1968: Betrayal

Betrayal - the second part of the series devoted to the Prague Spring - charts the fundamental events which took place from 1968 to 1969. After the leaders of the Czechoslovak Communist Party returned from Moscow, the future of the country was said to depend on its ties with the Soviet Union. After hope was steamrolled by the Soviet tanks, the betrayed country once again began living in an atmosphere of fear, lies and hypocrisy. The nation was roused from its profound lethargy only by the death of Jan Palach who protested the occupation by self-immolation. After his burial and after the bloody suppression of the demonstrations on the first anniversary of the occupation, the daunting era of normalization began.