Contagions of 1968 and 2020

The Soviet Union thought that by invading Czechoslovakia on Aug. 21, 1968, it could stop what Zbigniew Brzezinski called in the Washington Post four days later the "contagion of freedom." Brzezinski predicted, though, that the effect would be the opposite: "The invasion of Czechoslovakia will hasten the process not only of disintegration of international communism, but in all probability also of the internal decay of the Soviet political system." One unnamed Czech told the New York Times that fateful day in Prague that, "Communism is dead in Czechoslovakia." It took the Soviet leadership another 21 years to acknowledge its mistake. On Dec. 5, 1989, the Kremlin stated that the invasion of Czechoslovakia was "unfounded" and "erroneous." The Cold War was over. Thirty-one years later, on March 9, 2020, World War III was lost when Italy shut down its economy to stop the coronavirus contagion. Capitalism was dead. How long will it take us to acknowledge the mistake?