COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT BULLETIN, ISSUE 14/15 UKRAINE AND THE SOVIET-CZECHOSLOVAK CRISIS OF 1968 (PART 2): New Evidence from the Ukrainian Archives Compiled, Introduced, Translated, and Annotated by Mark Kramer he Central State Archive of Public Organizations of UkrCP First Secretary, Petro Shelest, to the Politburo of the Ukraine (TsDAHOU), located in Kyiv, houses all Soviet Communist Party (CPSU), of which he was a full mem- the Soviet-era records of the former Communist ber; and (2) reports to Shelest from the Ukrainian KGB and T 1 Party of Ukraine (UkrCP). These include documents from from senior UkrCP officials, which he used extensively for his the UkrCP Politburo and Central Committee (CC) apparatus own memoranda (or sometimes retransmitted in full) to the as well as many personal papers and reports to the Soviet CPSU Politburo. Also included are three other items pre- Politburo from each of the officials who served as UkrCP CC pared by Shelest: his report to high-ranking UkrCP officials First Secretary from 1939 to 1991: Nikita Khrushchev, Lazar’ about the April 1968 plenum of the CPSU Central Committee; Kaganovich, Leonid Mel’nykov, Oleksii Kyrychenko, Nikolai the statement he presented to the next CPSU Central Commit- Podgornyi (Mykola Pidhornyi), Petro Shelest, Volodymyr tee plenum, on 17 July 1968, two days after a multilateral Shcherbyts’kyi, Volodymyr Ivashko, and Stanyslav Hurenko.2 meeting in Warsaw; and a speech he delivered to high-rank- All documents from the Soviet period at TsDAHOU are ac- ing UkrCP officials on 18 July 1968, the day after the CPSU cessible. Although the photocopying regulations are pecu- Central Committee plenum. All of these documents are best liar (with prices dependent on the “value” of a document), it read in conjunction with the excerpts from Shelest’s diary in is possible to order copies of documents at substantially Issue No. 10 of the CWIHP Bulletin and the materials from lower cost than at most archives in Moscow.3 the Russian archives featured in future CWIHP publications.4 For those studying the 1968 Soviet-Czechoslovak crisis, The memoranda translated here are only a small sample TsDAHOU contains enormously rich holdings. Copies of of the vast quantity of materials that Shelest dispatched to some of the documents stored there are available at one or his colleagues on the CPSU Politburo throughout the 1968 more archives in Moscow, but many of the items at TsDAHOU crisis—often more than once a week, and sometimes more are not accessible in Russia, either because of continued than once a day. As the documents below indicate, the tone secrecy restrictions or because the documents are present of Shelest’s reports was uniformly hostile to the events in only in Kyiv. Numerous files in Opis’ 25 of Fond 1 at TsDAHOU Czechoslovakia. The Ukrainian leader spoke bitterly about are replete with important materials about the events of 1968 the growth of “anti-socialist and counterrevolutionary forces” in Czechoslovakia. Among these are reports about Soviet in Czechoslovakia and the “pernicious effects” this was hav- military exercises and planning, redeployments of Soviet ing in Ukraine and on the security of the USSR as a whole. troops in the leadup to the invasion, the effects that the He constantly urged “decisive [Soviet] action” to resolve mobilization of reservists and requisitioning of civilian ve- the crisis, and warned that “if the healthy forces [in Czecho- hicles was having on the Ukrainian economy, and the morale slovakia] are threatened with mortal danger and the counter- of Soviet troops both before and after the invasion. Although revolution keeps up its onslaught, we [must] rely on the will a separate state security archive in Kyiv is still closed for of our party, the will of our people, and the armed forces of research on Cold War topics, some materials from the Soviet the Warsaw Pact to resort to the most extreme measures.” Committee on State Security (KGB) and the Ukrainian branch Well before the 23 March conference in Dresden, which of the KGB can be found in TsDAHOU. Translations of a brought together the leaders of Czechoslovakia, the Soviet number of Soviet Army documents and military counterintel- Union, East Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria to dis- ligence reports, mainly from the commander of the Kyiv Mili- cuss recent events in Czechoslovakia, Shelest had begun tary District, General Viktor Kulikov (who later was appointed commissioning reports about the repercussions of the Prague a Marshal of the Soviet Union and commander-in-chief of the Spring from a number of senior officials in Ukraine, including Warsaw Pact), the head of the district’s Military Council, Yurii Il’nyts’kyi, the first secretary of the UkrCP’s General Vladimir Golovkin, and the head of military counter- Transcarpathian Oblast committee, General Vitalii intelligence (local units of the KGB Special Departments) in Nikitchenko, the head of the Ukrainian KGB, and Colonel the Kyiv Military District, General Aleksei Shurepov, will be Oleksii Zhabchenko, the head of the KGB directorate in published along with my commentary in the next issue of the Transcarpathian Oblast, the area contiguous with Czecho- CWIHP Bulletin. slovakia. Everything in their reports that reflected negatively The thirty-one documents presented below fall mainly on the Prague Spring was selected by Shelest to transmit to into two broad categories: (1) memoranda transmitted by the the CPSU Politburo. 273 15139_06.pmd 273 5/11/2004, 1:30 AM UKRAINE AND THE CZECHOSLOVAK CRISIS OF 1968 One of the contacts on the Czechoslovak side who danger of right-wing opportunism in a fraternal Communist proved especially informative for UkrCP officials was Ján party and the growth of anti-socialist, counterrevolutionary Koscelanský, the first secretary of the East Slovakian re- forces in socialist Czechoslovakia.”7 Il’nyts’kyi’s prominent gional committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party role at the plenum and in other high-level forums in 1968 was (Komunistická strana Èeskoslovenska, or KSÈ). clearly attributable to Shelest. The combined warnings of Koscelanský met regularly with Il’nyts’kyi in 1968 and, on a the two officials underscored Shelest’s view that the Soviet few occasions, with Shelest as well. Koscelanský started out Union must “provide urgent help to the Czechoslovak Com- as a strong supporter of Alexander Dubèek and of the re- munists and the Czechoslovak nation at this trying hour.”8 forms in Czechoslovakia, and he generally remained well dis- The documents presented here, along with Shelest’s di- [Petro Shelest] spoke bitterly about the growth of “anti-sociliast and counterrevolutionary forces” in Czechoslovakia and the “pernicious effects” this was having in Ukraine and on the security of the USSR as a whole. posed toward the Prague Spring, often seeking to reassure ary and newly released transcripts of Soviet Politburo meet- his Ukrainian interlocutors that most of their fears were un- ings in 1968 (which I have discussed elsewhere), should elimi- warranted. Nevertheless, Koscelanský gradually became nate any lingering doubts about the importance of Ukraine worried about “unsavory developments” and “excesses,” during the Czechoslovak crisis. Before the East-bloc archives especially in the Czech lands. By 14 May, Koscelanský was were opened, several leading Western scholars had been warning that “it might be necessary for the Slovaks, together cautious—and understandably so—in assessing Ukraine’s with the fraternal Soviet peoples, to liberate the Czech lands role in 1968. In a major study published in 1974, Grey Hodnett once again.”5 This comment, along with many other con- and Peter Potichnyj marshaled a good deal of evidence from cerns that Koscelanský expressed, were relayed by Shelest open sources indicating “an important linkage between the to the full CPSU Politburo. Koscelanský was particularly situation in the Ukraine and the developments in apprehensive that the “Czechs [might] try to outfox the Slo- Czechoslovkia,” but they acknowledged that they had no vaks,” creating a federalized state that would still leave the way of determining—at least from publicly available materi- Slovaks in a subordinate position. Although Koscelanský als—whether the Ukrainian issue was a salient factor in the repeatedly sought to allay Moscow’s anxieties and to rectify Soviet Politburo’s deliberations in 1968.9 A year after the the “mistaken impressions that some Soviet comrades have Hodnett/Potichnyj study appeared, another prominent West- gained from poor information provided by the Soviet em- ern scholar, Roman Szporluk, downplayed the role of Ukraine bassy,” his growing misgivings, especially about Czech-Slo- in 1968, arguing that there had been only “unconfirmed re- vak relations, gave Soviet leaders hope that they could ex- ports [in 1968] that the then first secretary of the Ukrainian ploit rifts among the KSÈ reformers. Communist party took a stand urging the invasion of Czecho- Koscelanský’s chief contact in Ukraine, Yurii Il’nyts’kyi, slovakia. Whatever the truth of these reports, Ukrainian the head of the UkrCP’s Transcarpathian Oblast committee, leaders have probably exerted little significance on the exter- exerted much greater influence during the crisis than his po- nal relations of the USSR.”10 Several years later, in a detailed sition normally would have given him. Having spent his analysis of Soviet policy during the Prague Spring, Karen whole career as a party official in Transcarpathia, Il’nyts’kyi Dawisha was more willing to emphasize Shelest’s role in the quickly became apprehensive in 1968 about the spillover from crisis, depicting him as a strong and influential proponent of Czechoslovakia. With Shelest’s backing, he spoke out re- military intervention in Czechoslovakia from an early stage.11 peatedly in public against the “anti-socialist and revisionist Even so, her book was necessarily limited in the evidence it elements” in Czechoslovakia who were “exploiting foreign could provide about Ukraine.