Question by rharvey_313: How does Leonid Brezhnev justify the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968?
How does Leonid Brezhnev justify the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968? What do his arguments teach us about Communism in Eastern Europe? Note: This is an official speech by a politician, not a historian writing about the past. Think of it as something like propaganda. You’ll need to “read between the lines” and decode or explain Brezhnev’s ideas. For example, he uses “national self-determination” very differently from the way we’ve used that term up till now in this course. What does he mean by it? Be sure you understand his terminology!
www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1968brezhnev.html
Answers and Views:
Answer by John P
The terminology that I do not understand is the use of the present tense. The events you describe happened 42 years ago.
Read all the answers in the comments.
Add your own answer!
Spellbound says
The important part of the speech is this part:
"The peoples of the socialist countries and Communist parties certainly do have and should have freedom for determining the ways of advance of their respective countries.
However, none of their decisions should damage either socialism in their country or the fundamental interests of other socialist countries, and the whole working class movement, which is working for socialism. This means that each Communist party is responsible not only to its own people, but also to all the socialist countries, to the entire Communist movement. Whoever forget this, in stressing only the independence of the Communist party, becomes one-sided. He deviates from his international duty "
Brezhnev means by this that the countries of Eastern Europe do not have their destiny in their own hands, because if they decide to alter, from an approved by Moscow, their socialist political and economic system, then ALL other socialist countries have a duty to prevent them from becoming capitalist. In much the same way that the US intervened in Asia to prevent countries becoming communist.
What Brezhnev means by "national self-determination" in the case of Czechoslovakia is that the "anti-socialist elements" that started the Prague Spring were working against the interests of the Czech and Slovak people – as their best interest was served by remaining in the socialist camp. The intervention can, by Brezhnev at least, be justified as restoring to the people their own national self-interest, rather than the interest of the US & Britain.