Promises of 1968: Crisis, Illusion and Utopia

The Kremlin, the Prague Spring, and the Brezhnev Doctrine

mark kramer The Kremlin, the Prague Spring, and the Brezhnev Doctrine Until the late 1980s, the soviet Union’s determination to preserve communism in east-Central europe was not in doubt. When communist regimes in eastern europe came under violent threat in the 1950s—in east Germany in 1953 and Hungary in 1956—soviet troops intervened to subdue those challenges. A very different problem arose in 1968, when Czechoslovakia embarked on a dramatic, but entirely peaceful, attempt to change both the internal complexion of communism and many of the basic structures of soviet–east european relations . This eight-month-long experiment, widely known as the “Prague spring,” came to a decisive end in August 1968, when hundreds of thousands of soviet and Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia. Neither the soviet Union nor Czechoslovakia exists any longer, but the legacy of the Prague spring and the soviet invasion is still being felt. The reforms that took place in Czechoslovakia in 1968 under the leadership of Alexander Dubček offered the first opportunity for an east european communist regime to earn genuine popular support. moscow’s unwillingness to tolerate those reforms ensured that, from then on, stability in the eastern bloc could be preserved only by the threat of another soviet invasion. That threat sufficed to hold the bloc together for more than twenty years, even when tested by severe crises like the one in Poland in 1980–1981. But soon after mikhail Gorbachev came along and was no longer willing to use military force in eastern europe, the whole soviet bloc collapsed. Because of the legacy of 1968, all the east european regimes still lacked the legitimacy they would have needed to sustain themselves without soviet military backing. The invasion of Czechoslovakia saved soviet-style communism in eastern europe for more i4 Promises.indb 285 2010.10.18. 14:31 286 Promises of 1968 than two decades, but it could not forestall the eventual demise of the bloc. This paper draws on recently declassified archival materials and memoirs to provide a reassessment of the 1968 crisis, showing how the confrontation with Czechoslovakia fit into soviet policy toward eastern europe. The paper begins by discussing the context of the 1968 crisis, highlighting trends in soviet policy in the late 1950s and 1960s. it then turns to the Prague spring itself, explaining why the bold changes in Czechoslovakia provoked such a harsh reaction in moscow. finally, the chapter explores the international and domestic consequences of the soviet-led invasion, focusing in particular on the promulgation of the “Brezhnev Doctrine,” which set the tone for soviet– east european relations for the next twenty-one years. Context of the 1968 Crisis from November 1956, when soviet troops crushed a popular uprising in Hungary, to January 1968, when the Prague spring began, soviet– east european relations underwent several notable changes. some developments facilitated greater soviet control over eastern europe and better cohesion among the Warsaw Pact states, but numerous other factors tended to weaken soviet control and to create fissures within the eastern bloc. Sources of Cohesion from the early 1960s on, the soviet Union sought to invigorate the Council for mutual economic Assistance (CmeA), which had been largely dormant since it was created by stalin in 1949. Both Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev hoped to use the CmeA as a means of formally integrating the soviet and east european economies.1 The “Basic Principles of socialist economic integration,” announced by 1 Jozef m. van Brabant, Socialist Economic Integration: Contemporary Economic Problems in Eastern Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980), esp. chap. 1; Alan H. smith, The Planned Economies of Eastern Europe (London: Croom Helm, 1983), 174–202; and michael Kaser, COMECON: Integration Problems of the Planned Economies (oxford: oxford University Press, 1967). i4 Promises.indb 286 2010.10.18. 14:31 287 The Kremlin, the Prague Spring, and the Brezhnev Doctrine Khrushchev with much fanfare in 1961, did not yield many results in the end; but the soviet Union was able to exploit its economic preponderance to promote bilateral integration with each of the CmeA member states, especially in trade relations. The unusually large proportion of foreign trade that the east european countries conducted with the soviet Union and with other CmeA members rose to nearly 70 percent in the 1960s, except in the case of romania.2 This trend did not bring the supranational integration that soviet leaders had envisaged, but...