The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968

On August 20, 1968, tens of thousands of Soviet and East European ground and air forces moved into Czechoslovakia and occupied the country in an attempt to end the "Prague Spring" reforms and restore an orthodox Communist regime. The leader of the Soviet Communist Party, Leonid Brezhnev, was initially reluctant to use military force and tired to pressure his counterpart in Czechoslovakia, Alexander Dubccaron;ek, to crack down. But during the summer of 1968, after several months of careful deliberations, the Soviet Politburo finally decided that military force was the only option left. A large invading force of Soviet, Polish, Hungarian and Bulgarian troops received final orders to move into Czechoslovakia; within twenty-four hours they had established complete military control of Czechoslovakia, bringing and end to hopes for "socialism with a human face."

Gnter Bischof is Marshall Plan Professor of History and director of Center Austria at the University of New Orleans. Stefan Karner is a historian and professor of social and economic history at the University of Graz. He is also director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on War Consequences in Graz, Austria. Peter Ruggenthaler is a researcher at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on War Consequences in Graz, Austria.