Touchy Czechs and Reality
During his visit to Moscow, Czech President Milos Zeman expressed a pretense to the Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev about Leonid Maslovsky’s article “Czechoslovakia should be grateful to the USSR for 1968 a year: story "Prague Spring". Like, this article is offensive to the Czech Republic and caused a strong reaction of discontent in Czech society. Premier Medvedev diplomatically replied that the opinion of the author of the article does not reflect the official position of Russia. Yes of course! United Russia has always believed and believed that the USSR in 1968 had committed an act of aggression against Czechoslovakia, strangling the Prague Spring, as if other Warsaw Pact countries had not "strangled" this spring. This fact became one of the central themes in the accusatory criticism of the liberals of the CPSU and the USSR in the years of perestroika. This topic remains fashionable now.
Red Europe
After the defeat of Hitler Germany in Europe, all right-wing bourgeois governments that collaborated with Hitler underwent a political crisis. Socialists and communists came to power relatively easily, which is extremely frightening to the Anglo-Saxons. And in the USA and Great Britain the left ideas were strengthened. Anglo-Saxons and European bankers who grew rich in war had to take countermeasures.
Germany was under occupation. In France, a moderately right regime was established with an independent policy. It was a kind of post-war gollism, and the French communists, along with the Italian and Swedish, created a new trend in the communist movement - Eurocommunism, dissociating themselves from revolutionary Leninism. In racial America, bankers acted harder — McCarthyism prevailed there, an American version of fascism, and any left-wing idea was considered criminal, anti-state, and punished.
For Europe destroyed by the war, a Marshall plan was invented, according to which American bankers took part in restoring the consumer market of those European countries whose governments were not socialist and communist. The economy of such countries was restored faster than in those oriented to socialism, and in them the right in the structures of power strengthened their positions against the left. However, in the end result, Western Europe from America’s creditor turned into its debtor.
The special services, including the intelligence of NATO, a military-political organization established in 1949 to counter communism, were not asleep either. From 1944 in the countries of Eastern Europe, Greece and Italy, the Anglo-Saxons created guerrilla-type guerrilla groups for actions against the Communists and the Red Army, which at that time crossed the USSR border and liberated neighboring countries from the Nazis. In Italy, this project was named Gladio. Subsequently, the entire underground network of such organizations in post-war Europe was transferred to NATO.
The British generals also prepared the plan for Operation Unthinkable, according to which, by the end of the war, Germany and its satellites, with the support of the Anglo-Saxons, were to launch a new offensive against the East against the USSR weakened by war. Provided nuclear bombing of Moscow.
After the formation of the CMEA in 1949 and the Warsaw Treaty Organization (ATS) in 1955 in response to the admission of Germany to NATO, the American and NATO strategists intensified their subversive activities within the countries of the Socialist Commonwealth. This strategy was conditionally called "Biting the cake off the edge." First of all, it was planned to “bite off” those countries whose names included the definition of “socialist republic” and had the Communist Party in power. Such countries were the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), which was not a member of the CMEA and ATS, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (Czechoslovakia), the Socialist Republic of Romania (SRR), the Hungarian People's Republic (NVR) and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam far from Europe (Vietnam), not part of the Commonwealth, as well as Cuba. Although other states did not remain outside the plans of such a strategy.
The organizations of the CMEA and the ATS, according to the constituent documents, were open to all states, regardless of their political structure. The withdrawal from these organizations was also free under the terms of the memorandum of association. There was no coercion of the existing legal governments to the construction of communism by the USSR. But inside the countries with left orientation there were quite a lot of their ideological contradictions and supporters of Joseph Stalin, and in the parties - orthodox communist revolutionaries and conservatives. The Comintern gave its fruits.
Class struggle, party conflicts and "help" from the outside
The first political conflict in the Socialist Commonwealth arose in the GDR in June 1953. And although he was anti-government, he was not anti-Soviet. Modern historians are crafty, calling those events a performance of the working people against socialism. However, falsifications of this kind are allowed in their description. Recall that at that time the GDR still did not have sovereignty, did not recover from the military chaos and paid indemnity as a result of the war. To revive the economy, the government needed funds and it went on by the decision of the SED political bureau and with the consent of the trade unions to increase labor standards, that is, intensify labor without wage growth, increase prices and tax cuts for small private entrepreneurs to fill the consumer market with goods. This was the cause of the disturbances organized in mass protests and a general strike demanding a change in leadership of the party and the country.
The organizers of those obviously not spontaneous events are still not called. They say it was a surprise for the USA. But this is a lie. In the year 1952 in the USA, a “National Strategy for Germany” was developed. Part of this strategy was subversive activities to "reduce the Soviet potential in East Germany." West Berlin was seen as a "showcase of democracy" and a platform for the preparation of psychological operations against the GDR, recruiting and operational intelligence work with East Germans and material and financial support for anti-communist organizations with the goal of "controlled preparation for more active resistance." According to high-ranking Americans, the RIAS radio station, Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor, was the spiritual-psychological, or rather, information and coordinating center of the June uprising. Radio stations regularly listened to more than 70% East Germans. The actions of the organizers of the protests on the territory of the GDR were coordinated with the help of this radio station.
The Americans did not seek to seize the initiative and take the lead of the general strike. Firstly, the mass demonstrations were not clearly anti-communist in nature. Secondly, the United States and Britain initially opposed united Germany, an idea that was then popular in the GDR and was supported by the USSR at the Tehran Conference, which took place in early December 1943. It was beneficial for America to burden the instability in the GDR with the Soviet leadership and extend it to other countries of a socialist orientation. A special, key place in these plans was occupied by Czechoslovakia - the most industrially developed republic of all the rest.
As it grew, the June 1953 uprising in the GDR everywhere entered a phase of violence and armed confrontation with the police and state security of the GDR. Therefore, after the introduction of a state of emergency, it was suppressed by the police and Soviet troops. Over the entire course of events, about 40 people have died, including police and state security officers. The government of the GDR made concessions and annulled its decisions, which angered the population. The Soviet government had significantly reduced the payments of GDR on indemnity. From next year, the GDR received full sovereignty and began to form its own army. But the provocations from the territory of West Berlin and Germany continued. So, in 1961, for this reason, the famous Berlin Wall arose, after the fall of which and the unification of Germany, the RIAS television and radio company was also eliminated.
The next was an armed coup in Hungary 1956 of the year. In fact, he was pro-fascist. The massacre of the putschists over the communists and the military was the same sadistic cruel that Bandera committed in Ukraine, as evidenced by the photographic documents and the investigative materials. Starting in Budapest, the armed uprising of the putschists developed into a civil war, creating the threat of a split in the Hungarian army, which did not support the putsch. The special corps of the Soviet army, which was then part of the Central Group of Forces (TsGV) of the first formation, was compelled by the victor’s right to intervene and stop the civil war. For all the events of the Hungarians on both sides of the conflict, about 1 thousand 700 people died. At the same time, the putschists killed about 800 Soviet military personnel. That was our price for someone else's reconciliation.
The coup itself was prepared and timed to the withdrawal of the Soviet TsGV troops from Hungary and Austria under the terms of the Paris Peace Treaty. That is, it was an attempt of the fascist coup. But hurried. Or a more bloody provocation was planned with the involvement of Soviet troops in it. After the coup, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary was suspended and on their basis the Southern Group of Forces of the USSR was formed. Now the Hungarians call this coup the 1956 revolution of the year. The anti-Soviet revolution, of course, that is, progressive in current terms.
The Americans launched a direct war in 1965 against socialist Vietnam, which lasted more than nine years and was waged with extreme cruelty by all kinds weaponsincluding chemical. The actions of the US Army quite fall under the definition of the genocide of the Vietnamese people. In this war, about 3 million Vietnamese died on both sides. The war ended with the victory of North Vietnam and the unification of the country. The Soviet Union provided military assistance to the North Vietnamese. In Europe, the United States and NATO could not afford this until the invasion of Yugoslavia after the collapse of the USSR.
Similar to the mass protests of 1953, in the GDR almost on 20 years later, workers in shipyards and factories in the northern regions of the Polish People's Republic and weavers in Lodz took place in the GNUMX-1970 years. They marked the beginning of the Solidarity trade union movement. But here the popular initiative was intercepted by Western intelligence and sent to the anti-Soviet and anti-communist channels.
The development of civil conflict in the direction of the civil war "red and white" was prevented by General Wojciech Jaruzelski, who took over the leadership of the country and the PUWP in 1981, declaring martial law in the country. Saving this country from the bloody showdown, he repeated the civil feat of the Portuguese General Antonio Ramal Eanesh, who became the President of Portugal in 1976, with the support of the army and did not allow extremism in politics after the so-called "Revolution of the Stud" 1974.
Wojciech Jaruzelski also directly warned the Soviet leadership against interfering in Polish events. Although neither Leonid Brezhnev nor other leaders of that time were going to do this, and only the possibility of providing military support to Jaruzelski in a critical situation was discussed. On the territory of Poland, under the treaty, Soviet troops remained from the end of the war until the 1990 of the year, deployed in Silesia and Pomerania - the former German lands annexed to Poland. All 20 years of Polish perestroika, the Soviet command did not react to the internal political conflict in Poland.
The Poles themselves coped with the situation. From clashes with the police and the Polish army around the time killing about 50 people. This is the merit of Wojciech Jaruzelski.
The most bloody, tragic history among the socialist countries was in Yugoslavia (Yugoslavia) after the Americans and NATO began in the Balkans "promoting democracy" in their operational plans. They never had a goal to preserve the integrity of Yugoslavia. On the contrary, they promoted its disintegration, stimulating nationalist separatist sentiments in the Union republics. And openly opposed the Serbs, the historical allies of the Russian. For the invasion of Yugoslavia, NATO troops have been preparing since 1990. Under the cover of the UN peacekeeping mission on the UN decision in 1991, in fact they launched a war against Serbia. Unlike the Czechs, who were offended by the USSR and Russia for the introduction of troops in 1968, the Serbs were offended by the non-intervention of the USSR and Russia on the side of Serbia in its conflict with Western democracy. But Gorbachev and Yeltsin at this time themselves were bursting into friends of this very democracy.
The events in Romania, where socialism had its own peculiarity, stand in a special row. It consisted in a certain separation of the Romanian foreign policy within the framework of the CMEA and ATS. Socialism was built with the support of the authoritarian character of the communist government according to the Stalin model. Her first leader was George Gheorghiu-Dej, before March 1965, a Stalinist and opponent of Moscow influence, a critic of the Khrushchev reforms. And after his death, Nicolae Ceausescu, who also defied Moscow, became such an authoritarian communist leader. For example, he condemned the introduction of ATS troops into Czechoslovakia in 1968, allowed cautious liberalism and pro-assault, claimed world leadership, as the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito, also a Stalinist and Khrushchev's opponent.
Ceausescu continued the policy of his predecessor to expand economic ties with the West, increasing foreign debt in 1977-1981 to Western lenders from 3 to 10 billion dollars. But the economy did not develop, but only became dependent on the World Bank and the IMF. Since 1980, Romania has worked mainly on paying off debt on loans and by the end of Ceausescu's government, it was possible to pay off foreign debt almost entirely, thanks to a referendum on limiting its power.
In December of the 1989 of the year in Romania, a coup d'état took place, the beginning of which was the unrest of the Hungarian population in Timisoara on December 16. And on December 25, Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife were captured and executed almost immediately after the announcement of the verdict of a special military tribunal. The quick trial and the execution of the Ceausescu couple indicate that they are more likely to be inspired from the outside and carried out by a group of conspirators prepared in advance. This is also indicated by the fact that some participants in the court and the executions were soon dead.
Was not the sudden counter-revolution in Romania with the execution of the main communist of the country not only the start of anti-communist coups and reforms in other socialist countries, but also a warning hint to Gorbachev and Yeltsin, other communist leaders?
It would seem that, following the logic of anti-Soviet criticism, Soviet troops should have been introduced to socialist Romania long ago as soon as there began a retreat from the Soviet line even under Khrushchev. And then in the 70-e passed a series of mass anti-communist unrest. But that did not happen. It was under Khrushchev that the remnants of the first group of Soviet troops of the first formation, consisting of units of a separate combined arms army of the former 1958 of the Ukrainian Front, were withdrawn from Romania in 3. After the withdrawal of the army into the USSR, the army was disbanded.
In 1989, Mikhail Gorbachev also did not intend to send Soviet troops into Romania or to resort to ATS, although the Americans incited him, anticipating, presumably, a bloody disassembly between the Communists. Gorbachev even supported the displacement of Ceausescu, and then in 1990, he sent to Romania Eduard Shevardnadze to greet the victory of the Romanian democracy.
"Do not blame me needlessly"
Against the background of all the events listed above, the input of the Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia in 1968 is central to the criticism of the USSR Attitude to this event is still ambiguous. Hence the accusation of Leonid Maslovsky against the Czechs, and the offense of the Czechs against Maslovsky. There is a lot of bias that comes from the ideological assessments of the Soviet period of our history by young generations and political fashion. Whether the author of the article “Czechoslovakia should be grateful to the USSR for 1968 a year: did the history of the Prague Spring really blame the Czechs for something after what happened to the Soviet Union? Hardly. Maybe that's why the Czech liberals were offended considering their country first Swallow the "Prague Spring", a forerunner of change in Eastern Europe, the birthplace of "socialism with a human face." The Soviet Union had a chance to develop and implement this idea into restructuring. Fairly? Completely.
On the other hand, the Czechs offended by the author of the article and the Soviet Union are confident that the anti-communist reforms in Czechoslovakia would have passed on 30 years earlier as peacefully and effectively as in the 90-s. That the Czech Republic and Slovakia even then would be divided without mutual claims for a common inheritance. Where does this confidence come from? Indeed, at that time, the Czech and Slovak reformers did not have the tragic events in Romania and the civil war in Yugoslavia fanned by Western democracies. The fate of the Ceausescu spouses chilled many of the hotheads of Eastern Europe, so the subsequent liberal reforms in the CMEA countries were quite moderate, not radical. The radicalization of political ideas was already manifested in the course of reforms in foreign policy, when national interests had to be adjusted to the interests of globalists.
As for the entry of troops of the Warsaw Pact into Czechoslovakia itself, this was a collective decision after many consultations of the five Warsaw Pact countries, including Czechoslovakia itself. On this account there is documentary evidence. It is unlikely that the Soviet government would send its troops without such a general decision and common responsibility if the participants of the ATS and the Czechoslovak leadership itself would first of all say "No!" The refusal was only from Romania and Albania. And the most active in this issue were Poland, GDR and Bulgaria.
The fact that in the event of unrest at the time in Czechoslovakia and armed conflicts between reformers and communists, which was very likely, NATO troops were ready to enter Czechoslovakia is not noticed. And then the massacre of the Communists, the loss of sovereignty once again would not be avoided. American and NATO democracy has long shown that it has no other intentions in the "promotion of democracy", except for financial and violent suppression of competitors. Perhaps in Czechoslovakia in 1968, what would have happened later in Yugoslavia and what is happening now in Ukraine. ATS troops in 1968 year preempted the invasion of NATO troops. Now the Czech Republic is a NATO member of her own will and the charter of this organization limits the sovereignty of the Czech Republic, including in ensuring its security. What offense?
And the liberals are different now. They mockingly called the Arab spring of the United States and NATO against the Arab states, traditionally friendly to Russia and with a socially-oriented economy, by analogy with the Prague Spring. Singing to the Americans, they equalize the terrorists with the fighters for democracy.
The army of Czechoslovakia during the entire operation of the Danube police department was in the barracks, because it received the order of President Ludwik Svoboda not to interfere with the entry of friendly troops. ATS troops were also given an order restricting the use of weapons. There were no special clashes between the troops of the Department of Internal Affairs and the military units of Czechoslovakia, except for the disarming of the guards and the protection of administrative buildings. In general, the “velvet revolution”, “velvet divorce”, “velvet troop introduction” ... this is all Czechoslovakia.
After a while, some veterans of the Czechoslovak army say that the introduction of troops from the ATS countries was still justified. A coup d'état with the indecisive Aleksandr Dubcek or the invasion of German forces could provoke a great bloodshed. And the participation of the army in politics would lead to its split - the forerunner of the civil war. Although, in general, all these maneuvers were the result of political games of the Cold War, ideological opposition. Each time has its own measure of truth.
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