The 1968 Prague Spring — Counterrevolution as the “Trojan Horse” of Imperialism

By Nikos Mottas

 

It was August 1968, in the capital of the Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia, Prague, where the internationalist solidarity of the Warsaw Pact countries crushed one of the most significant counterrevolutionary efforts of the Cold War era. The events in Prague consist a milestone in the struggle of the socialist world against imperialism. At the same time, the then events continue serving as a source of anticommunist propaganda by various bourgeois and opportunist forces.

For many decades, the bourgeois historiography- supported by opportunists and counterrevolutionaries (trotskyites, eurocommunists, social democrats, etc.) refers to the “soviet tanks” which, as they argue, “drowned Prague in blood” thus ending prematurely the effort for a “socialism with a human face”.

Milos Jakes, 1922 - 2020

Miloš Jakeš, the last General Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, died on July 10th at the age of 97. He was Czechoslovakia’s leader during the counterrevolutionary events of 1987-1989 which are known as the “Velvet Revolution”.

Born in 12 August 1922 at České Chalupy, the son of a poor family, he began working at the age of 15. He joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1945, just after the end of World War II. In 1955 he began his studies at the CPSU Higher College in Moscow and graduated in 1958. 

The 1968 Prague Spring: Counterrevolution as the “Trojan horse” of Imperialism

By Nikos Mottas. 

It was August 1968- 50 years ago- in the capital of the Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia, Prague, where the internationalist solidarity of the Warsaw Pact countries were crushing one of the most significant counterrevolutionary efforts of the Cold War era. The events in Prague consist a milestone in the struggle of the socialist world against imperialism. At the same time, the then events continue serving as a source of anticommunist propaganda by various bourgeois and opportunist forces.

For many decades, the bourgeois historiography- supported by opportunists and counterrevolutionaries (trotskyites, eurocommunists, social democrats, etc.) refers to the “soviet tanks” which, as they argue, “drowned Prague in blood” thus ending prematurely the effort for a “socialism with a human face”.