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What if the Czechoslovak army had resisted the Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968?

ABBAForever2015

Would there have been a bloodshed in Prague that might have spared Czechoslovakia from another 20 years of Russian colonisation?

Reply 1

PTMalewski

Original post

by ABBAForever2015

Would there have been a bloodshed in Prague that might have spared Czechoslovakia from another 20 years of Russian colonisation?

Not possible. The Soviet Union was too strong, and the region too vital.

Such gambit was only possible some 13 years later. The Zapad 81 excercise was prepared as intimidation and prologue to a potential invasion of Poland, but Polish dictator, general Jaruzelski, refused to obey the order to keep Polish army in barracks and instead announced general mobilisation and sent the army to the field.
Of course the Polish army stood no chance against the Soviet Union, but the idea was the USSR at this point was too weak to go for a full scale war at home.

Reply 2

Ambitious1999

Original post

by PTMalewski

Not possible. The Soviet Union was too strong, and the region too vital.
Such gambit was only possible some 13 years later. The Zapad 81 excercise was prepared as intimidation and prologue to a potential invasion of Poland, but Polish dictator, general Jaruzelski, refused to obey the order to keep Polish army in barracks and instead announced general mobilisation and sent the army to the field.
Of course the Polish army stood no chance against the Soviet Union, but the idea was the USSR at this point was too weak to go for a full scale war at home.

That was true but having said that the Russian army were decimated when they tried to invade Chechnya in 1994, but the situation in Chechnya was geography and extremism. Rugged mountains where Russians were easily ambushed by Chechen rebels. Czechoslovakia especially in the Czech Republic was relatively flat. Also a lot of Czechs were comfortable with the status quo.