"Żydokomuna" sentiment was reignited by Polish communist state propaganda as part of the 1968 Polish political crisis. Political turmoil of the late 1960s—exemplified in the West by increasingly violent protests against the Vietnam War—was closely associated in Poland with the events of the Prague Spring which began on 5 January 1968, raising hopes of democratic reforms among the intelligentsia. The crisis culminated in the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia on 20 August 1968. The repressive government of Władysław Gomułka responded to student protests and strike actions across Poland (Warsaw, Kraków) with mass arrests, and by launching an anti-Zionist campaign within the communist party on the initiative of Interior Minister Mieczysław Moczar (aka Mikołaj Diomko, known for his xenophobic and antisemitic attitude). The officials of Jewish descent were blamed "for a major part, if not all, of the crimes and horrors of the Stalinist period."