The dog end of August is a time of often overlooked historic anniversaries, ignored or perhaps selectively unobserved anniversaries and missed opportunities to remember. The last few days of August will see the third anniversary of the fall of Kabul to the Taliban (in August 2021), the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia (in August 1968) and the collapse of the Soviet Union (in August 1991) which pass largely unremembered and unobserved.
Wednesday 21st August 2024 was the 56th anniversary of the Soviet led invasion of Czechoslovakia, it’s an anniversary that passes largely unnoticed save perhaps by some people in Prague. While the Soviet Union is history, the Russian Federation is not and is aggressively on the rise in the east, so people have lots of other things to be worried about. It’s been 56 years since Soviet troops and most but not all of their Warsaw Pact allies invaded Czechoslovakia on August 21st 1968.
The Soviet-led invasion effectively established the Brezhnev Doctrine, which Moscow said allowed the U.S.S.R. to intervene in any country where a Communist government was under threat. The Soviet backed occupation of Czechoslovakia lasted until the velvet revolution brought an end to the Communist dictatorship in November 1991 as the Cold War ended. It was always contested - the reformist communists were finally defeated in the mid 1970's ironically just as detente created the Helsinki accords which then inspired Charter 77.
Russia’s attitude to the invasion still touches raw emotions, evens in the Czech and Slovak republics. While the thirty third anniversary of the collapse of the USSR will largely pass unremembered, in both the West and more understandably in Russia, the reasons for Russia’s desire to forget the past are understandable.
It is worth noting that the Brits lost their Empire over a period of thirty years, over fifty years ago, and some of them have still not got over the losing of it hence the periodic exposure of Brit exceptionalism. The Russians by way of contrast lost the core of their Empire in about fortnight, which must still sting a bit, even thirty three years down the line.
The West tends to remain silent when it came to remembering the anniversary of the collapse of the USSR. Perhaps considering the hubris displayed at the time, the wilful glee the came with the botched dismemberment of the old Soviet state industries and assets, the rise of the oligarchs (some of whom were very close and comfortable with New Labour and quire comfortable with the Conservatives and the rise of President Putins new Russia, the silence is perhaps understandable.
When it comes to anniversaries August may be the month that keeps on giving on the Friday 23rd August 2024 is the 85th anniversary of the 1939 signing of Nazi Germany’s and the Soviet Union’s pact which effectively guaranteed the start of the second world war. This event is well remembered the Baltic republic and Poland but very rarely anywhere else, especially in the Russian Federation, where history is both important and selectively remembered.
On Friday ( 23rd August ) morning, Edgars Rinkēvičs and Alar Karis, the presidents of Latvia and Estonia, met at the Unguriņi-Lilli border crossing point to remember that 35 years ago, on 23 August 1989, some two million people from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania stood hand in hand - literally.
While the event itself lasted for 15 minutes, from Toompea in Tallinn, through Riga, to the Gediminas Tower in Vilnius, the consequences have lasted much longer. This over 600km long human chain, known as the Baltic Way, became a powerful symbol of unity and resistance, as it drew the world's attention to the illegal Soviet annexation of the Baltic States following the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
The non-aggression pact was signed exactly 50 years earlier, on 23rd August 1939, by Soviet and German foreign ministers Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop. It contained secret protocols, in which the two powers illegally divided the territories of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania between them.
This was one of the key factors that led to the start of World War II in September 1939, with Nazi Germany's attack on Poland, and to the Soviet invasion of the Baltics in June 1940. The Baltic Way put immense pressure on the Soviet power to acknowledge the existence of the secret protocols and to declare them null and void - and reminded the West that the Baltic republics had been annexed to the Soviet Union since 1944/45.
A few years ago, when the Poles held a commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the start of the Second World War, a few years ago, some Western and World leaders gathered, but the Brits did not go, obviously other important things to do and remember - wonder who the Foreign Secretary was at the time?
Human history is complex, and remembrance is important, forgetting is also very human and is part of life, but, remembrance should be balanced rather than selective. Selectively forgetting the past and erasing our collective history is a more dubious practice ( especially in these islands, Hungary, Russia and the Peoples Republic of China, etc ) but also within these islands, especially when it comes to ‘Brit washing’ the perceptions of and the grim realities of Empire, etc.
Even in the West, the elite can be decidedly selective about the anniversaries and the history they wish us to remember. Creating a rose tinted view of the past, is neither history nor remembrance, nor is it honest, its manufactured / peddled nostalgia - and that is dubious, dishonest and potentially dangerous.
Simply to reimagine these islands past simply to distract people from the mess the Westminster elite have got us into from the carnage of India’s partition, the shambles of Suez, the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the financial collapse of 2008, etc is unacceptable but not quite as unacceptable as blatantly lying through ones teeth and manipulating evidence to justify a war.
Other more awkward embarrassing anniversaries are ignored or effectively selectively airbrushed from history e.g. the Sykes-Picot-Sazanov agreement, the anniversary of Amritsar, various bloody Sundays, etc. Anniversaries are important to remember as not only can they provide timely reminders of important historical events, they can also remind us how we ended up in this mess and who made those decisions, and what can actually be accomplished when people want change.
