World: END OF THE DUB

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Required Ritual. Because of his following among the Czechoslovak people, the Soviets kept Dubček 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, Dubček assisted in his own demise. In a long and rambling speech, Dubček 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 Husák as his successor.

By a huge margin, the Central Committee installed Husák in the country's most important post. Because of his willingness to cooperate with the Soviets, some Czechoslovaks call him "Husák Rusák" (Husák the Russian)—and even sing a ditty that translates roughly as "A new Russian came back./And his name is Gustav Husák." 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 Husák 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 Husák'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 Husák a pliable János Kádár, their Hungarian puppet, they are probably mistaken. Determined and unbending, Husák 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, Husák 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."