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Though the Warsaw Pact countries that joined the Soviets in the invasion issued only official communiques of self-congratulation, their people clearly did not share that sentiment. In East Berlin, for example, hundreds of people flatly refused the demand of party workers to sign petitions in support of the intervention. Instead, they came to the Czechoslovak cultural center, where they left bouquets and bought, as some said, "souvenirs of Dubcek."
Broader Appeal. Beyond the range of Russian guns, only three Communist governments endorsed the Soviet action.
Two of them, North Viet Nam and Cuba, are heavily dependent on Russian arms and aid. The third, North Korea, customarily sides with the Russians in the Sino-Soviet dispute. On the other hand, the most biting protest of all came from, of all places, China. Mao and Co. would not think of tolerating a Dubcek in China, and they have berated Moscow precisely because it has been soft on reformers and "revisionists." Logically, therefore, the Chinese should have given the Russians good marks for learning their lesson. But Peking seized the opportunity to rip Moscow. "This is the most barefaced and typical specimen of fascist power politics by the Soviet scabs," said China's Premier Chou Enlai. As Peking saw it, the whole episode was the result of a plot by the U.S. and the Soviets to divide up the world between themselves. Still, it was indeed an extraordinary experience to find Communist China condemning a country's loss of freedom in stronger terms than did the U.S.
The Russian invasion, in fact, embarrassed Communists most in areas where local feeling runs high against foreign intervention and where the Communists themselves had pounded away hardest at U.S. involvement in Viet Nam and the Dominican Republic. Throughout Asia, Communists felt uncomfortable about the Russian actions. With the exception of Castro's party in Cuba, Latin American Communists broke with Moscow. But the most agonized reaction of all came from the Communist parties of Western Europe. In the early 1950s, the Western European parties abandoned their revolutionary tactics and went respectable. Since then, they have been trying, with only a fair amount of success, to convince voters that a Communist government does not necessarily entail a suppression of political opponents or loss of freedom. Dubcek's Czechoslovakia, if only it had lasted, would have been their best advertisement.