WI: The USSR cracked down on Solidarity

What would happen if Brezhnev decided to repeat 1968-Czechoslovakia in Poland through a large military invasion of the country?

Say, in June to October 1981 or so.
 
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Brezhnev gets vacation.

Soviets are entangled in Afghanistan, I don't think that invading Poland in mass would be a great PR idea.

It would cause a chill to be sure, other eastern nations might decide to push further from Moscow. Yugoslavia being one of them, Hungary as well.

Problem is population and size. Poland is rather large. its not just warsaw, you need to subdue Gdansk, Krakow, Poznan and other major cities. The Polish would fight, and I can just see the Soviets asking the East Germans to help out. you then run the risk of having the Baltics explode and Ukraine.
 
Brezhnev gets vacation.
You mean Jaruselski gets the "vacation", since he is the one who was in charge of Poland at the time that was responsible for handling the unrest and insuring that the Soviets don't invade unless things go beyond his control; perhaps some well placed bomb or something kills him (no doubt by the KGB) during this time, convincing the Politburo that the unrest is out of control and must act fast.
 

Japhy

Banned
The Soviet leadership did try to call up a Reserve Army Corps to help cover the manpower shifts required for an invasion in 1981, the plan was scrapped and the Poles were allowed to deal with it themselves because something like half the reservists failed to show up.
 
I've recently written a TL on the subject. It can be found here.

I just read it now. I find it a very interesting TL, from the hardliners taking power again in 1985 instead of Gorbachev, the civil wars in eastern europe, Putin being the power behind the throne of the early 2000s, to the Second Russian Civil War, the earlier Beijing-Moscow cooperation, and finally the lukashenko-trump analogy.
 
The Polish would fight, and I can just see the Soviets asking the East Germans to help out. you then run the risk of having the Baltics explode and Ukraine.

Germans invading Poland again would cause an uproar in 1981. The rumors alone OTL that East German troops might participate in the crackdown of Warsaw Pact against CSSR in 1968 caused this.
 
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