Guardian: Poll-Nearly half of Russians ignorant of 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia

Published Aug. 19, 2018 at 2:55 pm

(FILES) In this file photo taken in August 1968 in Prague, youth gather on a street during confrontations between demonstrators and the Warsaw Pact troops and tanks, who invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the so-called Prague Spring reform and re-establish a totalitarian regime.Czechs mark on August 21, 2018, 50 years since Soviet invasion crushed Prague Spring.

Photo by AFP

More than a third of Russians say the Soviet Union was correct to intervene in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and nearly half the country says it knows nothing about the invasion at all, according to new polling data obtained by the Guardian before its release on the 50th anniversary of the crushing of the Prague spring.

The polling data reflects the resurgence of “Brezhnev-era propaganda, stereotypes of the Soviet period,” said Lev Gudkov of Russia’s Levada Center, which will release the results on Monday.