Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia

The decision on the part of the Soviet Union to invade Czechoslovakia came about because of a combination of forces and crises. The invasion followed what has come to be known as the Prague Spring, a period of liberalization of policies in Poland, which came at a time when the Soviets were faced with problems in Romania. Efforts at liberalization by the Dubcek regime in Czechoslovakia raised fears in the Soviet leaders that this would be only the beginning of widespread demands for changes of the same sort in other East European countries. In addition, there were changes taking place in Czechoslovakia in terms of self defense and foreign policy which threatened the membership of that country in the Warsaw Pact, and the Soviets could not abide any potential defection from the apparent unity of the Eastern bloc.

The crisis in Czechoslovakia covered a period of about eight months in 1968, a period involving what Valenta (1991) calls "profound and revolutionary changes" (Valenta, 1991, 11). What was taking place was a peaceful revolution that was a result of the de-Stalinization process taking place throughout the Eastern bloc in varying degrees. The Soviets were opposed to the reforms they saw taking place in Czechoslovakia and the other countries noted above. A degree of democratization was the hallmark of the changes in Czechoslovakia, and this process was taking place for several years prior to the onset of the crisis, without this fact being noticed by analysts in the

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ical climate brought into the open a longstanding debate over the nature of the Warsaw Pact and Czechoslovakia's membership in it, and high-ranking officers were discussing the need for a truly independent defense strategy based on their country's national interests rather than the prevailing rationale of Soviet security interests: Czechoslovakia threatened to complicate Soviet military strategy in Central Europe by becoming a neutral country dividing the Warsaw Pact into two parts along its front with NATO (Gawdiak, 1987, 324). In any case, the perception of the Soviets was that this was a dangerous situation no matter how it developed. On the one hand, it was possible that the reforms would lead to pressures for Czechoslovakia to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact, which would mean the disintegration of the entire system. On the other hand, the reforms might be successful, a real possibility given Czechoslovakia's economic potential, and that they might succeed without jeopardizing the position of the Communist Party. The Soviets would then be faced with the need to acknowledge the legitimacy not only of the economic but also of the political reforms. This could lead to agitation from other members of the bloc, producing a chao

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