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  1. #1
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    6. 20. 1000. The Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia

    With the Tianmen Square Massacre anniversary just a short while ago and pictures of the 'Tank Man' featuring prominently in the media I was reminded of a similar photo of another 'Tank Man' standing up to brutal tyranny.
    In this case it was the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

    1968/1989







    In the summer of 1968, a series of liberalizing reforms in Czechoslovakia, including increasing freedoms of the press and the loosening of political censorship, raised concern among Warsaw Pact leaders that the removal of press censorship and surveillance would pose security risks to all of the Eastern bloc countries. Because Czechoslovakia bordered Austria and West Germany, which formed part of the Western bloc, the Soviet Union feared that liberal ideas from the West would filter into the East through the Czech border.

    Dubček and other Czech leaders did not believe that the Soviet Union would invade and failed to prepare; they were quickly arrested and sent to Moscow to be interrogated.


    Even the ČSSR (Czechoslovakia) Communist Party blasted intentions of invasion and certainly the actual invasion. The Soviet Union jailed/disappeared many of the leaders, including the President and replaced them with their cronies.

    Local sympathisers of the invasion are and were pariahs until this day.

    Here's a bit of video history, made all the more interesting as most of us here were around at the time of the
    brutal and deadly invasion.









    The Soviet Union disintegrated and threw the country into chaos from which it still hasn't recovered.

















  2. #2
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    My parents worked in Prague for four years in the early seventies and I went to visit them from boarding school most holidays.

    Lovely people . . . frightened of the ever-present secret police . . . ah, the stories I could tell- some humorous, some sweet and others not.

  3. #3
    Thailand Expat havnfun's Avatar
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    Was that a MAXIST ideology PH?

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    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Hoohoo will be along in a minute to tell us how the USSR improved the lives of every Czechoslovakian.

  5. #5
    Thailand Expat Saint Willy's Avatar
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    Where is this so called Czechoslovakia?

    I know of no such country existing today (No names please).

  6. #6
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    ^, ^^

    Yea . . . next we might go to Hungary for a week-end . . .


    This was/is the slogan of Czechoslovaks ever since about Russians



    And what they say and think about their own people who aided, abetted and supported the Russians si even worse.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by panama hat View Post
    frightened of the ever-present secret police
    My ex business partner back in LOS was from Prague. His old man was an old man when he had him. Used to sh*t himself whenever he had to go renew his visa. I used to get phone calls from him when at immigration audibly nervous and rattled as he was quadruple checking he had everything 'present and correct'. Never could understand his fear until he used to speak about his father and tales of old Czech. No doubt that fear will continue to pass down through the genes for a good few generations.
    Originally Posted by dirtydog
    filch, sadly the moderators are not going to be changed, if it upsets you that much try google, it has over 100 million results for Thai forums, or, you can just bitch and moan about the moderators on here.

  8. #8
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    I used to bang this East German stewardess back in the day. She was a right goer, bless her.

    She was in tears when the wall fell, the only time I've seen people that happy since was when Bush kicked the Iraqis out of Kuwait.

    Except on the telly.

  9. #9
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    Apropos of nothing: Prague is one of my favourite cities in Europe and a session on the black beer and Pils in the old beer halls followed by stepping out into a winter Prague in the snow is one of life's little luxuries...

    ...at least the Russians couldn't take that away.

  10. #10
    Thailand Expat Backspin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by havnfun View Post
    Was that a MAXIST ideology PH?

    It had nothing to do with ideology. It was power politics just like today. Russia threw off that ideology completely and look what we have today.

    The Soviet Union wanted to own as much real estate between it and Germany as it could. Because of Germany's atrocious imperial past that killed 20 million+ Slavic people

  11. #11
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    Ah yes . . . Anthony and Enrique my best friends (whose parents worked at the British and Bolivian Embassies) and I would go to one of many beautiful pubs - no i.d. required - and drink some of the best beer in the world at a few cents a glass.

    I still remember the name of our favourite and checked it out recently (online, of course):

    Willkommen in der Brauerei und Restaurant U Fleků | Pivovar U Fleků - Deutsch

    It wasn't this fancy back then, in the 70s . . . but for a packet of Marlboro you'd get fed quite well and have a few beers 'on the house'.








    Marlboro (or Dunhill, Ernte23...) were like currency because they weren't available in the 'East' - The younger people were happy to join us and chat while the older ones were hesitant because of the 'friends' we always had nearby ensuring we didn't engage in subversive activities.

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by hallelujah View Post
    ...at least the Russians couldn't take that away.
    Nope . . . they did try, though, militarily to enslave the populations from the Baltic to the Med.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Backspin View Post
    The Soviet Union wanted to own as much real estate between it and Germany as it could.
    What utter bullshit . . . Skidmark wades into a discussion he has zero knowledge about again.


    So: The Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia, Backspit . . . what do you reckon? Good thing because you fancy your totalitarian dictatorships or bad thing because . . . well, you know . . . invasion of a 'sovereign' country and the murder of countless civilians?

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by panama hat View Post
    Ah yes . . . Anthony and Enrique my best friends (whose parents worked at the British and Bolivian Embassies) and I would go to one of many beautiful pubs - no i.d. required - and drink some of the best beer in the world at a few cents a glass.

    I still remember the name of our favourite and checked it out recently (online, of course):

    Willkommen in der Brauerei und Restaurant U Fleků | Pivovar U Fleků - Deutsch

    It wasn't this fancy back then, in the 70s . . . but for a packet of Marlboro you'd get fed quite well and have a few beers 'on the house'.








    Marlboro (or Dunhill, Ernte23...) were like currency because they weren't available in the 'East' - The younger people were happy to join us and chat while the older ones were hesitant because of the 'friends' we always had nearby ensuring we didn't engage in subversive activities.
    Small world! U Fleku was the one I was thinking of as it was the first one I went to in 95 and my mate and I were paying the equivalent of around 10p a glass!

    A lot of them seem to be bars/pubs/restaurants now.

  15. #15
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    Prague is one of the most beautiful cities in the world today, guess the Soviets did some things right.

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by sabang View Post
    Prague is one of the most beautiful cities in the world today, guess the Soviets did some things right.
    What did they do right? Do you think they built it?

  17. #17
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    They didn't demolish it. And the breweries continued their fine tradition. Culturally, they do not seem to have done such a bad job. Or educationally. Economically however- well that was the downfall of the Soviet Union, and the whole Marxist pipedream.

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by panama hat View Post
    6. 20. 1000
    Never read such a number and such a stupidity...

    Nowadays, in a spin world, where official declaration of WH tells us that WW2 was won by USA and UK (only), nobody will be surprised that - among all TD members - just an ancestor of German usurpers of Europe - and our Master of Paper Hate - will enlighten us who did not come to help when the Czechs were thrown in the Jaw of Hitler by English and French leaders when they signed to him generously and willingly the Munich Agreement in 1938, certified by Mussolini.

    How surprising that after the famous signing the help did not come from them. After all, the Czechoslovakia had a Friendship Treaty with France and England. Nor from the country the Czechs and Slovak - as many in Europe - always dreamt of (they never thought about that, they still had had a good business relation with Hitler).

    But waiting on Uncle Joe? Actually, it will come as a surprise to many that the Bolsheviks did have offered the help.

    Here is the record of the Czech Radio when the Minister of Propaganda (Official name) announced why the govt refused the help from USSR:

    Mnichov a druha republika – My jsme to nevzdali

    (to scroll down to the 5th record from below:
    Hugo Vavrečka o pomoci SSSR
    Archiv Československého rozhlasu | 30. 9. 1938
    Československý ministr propagandy Hugo Vavrečka vysvětluje, proč vláda nestojí o pomoc SSSR
    Czechoslovak propaganda minister Hugo Vavrečka explains why the government does not want help from the USSR
    (Perhaps our expert on Czechs - and on everything - can translate that...)

    BTW, who was the propaganda minister Hugo Vavrečka? Incidentally (?) he was a grandfather of the First Postcommunist President of Czechoslovakia, later also of Czech Republic, Václav Havel.

    6.  20.  1000.   The Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia-havel-bush-jpg

  19. #19
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sabang View Post
    Prague is one of the most beautiful cities in the world today, guess the Soviets did some things right.
    So not demolishing a country you illegally occupied is a good thing.

    0000000000000kkkkkkkkkkkk

  20. #20
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    My father always jokingly claimed that he was born "U Fleků". Actually, not really in the brewery but in the house next door that was (and still is) one of the oldest college with chemistry major where his father was a headmaster, having their the dwelling for the family. He (my grandfather) later had become a Ministry counsellor for Chemistry.



  21. #21
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    So in Czech, majoring in Chemistry means you can brew good beer. Figures.

  22. #22
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    There are hundreds of such "Tank Man" photos - I myself had taken few. Perhaps our experts on "Tank Men" could show us at least one similar picture from Panama (pH have got some?) or Afghanistan, or Baghdad, where the population could had discussed with the occupants arriving at last to liberate them from dictators?

    But with missiles or drones is quite difficult to discuss, isn't it? (show these pictures in Afgh., Iraq, they will laugh...)




    Yes, it hadn't been very friendly and all the population was angry, including the real communists. The whole nation had been united in their hatred...

    Fortunately, there had not been many casualties, the figures are among 80 - 120, most of them were accidents, also on the occupants side. And that even when people threw Molotov cocktails on the poor soldiers (some of them knew nothing where are they, what's going on), firework throwing inside the open tanks, etc.

    And again no help came from the country the Czech always had dreamt of, (despite their great contingency just few hundred km over the border to Germany). At the moment, they had had many other problems to solve, a bit further from Europe, to support their friends in Israel (Palestine?)

    And fortunately, within 2 weeks the tanks had disappeared from Prague, they were sent on other locations outside, into the woods, nowhere on the sights of the angry population... Only when driving upcountry, still can see some machines hanging (broken or forgotten) in the ditch...

  23. #23
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    six years waited on the help ?
    Yes, it's not so far from the Islands to Prague, or was it nearer from Stalingrad?

    And when finally arrived beg. May from the Islands, then just to Pilsen (Plzeň) where they brew the famous Pilsner Urquell and a bit farther southwards Budwar (České Budějovice). But there had been no longer any fights, the poor Germans were frantically running westwards being embraced, they knew what they can expect from the Russians, not from the others.

    And before they arrived at last, just 2 weeks before they bombarded the industrial facilities (and the people inside) not only in Pilsen (where is a huge industry Skoda - not the cars - mainly weaponry that time, why leaving that intact during the whole war years?), but also in Prague, Brno, Ostrava, Zlin (Bata shoes where the former good minister ^ Vavrečka ^ became a director producingd shoes for Wehrmacht), always the huge industry, why when the war was already decided?

  24. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by panama hat View Post
    Add denial to loathsome Soviet arse-licking and supporting the murder of your own people by communist imperialists . . .

    You're disgusting and a traitor to your country
    It seems that you have got the 1st hand info from StaSi...

  25. #25
    Thailand Expat Backspin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sabang View Post
    They didn't demolish it. And the breweries continued their fine tradition. Culturally, they do not seem to have done such a bad job. Or educationally. Economically however- well that was the downfall of the Soviet Union, and the whole Marxist pipedream.
    Indeed. The Soviets were culturally conservative

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