plenum, they discharge their duty with dignity and as propagators of the Leninist policy of the party.
The present situation is characterized by a tremendous surge in the bellicosity of the imperialists in general and of the Americans in particular. They resort increasingly frequently to the use of force in their attempts to crush the forces of progress and social liberation and they stage dangerous provocative acts in various regions of the world. Instigated by their masters in Washington, West German militarists and revanchistes openly demand a revision of the results of WWII and are becoming more assertive by the day. […]
A source of deep concern for us are the events in China and the betrayal of Marxism-Leninism, the principles of proletarian internationalism, the unity of the worldwide communist movement and of the security of the Socialist states in the east by the group around Mao Tse-tung, which is going to inflict great harm.