On 19 June 1968, Pravda, official newspaper of the Soviet Communist Party, condemns the new political course and the liberalisation measures taken in Czechoslovakia during the ‘Prague Spring’.

On 1 August 1968, the day after the Soviet-Czech Summit in Cierna, General Ludvik Svoboda, President of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, confirms that the Czech Government will continue its experiment with ‘Socialism with a human face’ within the framework of the Warsaw Pact.

On 4 August 1968, the Communist Parties of the Soviet bloc countries take a position on the most recent political events in Czechoslovakia.

In 1968, there are regular demonstrations in Wenceslas Square, Prague, in support of the political reforms towards democracy undertaken by Alexander Dubcek, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.

A few days before the invasion of Prague by Warsaw Pact troops on 20 August 1968, Czechoslovaks show their support for the national democratisation movement in manifestos sent to the Central Committee of the Communist Party.

In 1968, the cartoonist Behrendt condemns the determination of the leaders of the Kremlin and of the countries of the Communist bloc to repress any attempt at democratisation in Czechoslovakia. In this cartoon, the Czechoslovak leader, Alexander Dubcek, is portrayed as an animal ripe for shooting.

On 21 August 1968, fearing a surge of protest in the country, members of the Communist Party’s Central Committee, of the government and of Czechoslovakia’s National Assembly call for help from governments and sister Communist Parties.

On 21 August 1968, the Czechoslovak Foreign Ministry addresses to the Bulgarian, East German, Hungarian, Polish and Soviet Governments a note which strongly criticises the intervention of their troops in Czechoslovakia.

On 21 August 1968, the day after the Soviet military intervention in Prague, General Ludvik Svoboda, President of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, calls on his fellow citizens to face up to the challenge and to continue to seek the liberalisation of Socialism.

On 21 August 1968, the Soviet press agency TASS justifies in its own inimitable fashion the invasion of Czechoslovakia by troops of the member countries of the Warsaw Pact.

On 22 August 1968, the Austrian Socialist daily newspaper Arbeiter-Zeitung illustrates how the Prague Spring was crushed by Red Army tanks and draws a parallel with the events that took place in Berlin in 1953 and in Budapest in 1956.

On 24 August 1968, the Warsaw Pact countries justify their military intervention in Czechoslovakia.

‘… in Czechoslovakia …’ On 24 August 1968, Opland, Dutch cartoonist, illustrates the end of the ‘Prague Spring’, crushed by Red Army tanks.

At the end of August 1968, Prague inhabitants protest against the occupation of the city by Warsaw Pact troops.

‘A blow to imperialism’. During the night of 20–21 August 1968, the plans of Alexander Dubcek, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, to establish Communism with a human face in Czechoslovakia are nipped in the bud by Soviet military intervention.

The day after the entry of Warsaw Pact troops into Czechoslovakia on 21 August 1968, the French daily newspaper Le Monde recounts the tragic events in Prague.

On 25 August 1968, young Czechoslovak patriots demonstrate in Wenceslas Square, Prague, calling for democracy in their country.

‘Heading for Prague.’ In August 1968, the cartoonist Fritz Behrendt draws a parallel between the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops and the invasion of the country by the Nazis in 1939.

On 28 August 1968, Radio Prague comments on the Soviet military intervention in Czechoslovakia the previous week and assures its listeners of its journalistic objectivity.

‘Right of way — Dubcek: “OK, OK, OK — I drove too far to the right!”’ In September 1968, Ernst Maria Lang, German cartoonist, commenting on Soviet military intervention in Czechoslovakia, illustrates the tragic policy of Alexander Dubcek, forced to accept Moscow’s orders.

On 10 September 1968, the French Conservative daily newspaper Le Figaro publishes a letter addressed to French readers by a resident of Prague and member of the Czechoslovak Communist Party which testifies to the fear inspired in his fellow citizens by the Soviet military intervention.

On 14 September 1968, Alexander Dubcek, First Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, gives a televised address on the political consequences of the Moscow Agreements.

Dans ses Mémoires, Alexandre Dubcek, ancien premier secrétaire du Parti communiste de Tchécoslovaquie, explique son refus de croire, en été 1968, à l'éventualité d'une intervention militaire de l'Union soviétique pour mettre fin aux réformes dites du "Printemps de Prague".

Dans ses Mémoires, Alexandre Dubcek, ancien premier secrétaire du Parti communiste tchécoslovaque, explique la portée des réformes apportées, à partir d'avril 1968, au système politique national et plus connues sous le nom "Printemps de Prague".

Leonid Brezhnev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) from 1964 to 1982.