Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia 1968
Ending the Prague Spring
In August 1968 Soviet, Polish, Hungarian, East German, and Bulgarian forces invaded Czechoslovakia to stop Alexander Dubček's Prague Spring. Occupation, forced reversal of reforms, and long "normalization" purges followed.
Damage
Soviet-led Warsaw Pact forces invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968 to crush the Prague Spring reform movement.
Lives lost
Over 100 civilians killed in the invasion; hundreds wounded
Value lost
Reform socialism extinguished; two decades of "normalization" repression
Record Points
- Operation Danube brought hundreds of thousands of foreign troops overnight.
- Civilians confronted tanks in Prague and other cities; shootings followed.
- Dubček's leadership was abducted to Moscow and coerced.
- Gustáv Husák's normalization purged reformists from public life.
- The Brezhnev Doctrine openly claimed a Soviet right to invade socialist allies.
Perpetrator(s)
Victims
Czechoslovak civilians 1968