END OF THE DUB

ALL week long Czechoslovakia had braced itself for major political changes, and now an announcement was expected on TV. While waiting, Czechoslovaks were forced to watch the first Soviet film shown since the invasion, a potboiler entitled The Man Without a Passport. Finally, the familiar visage of Czechoslovakia's white-haired President Ludvik Svoboda flashed onto the screen. In an emotion-laden voice, the old general told his countrymen what most of them had been grimly expecting to hear for months. Alexander Dubcek, who last year led his country into its shortlived "Springtime of Freedom," had been removed from office under pressure from the Russians.

After imploring the people to remain calm, Svoboda introduced the Central Committee's choice to take over Dubcek's post as Party First Secretary: Gustav Husak, 56. In a short speech, Husak promised that Czechoslovakia would not return to the Stalinist repression of the 1950s, but he also stressed that he would allow no recurrence of the recent anti-Soviet riots that brought the Russians once more to the verge of crushing the country by force. "Some people imagine that freedom has no limits, no restrictions," he said. "But in every orderly state, there must be some rules of the game. Laws must be kept, social, Party, and civil discipline observed." There was little doubt that Husak, a canny, strong willed man, had the temperament for enforcing the rules.

Careful Balance. As part of a major overhaul of Czechoslovakia's governing apparatus, the 190-man Central Committee also abolished Dubcek's old 21-man Presidium. It was replaced by a new eleven-man Presidium, whose membership reflected the careful balance of the new political arrangement. Only two outspoken liberals remained, Svoboda and Dubcek, who was given the largely honorary position of President of the new federal National Assembly. The hero of the liberals, former National Assembly President Josef Smrkovsky, was dropped from the ruling group after his own admission of errors, which was published in the Party newspaper.

The Presidium also contains two conservatives, who were among ten Czechoslovaks absolved by Party decree last week of any treachery in collaborating with the Soviets after the invasion. But the majority of the members, including Husak, are drawn from the ranks of the so-called realists who, while they may be liberals in theory, regard cooperation with their Soviet overlords as the only practical course for the country. Clearly, the Russians had sought to install a new government that would do their bidding while still retaining the broad if grudging support of the Czechoslovak people.

No Demonstration. Just as if his emissaries had not aided the changes, Soviet Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev sent his warm congratulations to Husak. So did most of the other East Bloc leaders. Predictable protests came from the West, the loudest of them voiced by the West European Communists, who had seen in Dubcek's liberal form of Communism an opportunity to enhance their own appeal to voters in their own countries.

Extra police, reinforced by Czechoslovak troops, were on duty in Prague and other cities to cope with demonstrations, but there were none. The students, unable to decide what to do, did nothing. Similarly, the workers staged no protests. Though they previously had threatened strikes if Dubcek or Smrkovsky should be demoted, union organizations issued an appeal for all Czechoslovaks to "avoid rash acts."

Dangerous Drift. The calm resulted in part from apathy, hopelessness and fear. In the wake of the March 28 riots that were touched off by the Czechoslovak team's victory over the Soviets in the international ice-hockey finals, the Russians had made it clear that, in the event of another major demonstration, they would send in their tanks. Another cause was the fact that Dubcek no longer commanded the fierce loyalty that had united and inspired the Czechoslovak people six or eight months ago. Unnerved and physically exhausted, Dubcek in recent weeks has withdrawn almost entirely from public life. Though sympathizing with his plight, many Czechoslovaks felt that his emotional make-up was poorly suited to the daily strain of coping with Soviet demands; they believed that toward the end he had allowed the country to lapse into a dangerous period of drift and indecision. A tough Husak, they hoped, might be able to bargain more skillfully with the Russians and more effectively protect Czechoslovakia's interests.

Even so, Dubcek's ouster represented the culmination of a tragedy for Czechoslovakia. Dubcek had not sought to overthrow Communism; he wanted only, in his words, "to give it a human face" by removing needless abuses and brutalities. For a time, it seemed as if the tall, soft-spoken Slovak might succeed. Channeling a groundswell of discontent among both intellectuals and workers against the Stalinist regime of President and Party Boss Antonin Novotny, Dubcek in early 1968 managed to overthrow the old order and institute the most far-ranging reforms and freedoms that had ever been attempted in a Communist country.

Under Dubcek, Czechoslovaks experienced an exhilarating release from 20 years of police-state repression. New laws were enacted that granted rights ranging from freedom of the press and speech to the privilege of traveling abroad and emigrating. Artistic and political expression bloomed, and the country pulsed with hope and excitement. But Czechoslovakia's new ebullience frightened the Soviet and other East Bloc leaders, who feared that their own people would demand similar reforms. At a Warsaw Pact summit meeting in Dresden in March 1968, East German Boss Walter Ulbricht reportedly waved his arms ominously over the other Party leaders, warning: "We will all soon be in danger, if not swept out of office." Soviet tanks, of course, averted that eventuality and ended Dubcek's stirring, if perhaps hopelessly Utopian experiment in mingling democracy and Communism.

Required Ritual. Because of his following among the Czechoslovak people, the Soviets kept Dubcek in office, but they forced him to do their bidding until he was so discredited in the eyes of his people that he could be shoved aside safely. At the end, Dubcek assisted in his own demise. In a long and rambling speech, Dubcek told the Central Committee of his love for the Soviet Union. True to the ritual demanded of deposed Communist officials, he confessed his failings. "I share in the responsibility for all that happened in the last few months," he said, asking to be relieved of his high office. He nominated Gustav Husak as his successor.

By a huge margin, the Central Committee installed Husak in the country's most important post. Because of his willingness to cooperate with the Soviets, some Czechoslovaks call him "Husak Rusak" (Husak the Russian)--and even sing a ditty that translates roughly as "A new Russian came back./And his name is Gustav Husak." Such taunts may be quite unfair to a man who obviously feels that only a firm policy can spare Czechoslovakia from a far worse fate than it now experiences at the hands of the Soviets. "I may be called the executioner of freedom," said Husak to the Central Committee. "But one does not get ahead with a popular policy, being nice to everyone. We have to struggle without mercy for [answers to] questions we have agreed to solve." The main question, of course, is how to fend off Soviet threats of direct intervention. One danger in Husak's approach is that he will impose an overly harsh rule on his hapless country.

Fervent Nationalist. If the Soviets think they have found in Husak a pliable Janos Kadar, their Hungarian puppet, they are probably mistaken. Determined and unbending, Husak is likely to be as tough with the Soviets as he is with his own people.

An austere widower whose only apparent indulgence is a fondness for expensive gold-rimmed eyeglasses, he smokes only the cheapest brands of Czechoslovak and Bulgarian cigarettes. Born of peasant stock, he joined the Communist Party at 16 and rose to a top Party post before his arrest during the Stalinist purges of the early 1950s. Released in 1960 after nine years in prison, he worked on a construction gang and in a warehouse until his political rehabilitation three years later. He allied himself with Dubcek's reform program by stepping forward as the first major political figure from the old era to denounce the deposed Novotny for his role in the purges. Dubcek appointed him a Deputy Premier. After the invasion, Husak began to shift his position. He lectured about the "darker side" of democratization and applauded the reinstatement of travel restrictions. Said he: "Borders must be borders, not a promenade."

Despite his threats and perhaps unnecessarily severe attacks on Dubcek, Husak, a political liberal and fervent Slovak nationalist, remains committed to the "positive aspects" of what is left of the reform program. Though he used the term "counterrevolutionary" to refer to dissident Czechoslovaks, his own nine years in a Communist prison are thought to have left him with an abhorrence of police terror and political arrests. In all likelihood, Czechoslovakia will not win back its freedom under Husak, but that is beyond the country's power anyway. At the very best, the new Party leader may be able to strike a working arrangement with the Russians that will reduce the constant peril of renewed Soviet military intervention and bloodshed and perhaps lead eventually to a further withdrawal of the occupation force.

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