That was the year that was

‘The only way you can help us,’ said the young student on the archive recording, his voice thin and wavering through the ether, as if emasculated by the Soviet tanks that had just invaded his native city, Prague. ‘Don’t forget Czechoslovakia.’ The streets were filled with young people, who were bravely trying to talk with the soldiers, many of whom could not speak Russian but were brought in from the far reaches of the Soviet territories and had more in common with their Chinese neighbours than the Mittel Europeans. But active resistance, they knew, was pointless. ‘We are a small nation. What chances do we have against the Red Army?’

It was odd hearing this 40 years later when Russian tanks were once again doing the same thing, invading a much smaller neighbour. We like to think that the world has changed, has moved on, that we’re living in different times. But for any of us who remember 1968 (and we’re not that old, despite what you under-40s might think), the only difference is that we’re no longer so innocently hopeful. Realpolitik, or perhaps one should say a combination of geographical practicalities and the realities of human nature, has a nasty way of getting in the way of technological advance. We may have experienced a global internet revolution but the old dangers are still very much with us.

Last week in 1968: The Year of Revolutions, John Tusa (whose parents left Czechoslovakia in 1939 when he was three) took Radio Four to the studios of Radio Prague to bring together a group of Czechs who remembered the events of August 1968, when in the middle of the night they suddenly found themselves surrounded by troops from the Soviet Union. ‘Where were you on the night of 20/21 August?’ he asked.