Aug 20, 2023

55 Years Since the Prague Spring Was Put Down

Prague Morning

On August 21, 1968, Soviet troops and their Warsaw Pact allies invaded Czechoslovakia to bring an end to that country’s brief period of political liberalization, called the Prague Spring.

About 500,000 troops were involved in the invasion and occupation, during which 137 Czechoslovaks died and some 500 were wounded.

The invasion ended the political and economic reforms led by Alexander Dubcek and reasserted dominant Soviet and Communist authority in Czechoslovakia. It also helped establish the Brezhnev Doctrine, which Moscow said allowed the U.S.S.R. to intervene in any country where a communist government was under threat.

Within the following year, resistance faded, Dubček was removed from office, his reforms were undone, and a more Soviet-controlled government was installed.

Prague residents surround Soviet tanks in front of the Czechoslovak Radio building, in central Prague, during the first day of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia, on August 21, 1968.

A view of Prague, August 1968.

A barricade made from trucks and buses burns in front of the Czechoslovak Radio building, in central Prague.

The banner they are carrying reads: ‘Never Again with the Soviet Union.'”

Soviet army soldiers sit on their tanks in front of the Czechoslovak Radio building, in central Prague.

Czechoslovakian army trucks take young people around Prague as Soviet tanks had halted on the outskirts of town and began a siege of Czech army barracks. The passengers waved Czechoslovakian national flags and chanted national songs and patriotic slogans.