In 1968, Russia Invaded Czechoslovakia — and it was a Mistake

Late on August 20, 1968, 200,000 Russian-led Warsaw Pact troops marched into Czechoslovakia armed with artillery and tanks. This, Russia would come to learn, had been a grave mistake.

It was an ambitious yet short-sighted invasion and it was paid for with Czech lives. Russia, too, paid a steep price for her actions. And in light of the recent invasion of Ukraine, it would seem Russia has yet to learn from her past.

Earlier, in January 1968, Czechoslovakia saw the beginning of a new era with the election of Alexander Dubček. His election gave rise to the Prague Spring, a period of political liberalization.

The Prague Spring gave Czech citizens liberties they had not experienced before — it gave people more freedom of speech, increased freedom of the press, and lifted some restrictions on travel.

The Soviets did not take this well and tried to curb the Spring through negotiation. The negotiations went relatively well at first, and the Soviet Union even agreed to pull back their troops from Czechoslovakia.

But the negotiations ultimately failed to put an end to the Prague Spring.

On August 3, the Bratislava Declaration was signed by Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and the USSR. It was a direct response to the Prague Spring, and it declared the countries’ intentions to remain loyal to Marxism-Leninism.

During this meeting, the Soviets made it clear they would not think twice before deploying armed forces to any Warsaw Pact country that intended to relinquish their ideology.

And so, on August 20, Russian troops and tanks rolled, in a manner not unfamiliar to the world of today, into Czechoslovakia.

Today, a third of Russians think invading Czechoslovakia was the right call — half of Russians don’t even know about the invasion. Still, the invasion did the Soviets more harm than good.

Beyond the Czech response, which included a counterforce of 250,000 troops and attacks on Soviet embassies all over Europe, there was an overwhelming response from within the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union itself.

Eight Russian citizens took to the streets to protest the invasion in the 1968 Red Square Demonstration — they were, of course, arrested and punished.

Romania, a Warsaw Pact country, adopted a fierce anti-Soviet sentiment.

The invasion also led Albania to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact completely.

But the loss of two allies (even if one had been lost just in principle) was arguably not the most critical consequence the Soviet Union faced after the invasion.

The real catastrophe came from within the Soviet intelligence service itself. Many Soviet intelligence officers who switched allegiances to the west credit the invasion of Czechoslovakia as a major factor in their decision.

Dmitri Polyakov, a senior GRU officer, had intricate information on Sino-Soviet relations — which were growing worse by the day. The invasion led him to switch his allegiance to the west, and he handed over all the information at his disposal to the United States. This prompted Richard Nixon to open up diplomatic relations with China in 1972. When subsequently caught by the Soviets, Polyakov was executed.

But the major league player was Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky, a KGB colonel. Gordievsky, motivated by the invasion, began his own cooperation with the west. Starting in 1974, Gordievsky spent 11 years as a double agent — handing over all sorts of crucial classified information to the British Intelligence Service.

The Soviets eventually found out about Gordievsky’s dual agency, but they didn’t manage to get their hands on him.

While the investigation took place, Gordievsky, assisted by the British Intelligence Service, succeeded in an epic escape to Britain through the Finnish border. Gordievsky is still alive and well today.

“It was that dreadful event, that awful day [of the Czech invasion], which determined, irrevocably, the course of my own life. Over the past two years, I had become increasingly alienated from the communist system. And now, this brutal attack on innocent people made me hate it with a burning, passionate hatred. Never again will I support it, I told myself. On the contrary: from now on, I must do everything I can to fight it”

— Oleg Gordievsky in his autobiography, Next Stop Execution

The Soviets succeeded in their goal of keeping Czechoslovakia under their iron fist. They were met with a resistance force of 250,000 troops, their embassies were attacked, they lost two allies, allowed American-Sino diplomatic relations to thrive, sowed dissent in Russian hearts, and inspired dozens of intelligence officers to betray them, but they succeeded.

Was it worth it? Probably not.