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| Britain |
| 40 years on, the left is yet to grasp the eclipse of socialism |
| 2008-08-22 |
| Russia's invasion to crush the Prague Spring began the slow death of Labour as a party. A new political map needs to be drawn by Martin Kettle Looking back through August 2008 eyes, many commentators now seem to treat the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia 40 years ago this week as a primarily geopolitical event. The coincidence of Russia's invasion of Georgia and the anniversary of the Czech invasion of 1968 perhaps makes it understandable that some should colour their thinking about the crushing of the Prague Spring this way. In this elision, securing their near-abroad against their empire's enemies is what tsars in Moscow always do, whether the threat du jour is from American capitalists or Georgian nationalists. The common theme, in other words, is always Russian power politics. Undeniably there are important and ominous connections here - and they are ominous not only to those who live in any country in that vast geographic Russian border arc that stretches south from Finland to the Black Sea and then east from the Caucasus towards Mongolia. No other state in the contemporary world treats its neighbours' sovereignty with as much cynicism as Russia - and those who are rightly outraged by illegal invasions ought of course to say so. Or have I somehow been watching the Olympics so much that I missed the million-strong anti-war demonstration? |
| Posted by:Steve White |