Word: czechoslovaks
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Czechoslovak people were aware of little of this at first. They knew only that the Soviets had arrested Dubček as a traitor the week before and spirited him away. Then, in what looked like an astounding turnabout, the Soviet leaders had him flown to Moscow, where they confirmed his status as continuing chief of the Czechoslovak party. Czechoslovaks joyously seized on his return to Prague as evidence that they had somehow prevailed in their improbable contest of national determination against Soviet force. That belief was buttressed by the fact that during the hours before...
...meantime, President Svoboda had flown to Moscow for face-to-face negotiations with the Soviet leaders. Though they gave him a regal reception in public, the Soviets subjected him in private to vitriolic abuse. "It was ten times worse than Cierna," a member of the Czechoslovak delegation said later. With Brezhnev leading the attack, the Russians ordered Svoboda to set up an anti-Dubček puppet regime. They insisted on the right to name the members of the Presidium. If he did not comply, they warned, Czechoslovakia would be submitted to punishments that would make the rape of Hungary...
Clicking Shutters. The backbone of resistance was Czechoslovak radio, which managed to stay on the air by wit and engineering wizardry. Middle-of-the-night calls went out to nearly all station personnel when the invasion started, and announcers managed to talk their way past Soviet lines even after the studios were surrounded. Věra Stovíčková, one of the best-known voices of Prague Radio, got past Russian guards by claiming that she was a charwoman. Others slipped out of the studios with vital transmitting equipment, which was soon wired up to put "Radio Free...
...Moscow? In the countryside, Czechoslovak farmers tore down or changed the direction of every road sign they could find, even coordinated a circular route that put one Polish division back at its own border after traveling 36 miles. Lost tank commanders were greeted by a forest of new road signs that read: "To Moscow: 2,000 kilometers." In Bohemia, gypsies dismantled tank antennas while townspeople engaged the crews in friendly conversation. When Russian security officers started arriving in Prague to round up well-known liberals, residents daubed their house numbers with paint and switched virtually every street marker...
Others have also deplored the Soviet intervention. Several weeks before the invasion began, ex-General Pyotr Grigorenko, another frequent demonstrator for freedom, called at the Czechoslovak embassy in Moscow to express his approval of Dubček's reforms and his indignation at Russia's campaign. In late July, Author Anatoly Marchenko, a member of the Daniel-Litvinov circle, sent a letter to three Czechoslovak news papers declaring: "I am ashamed of my country. I would be ashamed of my people if I thought that they really did unanimously approve the policy of the [Soviet] Central Committee...