What do you think?
Checoslovaquia, 1968: Reforma, Represión y Resistencia
Book by Philip Windsor, Adam Roberts
237 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 1969
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 16, 2026
There are two parts to this book. The first is Philip Windsor’s Checkoslovakia, Eastern Europe, and Détente. It is strikingly similar and dissimilar to Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia. Both are written before the event being written about is known to be over with; in hindsight both were written after the end was easily known. Both are written from a very limited perspective. Both writers explicitly acknowledge their limitations and ignorance.
Windsor’s perspective, however, was from the outside looking in rather than from an isolated part of the inside looking out. His was a world where “Kremlin watching” probably made the actions of the Soviet Union more opaque than they actually were. And Windsor wrote in a very academic style almost stereotypically soporific rather than the compelling, even conversational, style of a great writer.
Windsor often circles back to the start of each event to provide a different possibility and an analysis from a different perspective, to the point that I often found myself nodding off and realized I’d read several sentences without paying attention to them. I’m not writing that to say this is bad, just that the book requires careful reading, juggling multiple threads at the same time, a feat that can be hypnotic.
There apparently remained the possibility that the “changes” in play in Czechoslovakia that attracted invasion would continue to progress even after 1968. My wondering how that could even be possible may well be purely due to hindsight.
A George Orwell-style book might have discussed the writers congress, the various writers involved, the nearness and accessibility (or lack thereof) of the borders with West Germany and Austria, and the reactions of individuals to the economic changes.
Instead, we read discussions about the potential meanings of various visits of high ranking officials from Soviet Russia and other members of the USSR to Czechoslovakia, and from Czechoslovakia to Soviet Russia. And the various announcements of leaders in Czechoslovakia and how they might have been perceived by leaders in Soviet Russia, and vice versa.
The term “Kremlinology” is not used, but the phrase “Kremlin watching” is.
Of course, there is a different, and more achievable, focus of Windsor’s work than of Orwell’s, and that is analyzing the effects of the invasion on Czechoslovakia’s relations with other nations in Eastern Europe and in Western Europe, and on the effects of the invasion, and the words and actions leading up to it, on the slowly-progressing détente of the title between the West in general and Eastern Europe.
Within the terms of this book, détente was purely between Eastern Europe and the West, not between Soviet Russia or the Soviet Union as a whole and the West.
The second book is Adam Roberts’s Czechoslovakia: Invasion and Resistance. Also written in 1968 if I’m reading the foreword correctly, it is probably far more optimistic than it had any right to be, and he may even have known this.
With five Warsaw Pact countries including Soviet Russia occupying Czechoslovakia, “passive resistance” was probably the only choice open to them.
Much of the optimism stemmed from the Soviet Union’s reliance on across-the-table negations with Czechoslovakia’s existing leadership. There is speculation that Russia expected their invasion to trigger a coup by hardliners, but that the nature of the Czechoslovak people in the face of such an invasion caused a solidarity that negated the possibility.
There was even hope that the “Czechoslovak civilian resistance” might subvert the occupying forces.
The translated documents in the back add to the feeling of a hastily produced analysis. I suspect that they were translated by someone who was better at the language they were written in than in English. Which in a situation like this is probably better than the other way around. But typos and strange word choices abound.
There is an underlying sense in both of these works that the unforgivable sin of the Czechoslovak communist party was simply that it had moved away from censorship as a political tool. Among the documents in the appendix is the “Standpoint of the Praesidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia to the Letter of fFive Communist and Worker Parties, 18 July 1968”. In it, one of the accusations was directed against “extreme positions both right and left” that criticized their allowing opposition documents to spread openly. The document acknowledged that:
The letter that this was replying to, the “Letter from Five Communist and Worker Parties, united in Warsaw, to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, 15 July 1968” has all the feeling of a horror thriller. It may well be hindsight, but every sentence seems to cover sinister meanings where everything it says “we are not” doing is in fact exactly what they are doing.
Alexander Dubcek’s speech of 18 July 1968 appears to echo Bertolt Brecht’s poem about the June 1953 East Berlin revolt.
The whole thing is absolutely fascinating. No one knows anything but there is absolutely a sense behind all of the letters, speeches, and speculation, of a massive force crushing the attempt at “socialism with a human face”. Behind everything is Orwell’s “boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
Windsor’s perspective, however, was from the outside looking in rather than from an isolated part of the inside looking out. His was a world where “Kremlin watching” probably made the actions of the Soviet Union more opaque than they actually were. And Windsor wrote in a very academic style almost stereotypically soporific rather than the compelling, even conversational, style of a great writer.
But it is very likely that one non-event had triggered the alarms in Moscow and other capitals: by the end of February, it had become apparent that the censorship was ceasing to function.
Windsor often circles back to the start of each event to provide a different possibility and an analysis from a different perspective, to the point that I often found myself nodding off and realized I’d read several sentences without paying attention to them. I’m not writing that to say this is bad, just that the book requires careful reading, juggling multiple threads at the same time, a feat that can be hypnotic.
Mr Ceaucescu is reported to have been confident, before last August, that the Soviet Union would not, in fact, invade Czechoslovakia. The occasion for the last open Soviet intervention in the affairs of another state had been the express withdrawal on the part of Hungary from the Warsaw Pact. Czechoslovakia had repeatedly proclaimed its intention of remaining within the Pact, and doing its utmost to strengthen it. On this reading of the rules, Mr Ceaucescu was, of course, justified, just as Mr Dubcek and his government had been justified. But it is now apparent that the rules have changed, and that no one knows what the new ones are.
There apparently remained the possibility that the “changes” in play in Czechoslovakia that attracted invasion would continue to progress even after 1968. My wondering how that could even be possible may well be purely due to hindsight.
Instead it chose to act with an appearance of ruthless decision, and then to reveal that behind the brutality no decisions had been made.
A George Orwell-style book might have discussed the writers congress, the various writers involved, the nearness and accessibility (or lack thereof) of the borders with West Germany and Austria, and the reactions of individuals to the economic changes.
Instead, we read discussions about the potential meanings of various visits of high ranking officials from Soviet Russia and other members of the USSR to Czechoslovakia, and from Czechoslovakia to Soviet Russia. And the various announcements of leaders in Czechoslovakia and how they might have been perceived by leaders in Soviet Russia, and vice versa.
The term “Kremlinology” is not used, but the phrase “Kremlin watching” is.
Of course, there is a different, and more achievable, focus of Windsor’s work than of Orwell’s, and that is analyzing the effects of the invasion on Czechoslovakia’s relations with other nations in Eastern Europe and in Western Europe, and on the effects of the invasion, and the words and actions leading up to it, on the slowly-progressing détente of the title between the West in general and Eastern Europe.
Within the terms of this book, détente was purely between Eastern Europe and the West, not between Soviet Russia or the Soviet Union as a whole and the West.
This last week before the invasion must have been agonizing in Prague, and totally unpredictable inside the Soviet Union.
The second book is Adam Roberts’s Czechoslovakia: Invasion and Resistance. Also written in 1968 if I’m reading the foreword correctly, it is probably far more optimistic than it had any right to be, and he may even have known this.
In one sense, of course, it is still too soon to assess the effects of the Czechoslovak resistance: there is a great deal yet to be revealed, and a great deal yet to be decided. Every judgment must be qualified with the words ‘so far’.
With five Warsaw Pact countries including Soviet Russia occupying Czechoslovakia, “passive resistance” was probably the only choice open to them.
Even if the eventual outcome is a complete Czechoslovak capitulation there may be lessons about the possible future value of civilian resistance. But few people in Czechoslovakia would argue that their resistance has achieved nothing: the discussion is about how much has been, or may be, lost or saved. That the Czechoslovaks, without advance plans, achieved anything at all in face of an invasion of such an overwhelming character is in itself remarkable.
Much of the optimism stemmed from the Soviet Union’s reliance on across-the-table negations with Czechoslovakia’s existing leadership. There is speculation that Russia expected their invasion to trigger a coup by hardliners, but that the nature of the Czechoslovak people in the face of such an invasion caused a solidarity that negated the possibility.
There was even hope that the “Czechoslovak civilian resistance” might subvert the occupying forces.
Occupation troops openly speculated that they would be sent to Siberia because they had seen too much that could not be squared with Soviet propaganda… Some Hungarian troops are reported to have been made to operate without ammunition, because of their unreliability.
The translated documents in the back add to the feeling of a hastily produced analysis. I suspect that they were translated by someone who was better at the language they were written in than in English. Which in a situation like this is probably better than the other way around. But typos and strange word choices abound.
There is an underlying sense in both of these works that the unforgivable sin of the Czechoslovak communist party was simply that it had moved away from censorship as a political tool. Among the documents in the appendix is the “Standpoint of the Praesidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia to the Letter of fFive Communist and Worker Parties, 18 July 1968”. In it, one of the accusations was directed against “extreme positions both right and left” that criticized their allowing opposition documents to spread openly. The document acknowledged that:
We know that this situation is made possible by the fact that we have abolished censorship in our country and enacted freedom of expression and of the press. What ink the past was spread only in the of [sic] ‘whispered propaganda, etc.’ can now be expressed in Public.
The letter that this was replying to, the “Letter from Five Communist and Worker Parties, united in Warsaw, to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, 15 July 1968” has all the feeling of a horror thriller. It may well be hindsight, but every sentence seems to cover sinister meanings where everything it says “we are not” doing is in fact exactly what they are doing.
Alexander Dubcek’s speech of 18 July 1968 appears to echo Bertolt Brecht’s poem about the June 1953 East Berlin revolt.
Since in the preceding period the masses, our people, were not satisfied with the way our policy was carried out in this country, since they were not satisfied with the practice in carrying out the policy of our Party, then it is natural that if the Party wants to carry out its policy, it cannot change the masses of the people, but we must change the leadership and this leadership must change its political methods to truly correspond to the interests and the desires of our nations, of our Czechoslovak homeland, our Republic.
The whole thing is absolutely fascinating. No one knows anything but there is absolutely a sense behind all of the letters, speeches, and speculation, of a massive force crushing the attempt at “socialism with a human face”. Behind everything is Orwell’s “boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
During the talks, in a free comradely discussion, the two sides considered questions relating to the present development of the international situation, the activization of imperialism’s machinations against the socialist countries, the situation in Czechoslovakia in the recent period and the temporary entry of troops of five socialist countries into Czechoslovak territory.—First Moscow Communiqué, 17 August 1968
January 15, 2022
Excellent book with at-the-moment history. It is well written and gives a good representation of what it is like for a country to be invaded.
I recommend this book for those who study Cold War tactics and maneuvers.
I recommend this book for those who study Cold War tactics and maneuvers.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews