What were the common citizens of Warsaw Pact countries told about the Hungarian and Czechoslovakian uprisings?

by gasundtieht

How much did they know and what did the state media tell them? Also I would like to know what Soviet citizens knew as well if possible. Thanks.

QuirrelMan

Well lucky you that I literally have an article on 1968 sitting right next to me. Unforuntaly I cannot speak much into detail at the moment, nor do I have much insight into the '56 Hungarian Revolution. Really the main thing I think would be interested in pointing out is how ideologically divided about the Prague Spring and Soviet Intervention was and how permeable East and West were.

Regarding the first point here is a quote from a Hungarian Student of the time:

"I still have clear memories of looking at a map and saying...'it's not possible...that they will occupy again.' According to one of my friends I was fantasizing about Walter Ulbricht [who took a hard line on the Prague Spring and supported intervention] on a white horse in Prague. Now of course this perspective was absurd and two-faced because on one hand we considered the Czechoslovak reform movement as dangerous because it could lead to the weakening of the anti-imperialist front and could hinder the People's Liberation of Vietnam, but even with the ideological blinkers of that time I could not deny a high level of sympathy for the aspirations of Dubcek's attempt at socialism with a human face."

This was a Maoist Student's perspective and I don't mean for anyone to take this as the general opinion of the Warsaw Pact countries, but it is revealing. For those in Czechoslowakia, there was a general resentment to the Soviet Union, but not all out against Communism or Socialism in general. So there were different layers of critique of the Prague Spring.

Regarding my second point, I only wish to point out that the Eastern Bloc countries were well aware of Western media, books, music, fashion and, of course, ideological student movements of the 1960s. For example, the GDR, which was arguably the most closed off of the Eastern states, had 85% of its population with televisions by 1971, which could easily receive Western tv programs. My point here is that many of the Eastern Bloc states were not imaging a better world in the West and hating the oppression of the Soviet Union or their own (possibly) oppressive government, rather they had a good scope of European (West and East) and American lifestyles and made up their own opinions of the Prague Spring based on regional policies and ideologies. So some would be against the uprising believing it to weaken socialism, some would believe it would bring a more democratic face to socialism, some saw it as further evidence of the failures of socialism, etc. My conjecture here would be that generally many saw the Prague Spring as a homegrown uprising attempting to overthrow an oppressive government and the shackles of the USSR. Sympathy (as seen above) was likely unanimous, but (even like today) many probably had a fear of what the end result of the revolution would bring.

Source:

Europe's 1968: Voice of Revolt, Chapter 5, Mark, James and von der Goltz, Anna.