Invasion 1968

Prague residents surround Soviet tanks in front of the Czechoslovak Radio building, in central Prague, during the first day of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia, on August 21, 1968.

Some 250,000 Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia overnight from August 20 to 21, 1968, to halt a blossoming political and cultural liberalization, bringing an abrupt end to the Prague Spring and tightening the Kremlin’s grip. The first months of 1968 had brought a renaissance of political and cultural life in what was then Czechoslovakia. Journalists and students were calling for an end to censorship, public rallies in support of reform erupted in Prague and beyond, and that year’s May Day commemorations were seized upon by those demanding greater freedoms.