Mick Hartley

Faced with the popular liberal reforms of Czechoslovakia’s leader Alexander Dubček, Moscow reacted with brutality. Dubček could not be allowed to overturn hardline ideology for “socialism with a human face”. His plans to promote freedom of the press and assembly, legalisation of political opposition groups and less censorship would be crushed. Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev declared that the USSR would not allow the countries of Eastern Europe to reject communism, “even if it meant a third World War”.

A young Czech photographer, Josef Koudelka, took huge risks taking these photos. He was shot at by a Russian soldier. A year after they reached New York, to protect their source, Magnum Photos continued to label Koudelka’s work as by “an unknown Czech photographer”. It took 16 years for that to change.

Koudelka shows the time as the invasion starts

[Photos © Josef Koudelka]

Of course the brutality displayed here is nothing compared to what's happening now in Ukraine.

Koudelka left Prague in 1968. His book Exiles chronicles his wanderings through Europe in the years immediately after. I posted some of the images five years back.

See also here.