August Intervention 1968  in Czechoslovakia and Position  of Romania

Abstract. The Ceauşescu regime in Romania, which sought to weaken Soviet influence in the country and deviated significantly in its foreign policy from the general line of the Soviet bloc, from the very beginning did not support Moscow’s power pressure on the Czechoslovak reformers who initiated the Prague Spring. Ceauşescu and his team, who had no thought of making the “human face” of the Czechoslovakian or any other socialism, watched the events through the prism of their own national-communist doctrine. Thereby they viewed the Prague Spring only as a movement for the expansion of national sovereignty, and in Czechoslovak reform, communists saw their potential allies in the struggle for Romania’s full independence in the international arena, its liberation from the dominant Soviet influence. Sharply denouncing the intervention of August 21, 1968, in Czechoslovakia, the communist leaders of Romania did not exclude the military threat against its own country, adopting a whole range of defensive measures. Later, recognizing that neither Tito’s Yugoslavia, nor China, nor Western countries, will render Romania effective military assistance in case of an attack from outside, the Romanian leaders made efforts to renew a broad dialogue with the USSR.

Keywords: Prague Spring of 1968, intervention of 1968 in Czechoslovakia, Soviet bloc, Warsaw Pact, Soviet-Romanian relations.