Invasion of Czechoslovakia

The power conflict fetching place in the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia in 1967 was misunderstood. It would lead to the everywherethrow of First Secretary Antonin Novotny in January 1968 and to the preference of Dubcek. The Soviets at the time might retain averted the problem by supporting Novotny as he asked, but the Soviet lead thought that Novotny's moorage was untenable and that his successor would not be that opposite in terms of national policies. The Soviets thought Novotny's ouster was a matter of a power struggle, but in that respect were m either other factors involved that demonstrated profound changes in Czechoslovakia and forces at work that would lead to more changes. The reformist plan was freely discussed throughout the country, and the news media publicly supported the reforms:

The unsuppressed news media demonstrated growing criticism not moreover toward the question of Novotny and his supporters and their past policies--particularly policies relating to human rights and unfavorable economic conditions--but as well as at times toward the internal policies of Czechoslovakia's Warsaw Pact as mien (Valenta, 1991, 12).

The Soviets perceived a threat to themselves and their power, though as Valenta (1991) points out, any threat to the domination by the Soviets was only potential and not imminent. In other words, there was no literal lawsuit to rush to judgment or to throw up the sort of massive preemptive strike that the Soviets undertook. The Soviets had the

example of Hungary in 1956 where a different sort of ascension took place, and it seems that they assumed Czechoslovakia would be a similar case, which Valenta says it did not:

Gawdiak, I. (1987). Czechoslovakia: a country study. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress.

Valenta (1991) emphasizes that military intervention was considered only as a last option after the failure of completely other instruments of pressure, political, economic, covert, and military maneuvers. He in like manner notes that there was a diversity of opinion among the Soviet leadership regarding the threat from Czechoslovakia and over what to do about it.

The division was into more than two camps, and different coalitions formed in the Soviet leadership regarding how to treat such(prenominal) matters, with further differences among each coalition. The different coalitions began to waver as the Dubcek political science won ground in spite of the coercive actions brought by the Soviets. The military option coalition began to grow as the options cladding the Soviets became fewer:

In any case, the perception of the Soviets was that this was a stern situation no matter how it developed. On the one hand, it was realizable that the reforms would lead to pressures for Czechoslovakia to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact, which would mean the disintegration of the spotless system. On the other hand, the reforms might be successful, a real possibility given Czechoslovakia's economic potential, and that they might succeed without jeopardizing the position of the Communist Party. The Soviets would then be faced with the need to detect the legitimacy not only of the economic but also of the political reforms. This could lead to agitation from other members of the bloc, producing a chaos the Soviets believed they had to avoid (Ello, 1968, 16).

However, Gawdiak (1987) finds that there were changes taking place in Czechoslovakia that would have meant real changes in the relationship between Czechoslovakia and the Warsaw Pact.
Order your essay at Orderessay and get a 100% original and high-quality custom paper within the required time frame.