More than a quarter of Russians supportive of Prague Spring suppression by Soviets
About a quarter of Russians believe the Soviet authorities were right to order the suppression of the 1968 Prague Spring uprising with military force – while 13 percent feel the actions were a mistake, a recent poll has shown.
According to the results of the research conducted by the Public Opinion endowment, 34 percent of Russians understand the history of the Prague Spring fairly well. Some 29 percent said they had heard something about these events and 35 percent claimed that they only learned about them from people who were conducting the poll. Just 2 percent of respondents could not give a direct answer to this question.
Of those who knew about the 1968 developments in Czechoslovakia, 26 percent told researchers that Soviet authorities acted in the right manner. Just 13 percent described the actions of the Soviet authorities as wrong and 25 percent said the situation was nuanced and it was too simplistic to label the military actions either ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’
On August 21, 1968, the Soviet military, with the support of several Warsaw Pact nations, deployed troops to Czechoslovakia to halt the Prague Spring – a series of reforms taking place in the country. The move was broadly denounced across the world and also caused a split between young Communist regimes in Eastern Europe.
Despite being initially launched by pro-Soviet and Communist authorities, the Prague Spring still remains a major symbol of anti-Communist resistance across the world.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
