| dc.description.abstract | In the night between the 20lh and 2151 of August, 1968, the armies of the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, the GDR
and Bulgaria entered the territory of Czechoslovakia. In this way the “Prague spring”, a period of citizen life
freedom, was terminated.
The intervention evoked a clearly negative reaction in the international worker’s community, as it was perceived as
an unjustified aggression. The explanations of the Soviet Union, that the action was a “brotherly help against
counterrevolution”, were not accepted as believable. The greater the sympathy of the international community which
was directed towards the Czechoslovakian reformative process, the more protests, bitter disappointment and
opposition appeared in reaction to the news of the intervention. The greatest, most influential communist and
labour parties of Europe condemned the aggression and supported the Czechoslovakian society and its constitutional
authorities. This was the attitude of, among others, the Yugoslavian Communists Association, the communist parties
of Romania, Italy, France, Spain, Austria, Great Britain and Japan. Contrary to the disapproval expressed by the
governments and parliaments of the European countries as regards the intervention, the protests of the communist
parties could not be neglected not labelled “imperialist manipulation”. This especially concerned the protests of
the greatest parties, the Italian and the French communist party, the latter up till then always faithful to
Moscow.
The crack that appeared in the unity of the “international communist movement” was the price the Soviet Union had
to pay for keeping Czechoslovakia within the “bloc”. Beside the Chinese-Soviet conflict, this was the most serious
crisis in relations between the CPSU and the communist parties of Europe and the United States. Thus the erosion of
the unity of the communist movement began. After a few years it led to far-reaching transformations among the
communist parties of Western Europe, which found their expression in the doctrine of “Euro-communism”. | en_EN |
