Originally published in Fall/Winter 2023
Introduction by Louis Jaffe
In the summer of 1968, James P. "Jim" Mayer, a college student hitchhiking across Europe, heard there was a non-stop party and flowering of the arts happening in Czechoslovakia with the blessing of its Communist leaders – the Prague Spring. He took a train there to see for himself, arriving the evening of August 20th. Jim Mayer at 22 was already a skilled photographer. Styling himself a pictorialist, he carried neither a snapshot cam-era nor a Leica, but a medium-format, bellows-focusing Rolleiflex SL66, the antithesis of an action camera. He woke at 6:30 the morning after arrival, looked out his hotel-room window, and saw tanks, armored cars and artillery moving up the street. He had reached the city a few hours before the occupying forces of Russia and the Warsaw Pact. For the next two days, Mayer, known by friends to be mild-mannered, showed another side of himself: fearlessness. (It would emerge periodically throughout his life.) Oblivious to gunshots, flames, crowds, and blood literally running in the gutter, he ranged across the city, shooting the six rolls of 120 film he had with him, twelve shots per roll, never losing his contemplative eye. Film and cameras were subject to confiscation. Having shot all his film, he needed to get to a safe place and get it developed. The USSR wanted foreigners gone from Czechoslovakia. With his American passport he was free to go.Crossing the border without incident, he reached Western Europe with all his gear and notes for a moment-to-moment, street-level account of his sixty hours in Prague. He air-mailed the six rolls of film to a trusted friend in the US who developed them. His report and a handful of photos were distributed by Liberation News Service and published by alternative newspapers including the Los Angeles Free Press. Jim Mayer went on to become a respected documentary video producer based in Berkeley and Oakland, California. He occasionally did still photography as an avocation. The Prague negatives were filed away for four decades.Over the years 2007-2009, however, he scanned the negatives and started working with them digitally. On the fortieth anniversary of his visit, accompanied by his wife Jane Flint, he traveled to Prague, revisiting and rephotographing the original sites.In early 2021, diagnosed with cancer, he intensified work on the Prague photos and the rest of his film and digital archive. As his condition worsened, he continued to optimize images. On one of his last days, Jim asked a longtime photographer friend to make prints for an exhibition he would probably never see. For three weeks in an Oakland, California art gallery, over the first anniversary of his passing, thirty-five of the Prague photos were publicly shown for the first time.
Nekazanka Street near Na Příkopě Street. Crowd faces truckloads of soldiers beneath pedestrian bridge.
A military convoy approaching Náměstí Republiky Street.
On Na Příkopě Street, Students rally the citizens of Prague.
Czech citizens talking with soldiers whose armored truck is immobilized by multiple flat tires.
Sept. 13, 1968
CZECH REPORT
Jim Mayer
RUSSIAN INVASION PRAGUE, Czechoslovakia (Liberation News Service-RAT)
At about 10:30 the night of August 20th I passed by the Czech Airlines downtown terminal where buses were leaving for the airport. About the time they would have gotten there, the runways were closed for a "special Aeroflot flight." TheRussian soldiers that got off that plane, and the ones that followed at the rate of one per minute, were the start of the invasion ofCSSR. Polish, DPR, Hungarian and USSR troop tanks moved in, sealing borders, taking over all military installations. Planes, MIG 16s and 21s, could be heard through the night.
In the morning I was awakened at 6:30 with the real news of occupation. Polish tanks, armored cars, howitzers, trucks, were moving up the street in front of my hotel into the center of the city. RUDE PRAVO, newspaper of the CSSR Communist Party, hit the streets, literally, being thrown out of the windows of cars, with a broadside issue headlining the obvious news of invasion, along with prepared stories about a geographic convention.
As cars emerged carrying the papers from the printing office, down three blocks from the hotel, tanks moved in, blocking, then smashing through the front door. So much for RUDE PRAVO...
The first early morning reaction of the people seemed to be somewhat panicky—much milling around, people queuing at food shops. Scooters and cars charged madly down the streets.
The mimeoed student-published papers appeared denouncing the occupation—the first sign of resistance. Presumably the Czech Army was taken completely by surprise because they apparently put up no resistance, though there are stories of resistance at the border including reports of bloodshed and one about aPolish tank column turning back after meeting barricades. All dayCzech soldiers, in uniform but with no weapons, were in the streets.
Since I arrived, the city had been covered with Czech flags, hanging from windows and utility poles everywhere. Students began to take them down and walked with them through the streets, carried them through on motorcycles and cars. Groups formed marching down the streets lined with armored cars of the occupation. Trucks appeared jammed with people, flags flying, rolling through the streets. Groups and truck riders chanted "Dubcek, Svoboda" and, when near troops, "facisti, facisti!"
An armored personnel carrier on the main street with all four rear tires flat. ... Two civilian cars crushed by tanks passing through a narrow street ...
An empty truck pulled up, I jumped in along with about thirty others. We rolled through the streets chanting, waving. Everyone we passed waved and shouted approval "Dubcek, Svboda" (Svoboda means freedom; in addition to being the name of the President, a news-paper also has that name). We crossed a guarded bridge and went up a hill, outside the main city, again lined with Soviet tanks. At the top of the hill, the truck stalled and I got out, picked up a newspaper thrown from a passing car, and walked to a nearby monument that over-looked the city.
There had been sporadic gun fire in the morning, but by now—as I viewed the troops guarding the bridges and waiting outside of the main city—things seemed to be falling under control. That is when I saw smoke rising from just outside the center of town. Then more smoke, explosion, and machine-gunfire. I decided to have a look.
On the way back in, though, things were less dramatic. Less action, but less fear. People were standing around tanks talking with troops, asking them why they were there. They had been told, apparently: "There was a counter revolution here, please help us."—leaflets distributed to soldiers.
Appeals to other parties for help. Loudspeakers in the streets which in early morning had been calling for calm and for people to go to work now asked for no cooperation with the occupying forces—"This is an extraordinary situation—take it as that. Don't collaborate!" Demands for help from the UN—a special UN meeting—Czech radio pleas for help: "There is no counter revolution. The people support Dubcek. Help us build humanitarian socialism."
Finally I'm walking up the main boulevard, past the National Museum. The street is littered with the burning skeletons of cars, wrecked trolley cars, miscellaneous debris. Tanks are still in the street. But on a side street a tank with swastikas painted on it is burning, completely gutted. Buildings on both sides of the street are baring their smashed windows, fronts splattered with bullet marks. Students fight the fires with hoses that spring leaks. The street is covered with oil and water and filled with people—mostly students. At a crossroads—near a burning pile of junk around a drive shaft that recently was a car—lies a pool of blood, Flags are laid on the blood with flowers over the flags.
Apparently, the students had managed to set on fire the gas cans on the back of one tank. The tanks exploded, followed by cars and ammunition. Most gunfire was to disperse crowds. The Czechs don't seem to have any guns: From a newspaper: "We have to have weapons to resist, but we will never submit to domination." Sometimes troops shot into buildings if anyone made a false move. There was a report of a girl being shot for spitting on a tank; this I doubt, because many people were spitting on tanks. But in the shooting, a number of Czechs were wounded (killed?), Later Note: Apparently this was all involved with the defense of the Prague radio station, which was taken after tanks smashed through barricades.
By this time a large group of students, probably about one thousand, had gathered in the center of the city and were walking up the main street behind a blood-stained flag. They came, singing the national anthem and the Internationale and joined a thousand or so who were already there for a brief pause at the site of the shooting.
Many flags were dipped in the blood on the street—it was a large pool. People chanted, whistled, held blood-soaked flags in front of Russian troops. People started harassing tanks, dropping flags over their periscopes. The tanks decided to move, They were followed by crowds of students. About two blocks away shooting broke out. Everyone, soldiers included, headed for cover. It's tough to say whether the troops were fired on at all because no soldiers were wounded, and no buildings were searched for snipers.
As the shooting stopped; the crowds swarmed around the tanks again. One tank ran into a tree trying to get away. Flag poles were stuck into peepholes. A gun barrel was stuck out; someone grabbed the barrel; a burst of fire from the gun sent everyone scurrying.
Eventually the situation calmed. I returned to the hotel. Czech radio, in addition to asking for calm and dignity (especially from students) as it had all day, broad-cast a special appeal in English to all socialist people for help in maintaining Czech independence and in building libertarian socialism. It also warned again against cooperation or collaboration. CSSR radio was now underground, shifting from station to station. It was said that the Presidium and Assembly were meeting, with Dubcek and Svoboda, but they were surrounded. (I'm not sure this was actually true.)
A leading government figure was under arrest. All Western radio had been jammed since about 10a.m. East German radio was talking about production increases, saying absolutely nothing about the CSSR situation.
Out of food; most stores closed. But I find a fruit shop with only short lines. Return to hotel to discuss the situation with two Swedes and two Czech-born US citizens who had been in Czechoslovakia on the same street when the Nazis occupied in 1939.
After dinner—peaches, wine, cheese, bread, chocolate—out on the street again. People are ignoring the 8 p.m. curfew, which it turns out later, does not exist. Groups stand around the main streets. There is talk of a meeting later in the town square. The street loudspeakers ask people not to stand in groups (ha!). RUDE PRAVO appears again, this time lithoed sheets of type written copy with hand-drawn headlines. News of support from Yugoslavia andRumania, Beware of collaborators, traitors—"There will be those who may be persuaded, as in Nazi time." Also, an interesting fact: There are no officers in Prague; only soldiers—who don't know what they're therefor. There is no one to negotiate with, there are no demands, no orders, no information, no contact. It really was like in the Czech animated film about a little man in his house who is attacked by a gloved hand; nobody, face or identity is seen.
One wonders if this is perhaps a dramatic show of force and if the soldiers and tanks will all leave to night. Occasional shooting continues into the night—1 a.m. This is really a media-age invasion. There were hundreds of cameras—movie cameras too—out today in spite of the fact that the film and/or cameras were sometimes confiscated.
The CSSR struggle is the struggle for freedom and change in the political and social life, for individuality and responsiveness in government style. Because the CSSR government has granted equality to minorities—Slovaks, women—started to decentralize, and based its legitimacy on its ability to respond to the people, it has won support that no Czechoslovak government has had since the early stages of the Communist coup.
BACKGROUND ON CSSR The revitalization of CSSR by there forms was evident physically and spiritually, as well as theoretically, economically, and politically, before the invasion. Czechs were cheerful and hopeful—although a reluctance to talk about the future revealed a continuing uneasiness about the possibility of Soviet intervention. Many hippies all over Prague playing folk music, everything from Dylan and Eric Anderson (in Czech) to their own songs, often satirically political...Chalk drawings on the sidewalks of the main bridges along with slogans, "It's a poor country that won't respond to its people."...Ridicule of the old order, especially of Novotny's son—a little nepotism is a good target!...And a sitar concert in a courtyard of the main street.
Streets, streetcar tracks, bridges are being repainted all over the city, Dozens of buildings are covered with scaffolding for cleaning and restoration. Prague has a fabulous collection of buildings from all periods from the 19th century on, which had become drab through neglect.
Much remains to be done. As one Czech said, "Things are not so good, but they were good before the invasion. Prague was a city of life. Hippies playing guitars in squares and courtyards, painting on sidewalks, talking on bridges. Everyone talking politics." He said there was enough to wear, enough to drink—especially Prazdroj, 12 percent beer, which is quite good and costs about 11 cents per liter at Black (would you believe Light Grey?) Market prices.
"YOU ARE THE AMERICANS" One Czech—jeering the Soviet tanks—shouted, "You are the Americans!" This invasion should cure anyone who has been digging the USSR. Also anyone who's been digging the CPUSA, And to me this is the central point to be made in the US: The USSR et al invasion ofCSSR is not a matter of Communist aggression against a liberal West leaning country, to be seen in Cold War terms as LBJ et al would like to have us believe. It is in fact a matter of imperialistic suppression of individual and national freedom. This is just the same as US oppression in Vietnam; the same as White oppression in the Black communities (and the same as traditionalist domination of the educational structures and resources). My stretching of the parallels should not obscure the fact that this is a matter of authoritarianism vs. libertarianism, not a simple matter of Communism vs. Capitalism. The Czechs make it perfectly clear that they are socialists to the end. Their appeals for help are not to the West, but to the brother socialists and communist parties and individuals of the world. This is not a time for attacking Soviet embassies (Although that would be fun, the American bourgeoisie will take care of it).
I think it's a time for pressing the anti-authoritarian fight in the US, perhaps to the Point where the response of the Power structure of the US becomes a graphic demonstration of the similarity between US and USSR purposes and methods. Johnson and the other Western "leaders"must be clearly revealed as the hypocrites they are. EvenBrezhnev pointed out the facts by saying that the USSR had been invited into CSSR just as the US was "invited" into Vietnam. (The Soviet leadership may retain the virtue of· being less self-deceptive about their morality.)
At the US embassy here, a political officer I talked to made it clear that the US, in spite of liking the Czech reforms, still was anti-communist and didn't see how the Czechs could carry out their reforms and remain communist—thereby agreeing with the USSR. He also avoided a question about whether the US would welcome the success of Dubcek's reforms, inasmuch as they would provide an attractive model of socialism for Africa and Latin America.
The Czechs see the situation clearly--"US and USSR are just the same!"--so should we.
Anyway, although LBJ—and undoubtedly a hoard of senators—will deplore the USSR, blah, blah, support the Dubcek government, they might be told that two things the US could do to support the goals of Dubcek would be to withdraw from Vietnam now and get White cops and White monopolies out of Black ghettos. In any case, the struggles fought by the Czechoslovak people, even more than by the government—for freedom, humanity, decentralization, responsive governments, change—can best be fought in the US by fighting against the war and against domestic colonialism.For the US and USSR are now united as the upholders of authoritarian power on a world—as well as an individual—level.
1:30 a.m.: There has been no gunfire for the last half hour. Viva Dubcek! Viva Czechoslovakia! Peace! Love! Freedom!
Prague Information Office. Hand lettered signs read "LONG LIVE SVOBODA, LONG LIVE DUBCEK," and posters depicting these leaders who promoted the Prague Spring are taped to the inside of the window.
A young man stares out of the broken window of a disabled tram.
On the south side of Vinohradská Street, east of Blanická Street, students fight the fires with hoses that spring leaks.
A Soviet tank passes Radio center on Vinohradská St. Three people look down from a balcony, although the building is pockmarked by bullets, windows have been shot out, and a soldier is raising his rifle.
A burning tank on Blanická Street, north of Vinohradská Street.
Demonstrators with blood stained flag on Václvské Náměstí (Wenseslas Square).
