9

From the mid-1940s through the mid- to late 1950s, underground nationalist groups in western Ukraine put up armed resistance against the Soviet security forces. Much the same occurred in Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. An enormous amount of declassified documentation pertaining to these campaigns has been released since 1991 in the Baltic republics and Ukraine (in Kyiv, L'viv, Kharkiv, and numerous other cities). The resurgence of underground nationalist activity in 1967-68 is highlighted in the Soviet KGB's massive, top-secret history of its own activities, edited by V. M. Chebrikov et al., Istoriya sovetskikh organov gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti No. 12179, Moscow, 1977, pp. 543-545.

13

See Document No. 2 in the collection of documents from the Ukrainian archives to be published in the next CWIHP Bulletin. 14 For further complaints about this matter from the Chernihiv party secretary, see the memorandum from Shelest cited in Note 5 supra.

15 This sentiment corresponded to the views of students in Odessa before the invasion, as discussed in a secret KGB report; see "Studenchestvo i sobytiya v Chekhoslovakii," transmitted by Yu. Andropov, 5 November 1968, in TsKhSD, F. 5, Op. 60, D. 48, LI. 120, 148-150. (Excerpted translation available in CWIHP Bulletin 4 (Fall 1994) p. 67-8.) Curiously, Shelest chose not to mention these incidents in his initial report to the CPSU Politburo on reactions in Ukraine to the invasion of Czechoslovakia. The report suggested that everyone in Ukraine had approved of the military action. See "Tsentral'nyi Komitet KPSS: Informatsiya o reagirovanii trudyashchikhsya Ukrainskoi SSR na sobytiya v Chekhoslovakii," Report No. 1/89 (Secret), from P. Shelest, 22 August 1968, in TsKhSD, F. 5, Op. 60, D. 1, Ll. 17-21. 16 Shelest is referring here to the negotiations held on 23-26 August, which culminated in the signing of the Moscow Protocol.

was in his contacts with Soviet officials.

26

As elsewhere in the Soviet bloc, Czechoslovakia underwent a rapid process of forced collectivization in the early 1950s, which caused great upheaval and bloodshed. Peasants who tried to resist were simply branded as "kulaks" (wealthy farmers), leaving them vulnerable to persecution, arrest, and confiscation of all their property. Although rural areas in Czechoslovakia were not as heavily affected by the Prague Spring as urban areas were, demands were soon raised in 1968 for the rectification of injustices committed against farmers. Proposed remedies included rehabilitation and compensation of the roughly 30,000 peasants who had been unjustly accused of being “kulaks” and the return of property that had been illegally confiscated. Although Czechoslovak leaders ruled out the possibility of doing away with collectivization, anti-reformist members of the KSC began complaining (as Bil'ak does here) that genuine kulaks were reemerging to exploit the situation. It turned out, however, that the proposals for rehabilitation and compensation were never implemented, and the Soviet invasion put an end to any further consideration of the matter.

27 The notion that reformist officials in Prague had formed a "second center" outside the Communist Party, which they would convert into a "counterrevolutionary underground," was a common theme in Soviet and anti-reformist KSC propaganda in 1968. This alleged "second center" would have included such figures as Frantisek Kriegel, Cestmir Cisar, Josef Spacek, Vaclav Slavik, Bohumil Simon, Vaclav Prchlik, Jiri Pelikan, Ota Sik, and Jiri Hajek. The interior minister, Josef Pavel, also was regarded as belonging to this group.

28 In Soviet parlance, World War II was known as the “Great Patriotic War" (Velikaya otechestvennaya voina).

29 The Russian word "pup" literally means "navel," but the phrase “pup mira” (as used by Bil’ak) is appropriately translated as "hub of the world." Bil'ak's play on the literal meaning of the word therefore does not come through in the translation.

30

Shelest mistakenly gives Drahomir Kolder's first initial as "O" rather than "D."

31 Shelest misspells Jozef Lenart's surname as "Lopart" and gives an incorrect first initial (Zh).

32

Shelest mistakenly gives Jan Janik's surname as Jasik. It is remotely possible that he was referring to Ladislav Jasik (who was then the head of the Slovak National Council's Economics Department), but it is far more likely that he meant Janik. (The information provided by Shelest is too general to make a conclusive identification.)

33
Shelest mistakenly lists Alois Indra's first initial as “Zh”
rather than "A.”

34 Shelest temporarily has shifted back to his own observations here rather than recording what Bil'ak said.

35

In fact, this department (formally known as the State Administrative Department) had not yet been disbanded. The KSC Action Program, adopted in April 1968, pledged to eliminate the State Administrative Department, which had been a notorious organ of repression under Dubcek's predecessor, Antonin Novotny. Not until late July, however, was this proposal actually implemented. Bil❜ak must have been referring to the proposal, not to the implementation of it.

36 At the time, most Soviet leaders would not have placed Josef Smrkovsky in this group. Although they were wary of Smrkovsky, they believed that he and Dubcek might still be willing to heed Soviet demands.

Bulgarii, NRD, Polski, Wegier i ZSRR—w Warszawie, 14-15 lipca 1968 r.,” Copy No. 5 (Top Secret), 14-15 July 1968, in Archiwum Akt Nowych (AAN), Arch. KC PZPR, P. 193, T. 24, Dok. 4, shows why this shift would have occurred. The Warsaw Meeting proved to be a turning point in the crisis in many respects. It marked the first time that Hungarian officials, including Janos Kadar, joined with their East German, Polish, and Bulgarian counterparts in expressing profound doubts about the ability of the Czechoslovak authorities to regain control of events. Kadar even pledged, in a conversation with Brezhnev, that "if a military occupation of Czechoslovakia becomes necessary, [Hungary] will take part without reservation." See "Rabochaya zapis' zasedaniya Politbyuro TSK KPSS ot 3 iyulya 1968 g.," 3 July 1968 (Top Secret) in APRF, F. 3, Op. 45, L. 367. The Warsaw meeting also marked the first time that Soviet officials who had earlier adopted a "wait-and-see" attitude began roundly condemning the Prague Spring and calling for "extreme measures." Far more than at previous gatherings of Warsaw Pact leaders in 1968, the option of military intervention loomed prominently throughout the deliberations in Warsaw. 38 The concept of "credible commitments" in international politics is developed at length in the works of Thomas C. Schelling, among others. See, for example, Schelling's The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), pp. 22-52; and Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), pp. 35-91, 116-125. For a concise game-theoretic analysis of the concept, see David M. Kreps, Game Theory and Economic Modeling (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 45-72.

39 Zdenek Mlynar, Nachtfrost: Erfahrungen auf dem Weg vom realen zum menschlichen Sozialismus (Koln: Europaische Verlagsanstalt, 1978), pp. 187-188.

40

The CPSU Politburo transcripts reveal that even a senior Czechoslovak official like Mlynar had no idea about the real alignment of forces in Moscow vis-a-vis Czechoslovakia. The transcripts indicate that Shelepin adhered to a relatively cautious position during the crisis, which was largely similar to Brezhnev's position. The most vehement supporter of military intervention was consistently Yurii Andropov (whom Brezhnev elevated to full membership on the Politburo in 1973), followed closely by Shelest, Mykola Podhornyi, and Dmitrii Ustinov (whom Brezhnev later elevated to full membership on the Politburo and the post of defense minister).

42

Shelest is referring here to the CPSU Central Committee plenum on 17 July. The session was convened to endorse the Soviet delegation's performance at the Warsaw Meeting. For a full, top-secret transcript of the meeting as well as accompanying documents, see "Plenum Tsentral'nogo Komiteta KPSS-17 iyulya 1968 g.," 17 July 1968 (Top Secret), and "Materialy k protokolu zasedaniya Plenuma TsK KPSS," July 1968 (Top Secret), in TsKhSD, F. 2, Op. 3, Dd. 211-214 and Op. 4, Dd. 133136, respectively.

43 For top-secret cables from Soviet diplomats in Hungary assessing Oldrich Svestka's visit to Budapest in July 1968, see the relevant items in TsKhSD, F. 5, Op. 60, Dd. 30, 32, and 33. 44 Bil❜ak is overstating the case here, but it is true that some concerns existed about the prospect of not being allowed to return to Czechoslovakia. These sentiments were spurred in part by memories of what happened on the eve of the Soviet invasion of Hungary in November 1956, when a delegation of senior

Hungarian military officials were suddenly arrested by Soviet KGB troops during what were supposed to be negotiations about a Soviet troop withdrawal from Hungary. The head of the Hungarian delegation, General Pal Maleter, who had recently been appointed national defense minister, was imprisoned for twenty months and then executed.

45 Bil'ak's statements here about Polish and East German leaders provide important evidence that there was little attempt made by the KSC hardliners to forge a direct alliance with Ulbricht or Gomulka. Instead, Bil'ak's group worked almost exclusively with the Soviet Union. Previously, some Western analysts, notably Jiri Valenta in his Soviet Intervention in Czechoslovakia, 1968: The Anatomy of a Decision, rev. ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), had argued (without citing specific documentation) that there was direct and active collaboration between the KSC hardliners and the East German and Polish authorities. This excerpt tends to undercut Valenta's claim.

46 The draft KSC statutes were published as a supplement to Rude pravo on 10 August. Local and regional party elections in Czechoslovakia in early and mid-July for the KSC's upcoming 14th Congress had given an overwhelming share of seats to reform-minded officials.

47

It is unclear whether Shelest is referring to a specific incident here or a more general statement by the Soviet leadership. In any event, Tito arrived in Prague on 9 August and was accorded a lavish welcome, so the Soviet "ultimatum” may not have been as efficacious as Shelest had evidently believed.

48 Bil'ak is underestimating the growth of reformist sentiment among senior military officers, but it is true that on 21 June 1968 a "letter to the Soviet people" from the KSC People's Militia, the paramilitary units who were traditionally among the most orthodox, pro-Soviet elements of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, had been published in the Soviet press. The letter and a resolution were approved on 19 June at a nationwide gathering in Prague of some 10,000 to 12,000 members of the People's Militia. According to the declassified transcript of Brezhnev's speech at the CPSU Central Committee plenum on 17 July 1968, the People's Militia conference was convened on the basis of the Soviet Union's "repeated recommendations and urgent advice." See "Rech' tovarishcha L. I. Brezhneva," in "Plenum Tsentral'nogo Komiteta KPSS-17 iyulya 1968 g.," L. 18. Newly declassified documents (e.g., the items in TsKhSD, F. 5, Op. 60, D. 1, LI. 101-104 and D. 24, LI. 104-126) also reveal that a highly publicized campaign of letter-writing by Soviet "workers" in support of the KSC People's Militia in late June and early July was entirely orchestrated by the CPSU CC Propaganda Department.

49 It is not entirely clear what Shelest had in mind here. Soviet leaders assumed, with some justification, that support for the Prague Spring was stronger in the Czech lands than in Slovakia, and that the Slovak Communist Party was a more orthodox Marxist-Leninist party than the KSC was. (Bil'ak had said to Shelest during their first meeting on 24 May 1968 that "we, the Slovaks, will fight to the end in the struggle for a MarxistLeninist line in the party; we won't retreat a single step. It's obvious that we, the Slovaks, together with you will again have to liberate the Czechs." This latter point was virtually identical to a statement by Koscelansky during a conversation with Il'nyts'kyi on 14 May. See Document No. 8 in the collection of documents from the Ukrainian archives in the next CWIHP Bulletin.) Even so, it is doubtful that these differences alone would have provided much basis for action. After all, Alexander

Dubcek himself was a Slovak, and the Prague Spring held out the promise of fulfilling Slovak demands for federalized representation and greater autonomy. Shelest may have been implying that the Soviet Union could exploit latent Slovak desires for outright independence. During the closing months of World War II, when Slovakia was still an independent entity, some prominent members of the Slovak Communist Party had proposed to Stalin that Slovakia be absorbed as a union-republic of the Soviet Union, rather than being reintegrated with Bohemia and Moravia in a Czechoslovak state. Stalin did not take up this suggestion, but Shelest may have believed that something roughly similar could be pursued if no other options were left.

50 Dubcek hastily convened an extraordinary plenum of the KSC Central Committee on 19 July to approve the KSC Presidium's response to the Warsaw Letter. The Warsaw Letter had been addressed to the KSC Central Committee, but Dubcek initially handled it within the KSC Presidium, at a session on 16-17 July. Using a draft prepared by Cestmir Cisar and Zdenek Mlynar, the Presidium adopted a point-by-point response to the Warsaw Letter. The final document, entitled "Stanovisko Predsednictva UV KSC k dopisu peti komunistickych a delnickych stran,” was not originally intended for publication, but after the Soviet Union and the other participants in the Warsaw Meeting unexpectedly published their collective letter on 18 July-despite Dubcek's urgings that the matter be handled quietly-Czechoslovak leaders realized they would have to publish a full reply. They did so the following day (19 July), the same day that the extraordinary plenum of the KSC Central Committee voted unanimously in support of the Presidium's actions.

Intervention, August 1968,” Cold War International History Bulletin, Issue No. 2 (Fall 1992), p. 35. The text of the letter released in 1992 is clearly identical to the version that Brezhnev received on 3 August 1968, but Shelest's diary indicates that the two documents are not the same (i.e., more than one collective letter was sent to Brezhnev), as explained below.

52

For example, in a detailed, first-hand account of the Prague Spring published in Hungary in 1989, Janos Kadar recalled that the collective letter had been signed by eighteen, not five, KSC officials. See "Yanosh Kadar o ‘prazhskoi vesne'," Kommunist (Moscow), No. 7 (May 1990), p. 102. Kadar first saw the letter during a hastily convened meeting in Moscow on 18 August (when Brezhnev informed Hungarian, East German, Polish, and Bulgarian leaders about the previous day's decision by the CPSU Politburo to send troops into Czechoslovakia on the night of 20/ 21 August), so it is possible that by the 18th Bil'ak would have dispatched another letter to Moscow (perhaps via the Soviet ambassador in Prague, Stepan Chervonenko) with seven additional signatories.

53 The Tatra mountains, located in the central portion of the Carpathian mountain range along the Slovakian-Polish border, include the highest peak in the Carpathians, Mt. Gerlachovka. 54

Shelest lists the surname "Kofman" rather than Hoffmann, but he clearly meant Karel Hoffmann, a notorious hardliner who abetted the Soviet invasion. No official with the name Kofman was around at the time.

Insurgency in Ukraine

Report From Sarajevo : The Bosnian Archives Survive

By Jim Hershberg

The cover of Glasnik, the official journal of the archives of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, starkly captures the impact of the four-year war on archival holdings, historical research, and other such civilized endeavors: it pictures a close-up of a wrecked building, with twisted metal grating surrounding a gaping hole, inside which one can see a bomb atop an ancient historical document. 1

In August 1997, I visited Sarajevo on behalf of the Cold War International History Project and the National Security Archive in order to meet with archival authorities and scholars in the Bosnian capital, to establish contacts for CWIHP and the Archive, to ascertain the prospects for future scholarly collaboration, and to obtain information regarding the condition of the Bosnian archives and their availability for research-if, indeed, they had survived the war and the Serb siege which lasted from March 1992 until the Dayton Accords ended the fighting (at least temporarily) in late 1995.2

Two days of conversations and meetings yielded more positive assessments than one might expect, given the years of bloody fighting that killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of Bosnians, destroyed thousands of homes and buildings, and left the country a divided, angry, smoldering wreck-littered with millions of landmines, divided into ethnic enclaves (a "Serb Republic" and a still largely theoretical Bosnian-Croat federation), and patrolled by an international military force trying to prevent the tensions from re-igniting all-out war. The good news is, first of all, that despite serious damage and disarray caused by the fighting and the division of the country, the Bosnian archives still exist and that the records of the post-World War II Bosnian government and communist party in Sarajevo survived the war; and second of all, there are no legal barriers to unhindered scholarly research into these materials, according to Matko Kovacevic, Director of the Archives of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and his deputy, Slobodan Kristic, whom I interviewed in their offices in the Bosnian government headquarters building on Marshal Tito Boulevard.3 At the same time, the archivists said, little if any work along these lines had taken place since the cease-fire due to the lack of international scholarly interest in conducting such research; to limited resources on the part of Bosnian archival authorities to consolidate, repair, and organize collections; to legal confusion and uncertainty over access rules; and, of course, to the higher priority of other reconstruction projects.

Although many materials had been lost, Kovacevic and Kristic said, archivists had managed to preserve most of the records of the Yugoslav-era Bosnian government

and communist party-prior to Yugoslavia's disintegration in 1991-2, Bosnia and Herzegovina had constituted one of the country's six federated republics, along with Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Montenegro-by dispersing them at the beginning of the war to four different sites. Even though those buildings sustained varying levels of damage, Kovacevic said, the documents. were kept below ground where they reportedly escaped destruction. To illustrate this unorthodox preservation method, the two archivists, accompanied by a Yale University doctoral candidate in history, Attila Hoare, who was in Sarajevo to research a dissertation on World War II Bosnian partisan activities and kindly helped translate during my visit, escorted me to the underground archives in the bullet-scarred government building in which we were meeting. There, in the musty warren of crowded shelves and pulpy aromas common to pre-electronic archives, several staff members of the archive spread out some yellowing documents and matter-of-factly confirmed that they had continued to work regularly at the archive throughout the four-year Serb siege, despite regular sniping and shelling outside.

Kovacevic and Kristic said that, in principle, Bosnian communist party documents for the period 1945-1977 were freely available in the state archives, although no researchers had worked in them since the war and the collections remained largely disorganized; as for more recent party materials, they were said to be temporarily in the possession of the CP's successor, the Bosnian Social Democratic Party, pending transfer to the Bosnian National Archives when resources and circumstances permit. For the time being, access was said to be “not a problem," although the SDP was not under any legal obligation to open the materials.4 They also said that until 1974, most important decisions in Bosnia-Herzegovina (at least those left to Sarajevo by the central government in Belgrade) were made by the party rather than the state, but that after that date state ministries and authorities exerted greater power. These post-1974 state materials, the archivists said, are open (again, in principle), but not wellorganized, and many state documents for the period 19601990 had been lost in the war.

Kovacevic said that despite archives receiving some limited assistance (notably from the Soros Foundation, which underwrote the publication of the archives journal referred to above), the Bosnian-Herzegovinian archives desperately need help to recover from the war, for such basic requirements as microfilm equipment, computers, education, photocopiers, catalogs, "everything." Sitting in a darkened, empty office, Kovacevic noted what he said. were two typical examples of the sad straits of the archives amidst the war's debris: a project on the holdings from the Austro-Hungarian period had to be abandoned and a lack of contacts with international archival colleagues reached a nadir when he was denied a visa to attend a conference in London. As for Bosnia's archival relations within the former Yugoslavia, Kovacevic said.