Word: czechoslovaks
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Unprecedented Defiance. Russia's Czechoslovak invasion may, in fact, prove to be a watershed in the development of Communism that could surpass in importance the breakaways of Yugoslavia and China from what was a monolithic world organization at the close of World War II. In an unprecedented show of defiance, the great majority of the world's 88 Communist parties have refused to approve Moscow's action against Czechoslovakia. Albania, China's Adriatic ally, even seized on the occasion last week to announce its complete withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact...
Pleasing Peter. Adding to Communism's internal turmoil, the Czechoslovak episode naturally raises severe doubts in the free world about the course that Communism is taking. Ever since the cool-off after the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, most people have felt that Soviet Communism, with its renewed stress on peaceful coexistence and the introduction of some capitalist-style economic reforms at home, was becoming less violent and more pragmatic. Indeed, such a development was taking place, though most Westerners optimistically overestimated the depth and impact of the new trend...
With a wrench, the mood of Czechoslovakia suddenly changed. Resuming operations, the official press, radio and television began to speak of the Russian invaders as "the visiting fraternal forces." Overt opposition all but ended, and most Czechoslovaks did their best to tolerate their unwanted visitors. While they still felt great animosity to ward their occupiers, they nonetheless recognized that since they had not resisted at the moment of the invasion, it was useless to provoke repressive measures by acts of defiance now. As a result, the country began to assume at least a veneer of normality. TIME Correspondent Peter Forbath...
...helicopter crouching like a giant insect in a Prague soccer field, mini-skirted girls sat between the brawny legs of Soviet aviators. Wearing the borrowed caps of the flyers, the girls pretended, between pinches and giggles, that they were learning how to operate the machine. Nearby, young Czechoslovak boys sprawled in the grass with Soviet enlisted men, examining their submachine guns and playing a sort of mumblety-peg with the short Soviet bayonets. As if to demonstrate their amiable nature, the Soviets put on a show by the Red Army Ensemble, complete with singers and a bosomy Russian blonde...
...simply captives. It came as a response to the tearful pleas of the man whose seven-month-old experiment to humanize Communism had prompted the Soviet invasion. On his return the week before from three days of negotiations in Moscow, Party First Secretary Alexander Dubċek told the Czechoslovak people that their only sensible alternative was to submit to the Soviet will. Then, setting the example, he began the humiliating task of dismantling Czechoslovakia's short-lived freedom and reforms...