World: SHOWDOWN IN EASTERN EUROPE

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CZECHOSLOVAKIA has twice been in need of the world's help when threatened by the aggressiveness of its neighbors. Help did not come when Hitler dismembered the country in 1938 or when the Russians organized a Communist coup in 1948. Last week Czechoslovakia's 14,300,000 citizens found themselves in a desperate situation once again, faced with a massive threat to their independence from the Soviet Union and its hard-lining allies. Despite verbal pledges of support from some of its Communist neighbors and muted cheers from the West, the country knew from experience that, whatever happened, it could expect no real help from the outside. In a moment of peril, it could rely only on its own political acumen, patience and resourcefulness as a nation.

Those qualities saw Czechoslovakia through an extraordinary week of showdown with the Soviet Union. With mounting pressures, including a virtual ultimatum to the Czechoslovak nation, Russia did everything that it could, short of sending tanks to halt and reverse the reform program led by Party Boss Alexander Dubček. At week's end, armed intervention was still a possibility. But under Dubček's shrewd direction, little Czechoslovakia stood up and talked back, reaffirming its commitment to a new form of democracy-cum-socialism and defiantly refusing to retreat. If Czechoslovakia gets away with it, Communism in Europe—and perhaps elsewhere as well—may become even more diverse, nationalistic and liberalized. Said West Germany's influential Die Zeit: "After the Second World War, we witnessed the Communization of the Balkans. Today we witness the Balkanization of Communism."

Soviet Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev imperiously summoned Dubček to the Soviet Union for a face-to-face meeting. Radio Prague reported that Dubček would not go until some 16,000 Soviet troops remaining on Czechoslovak soil leave the country. Whether or not Dubček eventually decides to meet Brezhnev, however, he emerged from last week's events with the most powerful backing he has had since he took over from the deposed Antonin Novotny almost seven months ago. The fight may have just begun, and Dubček could still be knocked out by the Russians. But he is clearly the winner of the first round.

No Retreat. Besieged all week by harsh notes, threats and warnings from the Soviet Union and its followers—and pressured further by the continued presence of the Russian troops—Dubček took to national TV to rally his people around him. He talked as no Communist leader had ever dared to do before. Czechoslovakia, he pledged, would "not make the slightest retreat from the path that we took up in January." He called upon all Czechoslovaks to press forward to "develop socialism into a free, modern and profoundly humane society. Since the party cannot change the people, it must itself change." Then he made an open plea to the people: "What we need most now is the support of all of you at this critical moment."