APPROVED ,*OR RELEASE DATE: MAY toot bw DIRECTORATE OF INTELLIGENCE Intelligence Memorandum Czechoslovakia: The Problem of Soviet Control L (Refcreme Title: ESAU XLIV) \ Topa ecret W 16 Januarv 1970 Backgrou\ Use Only I .. t CZECHOSLOVAKIA: THE PROEiLEM OF SOVIET CONTROL Table of Contents Page Summary ...................... 1 Mechanisms and Prerequisites ............ 1 January to August 1968: The Dismantling of Soviet Control ..................5 20-26 August: Military Intervention and Political Compromise ...............18 September 1968-March 1969: Creating the Prerequisites ..................25 April-September 1'969: Control Restored ......37 Dramatis Personae .................A-1 CZECHOSLOVAKIA: THE PROBLEM OF SOVIET CONTROL-- - MEMORANDUM FOR RECIPIENTS This Intelligence Re'port analyzes why the Soviet Union lost political control in Czechoslovakia and how that control was restored during 1968 and 1969. All the weapons in the Soviet arsenal for exercising political control over a brother socialist state were employed at one time or another. The Soviet leadership emerges from the story as fallible in its tactics but certain in its objectives and unrelenting in pursuit of them. Moscow paid a political price in bringing Prague again to heel, but the price was almost certainly less than Moscow was prepared to pay. Analysts from the Office of Strategic Research, the Office of Current Intelligence, and the Central w Reference Service contributed to the study and the text has been coordinated with those components. The Sov/Eur Staff of the Office of National Estimates also reviewed the study and is in general agreement with it. The research analyst in charge was James Ogle. hn Kerry Ki W TOP\ CRET~ SUMMARY The story of Czechoslovakia in 1968 can be told from many perspectives~asit reflects on Soviet Politburo decision making and reaction to crisis, for the significance of. the Czechoslovak experiment for world communism, or as an example of "peacefulw military conquest. This report concentrates on the loss and restoration of Soviet control. The Soviet Union's extensive political influence over neighbors with a common ideology cannot be ignored, but this report emphasizes political control in the specific and concrete sense, and the military and political pre- requisites for it. Analysis of the loss and restoration of control is facilitated by distinguishing between mechani$ms of and prerequisites for control. The mechanisms of Soviet con- trol in Eastern European nations include: the presence of advisers, especially in the ministries of interior and national defense; the special role of the Soviet Ambassador who, as representative of the Soviet Politburo, maintains daily contact with the satellite party leader ; the exchange of delegations at all levels; and, at the top, for matters of greatest importance or in case other mechanisms fail, direct com- munication, even hard-nosed confrontation, between the General Secretary of the CPSU and the First Secretary of the satellite party. The Soviets demand a say in major policy decisions and in the appointment of top party and government leaders. If any of the actions of the satellite endager party rule or satellite ties to the Soviet Union, then the Soviets can intensify political, economic, and military pressure-- up to and including military intervention, The resort to such pressure implies a failure of the control mechanisms. In fact, the mechanisms fail if the prerequisites are missing. The major prerequisites are: the Communist Party must hold a monopoly of power ; Soviet willingness to intervene militarily must be credible; the local Party must be alienated from the people; and, the local leadership must be capable of fragmenta- tion. For almost 20 years, Czechoslovakia was a model satellite. However, increasingly dangerous anomalies had begun to weaken Soviet control~therewere no Soviet troops stationed in the country; the Slovak drive for autonomy subjected the Czechoslovak party to unusual stress; Western and democratic traditions retained their vitality; and there was increasing antagonism between the long-time Czech ¥à ruler, Novotny, and the Brezhnev leaderskip. When liberals and Slovaks combined to elect Dubcek parry first secretary in January 1968, he found himself in a precarious domestic political position and without a program or a personal following among the leaders. He turned j or support to the liberals who were then formulating and auvocating popular reform programs. Finding support among !.he liberals and from the populace, he began to bypass mechanisms of Soviet control and instituted reforms which furlher threatened the prerequisites for Soviet control. Soviet maneuvering in the first half of 1968 com- pleted the destruction of the four necessary prerequisites. At the end of March 1968, apparently in response to East German and Polish alarm. the Soviet and IHoc leaders (minus Romania) met to caution the Czechoslovaks-! on their reforms. Consideration of intensified military pressure probably dates from that period; modalities for creating a Soviet ii- sTOP SE ET military presence in Czechoslovakia, without outright invasion, were drawn up by the end of April. In early May, there were indications that the Soviets had hoped for a conservative takeover in Czechoslovakia, but their effort to encourage this or to pressure Dubcek only increased the popularity of the Czechoslovak leadership and elicited support! from liberals and reform-minded Communists around the world. That the Soviet tactics had failed became obvious by mid-May, and at the end of the month an exchange of high-level delegations arranged for Warsaw Pact maneuvers within Czechoslovakia. The "Warsaw Letterw of mid-July made it a matter of public record that Czechoslovakia was the most urgent problem in Soviet policy, a problem which was polarizing the international Communist movement into supporters of the Czechoslovak experiment and supporters of Soviet hegemony. A final SOViet effort to coerce or split the Czechoslovak party and leadership and to recruit pro-Soviet leaders among them was made at Cierna at the end of July. This effort only united them more firmly. The events of the first weeks of August proved that the Czechoslovak leaders would not or could not live up to the Soviet demands put on record at the Bratislava meeting of Bloc leaders (minus Romania) immediately after the Cierna meeting. On the night of 20a21 August 1968, the Warsaw Pact forces which had been building up on the borders for months swiftly and efficiently occupied the country. All lesser pressures having failed, the Soviet Politburo employed the ultima.te argument-military intervention. No longer would the Czechoslovak leaders have reason to doubt Soviet willingness to use force. Although some Czechoslovak officials in the security apparatus and in control of mass media attempted to facili- tate the Soviet occupation, it appears that the Soviets did not have an alternate leadership ready to install. The Soviets may have hoped that the Czechoslovak Presidium would bow to the new reality and oust Dubcek. This did not happen. The Soviets then turned to Czechoslovak President Svoboda, a ltHero of the Soviet Union," to sanction a lrevolutionaryll government -a -la Hungary. Svoboda refused. Soviet and Czechoslovak conservatives then attempted by a rump meeting of the old Central Commiltee to codify the existing situation and head off the E?.traordinary 14th Congress being called for by clandestine radios. The liberals' control of the communications media frustrated this attempt also. The 14th Congress confirmed Dubcek's right to negotiate with the Soviets. Svoboda, in Moscow with a delegation of self-appointed conservatives, demanded and won reinstatement of the old leadership, then in Soviet custody. Faced by a tactical political defeat, the Soviets agreed to the reinstatement of Dubcet.. This and the Soviet promise not to interfere in Czechoslovak internal affairs (a promise kept to the extent of withdrawing most of the Soviet personnel who had occupied key offices at the time of the invasion) were the main Czechoslovak achievements in the negotiations at the end of August. The Soviet leaders won the nullification of the 14th Congress, amnesty fur conservatives, and approval of the occupation until "normalization" was completed. The Soviet achievements created the framework within which thev were eventually able to restore the prerequisites for control. It took seven months to do so, but the Soviets;, whose invasion , could have drowned Czechoslovak liberalism in blood, paid ' less than the price they were prepared to pay. The Soviet moves were studied rind cautiously executed. Despite their pledges of non-interferc'nce, the Soviets immediately began to restore the prerogatives of KGB advisers in the Czechoslovak Ministry of Interior, and they insisted on resurrecting the Sov~etright of vet0 over personnel appointments. Politiciil power centers outside the communist party, the 'fclut~sfland the reborn "bourgeois" parties, were outlawed by the new Minister of Interior. Beginning with the month-long stay of First deputy Foreign Minister Kuznetsov in September, high-level Soviet delegations scouted for and intensively cultivated Czechoslovak leaders who would be responsive to Soviet control. Leading conservatives moved to occupy the middle ground while Soviet-inspired meetings of ultra-conservatives, with whom the Soviets probably had no intention of collab- orating, began a process of polarization of the party. This polarization