1968 - Mark Kurlansky [147]
Alternative number two, the internal coup, showed little sign of being possible. The Soviets would try solution one, trying one last time to bring Comrade Dubek around before resorting to invasion. There was clearly great disagreement about what to do. Kosygin, for one, appeared to oppose invasion. And the two largest Western Communist Parties, the French and the Italian, sent their leaders to Moscow to argue against invasion.
The Soviets nevertheless began putting the option of an invasion in place so that were it to be decided on, it could roll at the wave of a hand. A huge circle of Warsaw Pact troops, most of them Soviet, backed by massive armored divisions, encircled Czechoslovakia from East Germany across Poland and the Ukraine and arching through Hungary. There may have been hundreds of thousands of troops ready for an order. The only perimeter not facing tanks was the small Austrian border. A media campaign on the terrible antisocialist crimes being carried out in Czechoslovakia was intended to prepare the Soviet people for the idea of an invasion. The East German and Polish leaders were already prepared. In July the Soviets met with Hungary’s Kádár to pressure him. After a July 3 meeting, both Kádár and Brezhnev issued strong statements about “defending socialism.”
Then, as the one last attempt to persuade Dubek, he was ordered to Moscow to discuss the Czech program. Dubek considered this an obnoxious and illegal interference with internal affairs of his country. He put it to the Czechoslovakian presidium, which voted overwhelmingly to turn down the Moscow invitation. How unfortunate that no chronicler was present to record Brezhnev’s reaction to the polite message from Prague, the first time ever that a head of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party had turned down an order from Moscow to attend a meeting.
Dubek was absolutely confident that he could manage the Soviets. To him it was unimaginable that they would invade. They were friends. It was as far-fetched as the United States invading Canada. He believed that he knew how to reassure them. When he spoke with Brezhnev and the senior Soviet leaders, he knew the words to avoid. He would never say “reform,” “reformist,” or especially “revision.” These were terms certain to enrage the true Marxist-Leninist.
In June thousands of Soviet troops had been allowed into Czechoslovakia for “staff maneuvers.” This was normal, but the quantity, tens of thousands of troops and thousands of vehicles, including tanks, was not. The maneuvers were supposed to end on June 30, and as each July day passed with the troops still there, the population was growing angrier. Clearly stalling, the Soviets presented a steady stream of ridiculous excuses: They needed repairs and so additional “repair troops” began entering, problems with spare parts, the troops needed rest, they were concerned about blocking traffic, the bridges and roads on which they had entered seemed shaky and in need of repairs.
Rumors spread through Czechoslovakia that the trespassing Soviet troops had brought with them printing presses and broadcast-jamming equipment, files on Czechoslovakian political leaders, and lists of people to be arrested.
The Czechoslovakian government demanded the removal of the Soviet troops. The Soviets demanded that the entire Czechoslovakian presidium come to Moscow and meet with the entire Soviet presidium. Prague responded that they thought the meeting was a good idea and “invited” the Soviet presidium to Czechoslovakia. The entire Soviet presidium had never traveled outside the Soviet Union.
Dubek knew he was playing a dangerous game. But he had his own people to answer to, and they clearly would not accept capitulation. In retrospect, one of the deciding factors that kept the Soviets from giving the invasion order that July was the tremendous unity of the Czechoslovakian people. There had never before really been a Czechoslovakian people. There were Czechs and there were Slovaks, and even among Czechs there were Moravians and Bohemians. But for one moment in