Word: sovietized
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Crimean Warning. They had little choice. Three weeks earlier, Soviet Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev had summoned the Czechoslovak leaders to the Crimea, where he delivered a grim warning: If the Czechoslovaks themselves did not suppress the protests, the Soviets would send in their tanks to crush the demonstrators. As the country marked its "Day of Shame," the Soviets kept their 100,000 occupation troops well out of sight, though they were poised to strike in the event the demonstrations got out of control. There were even rumors that archconservative elements in the Czechoslovak party might provoke serious outbursts in order...
...protest, all but a few Czechoslovaks refused to ride the public transport, and boycotted shops and restaurants. In Prague, more than 300 bouquets were piled on the grave of Jan Palach, the 21-year-old student who last January burned himself to death in a protest against the continued Soviet occupation. At noon, to the cacophony of auto horns and factory whistles, traffic braked to a halt and many of the 50,000 people who jammed Wenceslas Square raised their fingers in the victory sign. In a show of defiance, Czechoslovakia stood still for 15 minutes...
Elsewhere in Czechoslovakia, there were both peaceful protests and violent riots. The situation was relatively calm in Bratislava, the scene of severe fighting in 1968, because police allowed the inhabitants to place flowers on the spots where a young Slovak had been killed by the invading Soviet tanks. In Brno, however, two consecutive nights of skirmishes left three demonstrators dead and at least 30 gravely injured...
...Russian) on walls, the fact is that the Russians do not entirely trust Husák. He is in an unenviable position: rejected by the reformers because he replaced Dubček, disliked by the Czech majority because he is a Slovak and hated by the orthodox pro-Soviet elements (who imprisoned him for eight years) because he is a nationalist who believes in limited reforms...
...under control, mere force is not likely to suppress other aftereffects of last year's invasion. Reflecting on the developments of the past twelve months, TIME Correspondent, Jerrold Schecter reports from Moscow: "The invasion of Czechoslovakia is now regarded as an overt admission of the inability of the Soviet leadership to accept and deal with political and economic change in the Communist world. Though most Soviet citizens accept the official explanation that counterrevolution and the threat of West German aggression required the intervention in Czechoslovakia, the fact remains that the invasion has unleashed forces that will not be stilled...