EMERGENCY SECURITY MEASURES IN SLOVAKIA, 1969-1989

The study addresses the so far poorly elaborated issue of repressive measures of the totalitarian regime in Czechoslovakia that were used to eliminate any form of resistance. These measures included the use of the so-called soft and the so-called hard power. The study focuses mainly on the specifics in Slovak conditions. Based on extensive archival research the study addresses the issue of abuse of the army against the so-called internal enemy, for example, the so-called hockey events and the 1st anniversary of the military intervention of the Warsaw Pact troops in Czechoslovakia. Based on the experiences of deployment of repressive forces, a central MBO plan was developed. After almost twenty years of the so-called normalization, the “Husák-Jakeš” totalitarian system found itself in late of the 1980s in agony. The disintegration of the power system continued, but plans for extreme security measures elaborated and approved in the early 1970s remained valid. Deployed numbers of soldiers and military equipment within the territory of Slovakia were a proof that a significant military force was prepared for power intervention in order to eliminate components of society that the governmental regime described as a security threat. Creating an ideological image of the so-called inner enemy, alternatively prepared MBO plans in several stages and other measures of the central power showed that despite the long so-called normalization period, the “Husák-Jakeš” system did not seem well established. On the contrary, the system was afraid of any forms of confrontation with the public.