ABSTRACT
1. As you would expect, we are now seeing the beginning of pressure for the Soviet Government to make a clean breast of 1968. In previous comparable cases, something of a pattern has been established, starting with the floating of trial balloons by liberals and academics and followed by movement on the official side related to the atmosphere inside the country concerned. This, for example, is roughly what happened over Hungary/1956. The process is in train over Soviet atrocities in Poland (and the Molotov/Ribbentrop Pact and the incorporation of the Baltic States). 2 Commission under Alexander Yakovlev is to report on the Pact: a joint historical commission with Poland is looking at Katyn 3 and the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Supreme Soviet is due to produce a report on the invasion of Afghanistan.
