Promises of 1968: Crisis, Illusion and Utopia

The Prague Spring: Resistance and Surrender of the PCI

VicTor zaslaVsky The Prague Spring resistance and surrender of the PCi The Prague spring represented a multilevel conflict between conservative and reformist groups that exploded simultaneously within both the soviet bloc and the international communist movement. Newly available documentation from the russian state Archive of Contemporary History (hereafter referred to by the russian acronym rGANi) as well as the archive of the Gramsci institute (rome) makes it possible to analyze the conflict between the Communist Party of the soviet Union (CPsU) and the italian Communist Party (PCi) over the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by the armed forces of five Warsaw Pact members , a conflict that subsequently led to the emergence of the eurocommunist movement. economic reforms introduced by the Brezhnev-Kosygin leadership after the ousting of Khrushchev at the end of 1964 moved the soviet Union towards a moderate economic liberalization. Unexpectedly for the soviet leadership, these reforms gave a powerful impetus to a reformist movement in the countries of eastern europe that overstepped the narrow boundaries of economics and touched the systemic core of their political regimes. By 1968, Czechoslovakia became the epicenter of a reformist movement directed at liberalizing and democratizing the “popular democracies” of eastern europe, to the extent of weakening or even abolishing such central institutions as the party nomenklatura and all-pervasive censorship. According to their declarations, Czechoslovak reformers aimed at transforming soviet-type socialism into “socialism with a human face.” As the largest West european communist party closely tied to the repressive soviet regime, the PCi found itself under constant pressure after Khrushchev’s denunciation of stalin’s crimes at the Tweni4 Promises.indb 387 2010.10.18. 14:31 388 Promises of 1968 tieth Congress of the CPsU and the 1956 soviet invasion of Hungary. The reformist course of the Czechoslovak Communist Party under Alexander Dubček’s leadership offered the PCi a new option to improve its public image and expand its influence. The leaders of the PCi enthusiastically supported the Czechoslovak reforms. in march 1968, PCi secretary Luigi Longo published an article affirming that the Czechoslovak experience not only provided “an important contribution to the struggle of the working class and the Left forces in the capitalist world,” but also furnished a model of reform for all the “existing socialist” regimes.1 in may 1968, Longo visited Czechoslovakia . His visit was conceived as “an open manifestation of solidarity of italian communists with the new leadership of the Czechoslovak Communist Party [KsČ].”2 Upon his return to rome, Longo informed his colleagues in the PCi executive that there were “no doubts about the socialist character of Czechoslovakia and its friendly relations with the Ussr,” even as “the working class was somewhat perplexed” by the new orientation of the KsČ leadership.3 At the same time, enrico Berlinguer, Longo’s future successor, visited Hungary to probe the seriousness of soviet threats to the Prague reformist course. Both italian communist leaders returned convinced that there was “no cause for alarm” and that “the Czech comrades were quite satisfied with the italian communist support of their reformist policies.”4 in fact, soviet internal documents indicate that italian communist leaders thoroughly misconstrued moscow’s reaction to the Czechoslovak events. The soviet leadership’s apprehension about the Czech situation was augmented by pressure from such east european leaders as Władysław Gomułka of Poland, János Kádár of Hungary, and Todor Zhivkov of Bulgaria. on march 21, 1968, Brezhnev informed the Politburo that these leaders had appealed to him to “take measures for the normalization of the situation in Czechoslovakia, even if they did not specify which measures they had in mind.”5 1 L. Longo, “e’ ora di cambiare,” L’Unità, march 28, 1968. 2 A. Höbel, “il Pci, il ’68 cecoslovacco e il rapporto col PCUs,” Studi Storici, no. 4, 2001, 1147. 3 istituto Gramsci (thereafter iG), Archivio del Partito Comunista (thereafter Apc), Direzione, may 10, 1968, mf. 020, p. 640 ss. 4 ibid. 5 r. Pichoja, Sovetskij Sojuz: Istorija vlasti, 1945–1991 (moscow: rags, 1998), 310. i4 Promises.indb 388 2010.10.18. 14:31 389 The Prague Spring Towards the end of June, when several leading Czechoslovak reformers published their manifesto “Two Thousand Words,” the soviet Politburo became truly alarmed. During a two-day Politburo meeting of July 2 and 3—the length of the meeting itself indicative of the gravity of the situation—Brezhnev relayed...