To the youth of Prague,
to all citizens of Prague!We thank all of you who, yesterday evening, listened to our call and did not participate in the five-o'clock demonstration on Wenceslas and Old Town Squares.
The intention of the forces that want to break the resistance of the Czechoslovak people was to intentionally call forth, by assembling young people, bloodshed and thereby create a pretext that they haven't been given by our calm and level-headedness up to now. This pretext would be enough for them to liquidate, with an even more brutal force, what the President of the Republic, the National Assembly and the government of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, the party congress, radio, television, and other forms of protest have so far managed. Today, as we enter the third day of the occupation of our country, we turn especially to you, the youth of Prague, and ask you to use those forms of dissent, those forms of protest, that will under no circumstances give the occupying armies the possibility of abusing them in the sense that they could proclaim in an international forum that in fact they are protecting their own soldiers through their armed interventions, for the reason that the citizens of our republic are threatening their lives.
Maintain therefore calm and level-headedness. Let us realize that all our work of the last two days has resulted in a situation in which the Soviet soldiers and other soldiers of the Warsaw Pact, whether they want to or not, have had to recognize at least part of the real truth and thus the fact that their entry onto the territory of our republic was unjustified. Already they are slowly beginning to feel that this really is an act of aggression. It is up to you, the citizens of our republic, young Praguers, to make this feeling of injustice, this reality of aggression, settle down even more deeply in the hearts of the soldiers of the countries of the Warsaw Pact and thus create a moral pressure on their conscience. This moral pressure must be further heightened, whether through the use of leaflets issued in the language of the individual armies, or direct personal contact with soldiers of the Warsaw Pact, either individually or in small groups. If we further intensify our protests with calm and level-headedness we shall prevail.
Forgive us, dear friends, for no longer signing our names. We would like to remain in contact with you for a long time to come.
You know us! Believe us! We shall prevail!