Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and the policy of the Italian Communist Party

In 1968 the process of reforms in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic had been deterred. The Italian Communist Party (ICP) was carefully observing the events of Prague Spring. The party governed by Luigi Longo associated high expectations with those events hoping for a significant change in all the countries sharing the ideological concept of People's Democracy. The intervention by the forces of the Warsaw Treaty caused a shock among the Italian communists. Togliatti's heirs found themselves in a difficult political situation. This article unveils the circumstances of those developments from the ICP perspective: beginning from positive relations with the representatives of the new path in Czechoslovakia, through the intervention up to normalization. Those events are analysed in the context of relations between the "vanguard of communism in the west" and USSR authorities. Can it be said that the year 1968 was decisive for ICP in terms of international politics and its autonomy from Moscow?