The Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia was not only a crime; it was a blunder of historic proportions. It is still too early to strike a final balance, as one bewildering rumour succeeds another.But one thing is certain. By sending in their troops the Russian leaders confessed their political bankruptcy and revealed the weakness of the entire Soviet system. They have, at the same time, increased that weakness. By occupying Czechoslovakia they have, in effect, announced that the Soviet system is so vulnerable that it cannot allow free speech and so brittle that it dare not permit experiment.
The Soviet action demands condemnation: but just to condemn is an inadequate reaction. For this risks treating the Soviet behaviour as an aberration. But this is precisely what it is not. The Soviet invasion falls into a familiar pattern: the Pavlovian reaction of all intensely conservative and autocratic regimes faced with a challenge to their authority and a demand for change. It was in this way that Metternich’s Austria reacted to the forces of nineteenth-century nationalism; it was in this way, too, that Tsarist Russia reacted to the demands for social change.
What we have been witnessing in Czechoslovakia is not the birth of a new Soviet mood of aggression, but the beginnings of the death-pangs of a hopelessly ossified system. By acknowledging to everyone, particularly to their own people, that they are absolutely obliged to revert to the most blatant use of force, lies and secrecy, the Soviet leaders are also announcing that their present system is doomed.
Key quote
“Apart from the usual qualities of a diplomat, he should have a short hair cut, a bald head, a zinc-lined stomach and inexhaustible patience.”
Sir Donald Hopson on his successor as ambassador to Beijing
Talking point
The Graduate (X): Ostensibly about a young man who returns home from college with all sorts of clean-limbed honours; the only subject he hasn’t majored in is women. Wife of his father’s business partner (played by Anne Bancroft) completes his education like a vet giving a pony an enema.
Briefing, edited by Edward Mace
