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Czechoslovakia Soviet Influence
Loyalties
Zdenek Mlynar, secretary of the Central Committee under
Dubcek who later emigrated, has written that one of the reasons
the military was not ordered to resist the invaders in August
1968 was the questionable loyalty of the armed forces leadership.
Mlynar believed that some CSLA units could have been persuaded by
their officers to join the "fraternal, international" armies of
the Warsaw Pact, which, according to the widely disseminated
propaganda, invaded only to help Czechoslovakia preserve its
socialist way of life. While the hopelessness of resisting the
invasion against overwhelming military forces must have stayed
the hands of those charged with organizing the country's defense,
they undoubtedly took the question of loyalty into consideration.
The possibility of divided loyalties that worried Mlynar and
others in 1968 had its roots in the development of the country
since independence. Czechs and Slovaks were among the few peoples
of Eastern Europe who did not harbor hatred of or grudges against
the Russians. Many, both civilian and military, were openly
Russophile in attitude--certainly pro-Soviet if not procommunist.
Such attitudes were strengthened when Czechoslovakia was
abandoned at Munich in 1938 and again when Soviet armies
liberated most of the country in 1945. When the armed forces were
rebuilt after World War II, those Czechoslovak fighters who had
returned with the Soviets gained the upper hand over those who
had fought in the West, ensuring that Soviet influence would be
paramount
(see Historical Background and Traditions
, this ch.).
The armed forces stood aside in 1948 during the communist
coup d'etat. After the coup, Svoboda and other high-ranking
officers joined the KSC and, with assistance and advice from
large numbers of Soviet military advisers, began to reform the
CSLA along Soviet lines. Many officers and NCOs--particularly the
veterans of service with American, British, and French
forces--were discharged and replaced by less experienced but
politically reliable personnel. Combat readiness was low for
several years after the coup as forces were restructured to
conform to the Soviet pattern. Weapons and equipment of German
design were eventually replaced by items of Soviet manufacture or
design. As personnel were trained and educated according to
Soviet programs and curricula, which included heavy doses of
political indoctrination, the strategy and tactics of warfare
devised by the Soviet high command became the doctrine of the
Czechoslovak forces. By the time of the founding of the Warsaw
Pact in 1955, the CSLA was already achieving a reputation as a
well-trained, efficient organization.
By the early 1960s, the CSLA was considered one of the most
loyal and modern of the Warsaw Pact forces; it was, in effect, a
satellite of the Soviet military establishment. In following the
Soviet lead, the Czechoslovak military simply mirrored the
country's communist hierarchy, which tried to be more communist
than the Soviet Union by retaining its rigid Stalinist approach
long after de-Stalinization had occurred in the Soviet Union and
other areas of Eastern Europe. Soviet equipment and weapons were
delivered in quantity and periodically updated; Soviet methods of
military education and training were adopted; many officers were
sent to the Soviet Union for advanced schooling; and field
training included multinational exercises usually under Soviet
direction. The thought that this military clone might be lost
through the actions of political and military reformers, even
though they were communist reformers, apparently frightened the
Soviet leadership. Undoubtedly, this factor weighed heavily in
the decision to invade Czechoslovakia in 1968.
Data as of August 1987
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