World: RUSSIANS GO HOME!

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In the streets, conversation between the people and the troops suddenly ceased. Free radio broadcasts and leaf lets advised that the Soviet press was printing photos of Czechoslovaks and Russians talking in Prague as proof that a warm reception was being given the troops. Any Czech caught speaking to the soldiers, these messages said, would be branded a traitor. Though the people had little notion of the progress of the Moscow negotiations, they knew that their fate hung on them. Nearly 15,000 of them lined the route from Ruzyne airport to the city, waiting in vain some four hours to welcome back their leaders and get some clue to the outcome of the talks.

For a time last week, rumors raced through Europe that the Soviets might straighten out a few more ideological frontiers while they were at it in Czechoslovakia. Pravda ominously charged that both Rumania's Ceausescu and Yugoslavia's Tito were siding with the "reactionaries" in the Prague regime. But both Communist leaders made it clear that if their countries were at tacked, the invaders would have a shooting resistance on their hands, unlike the situation in Czechoslovakia. The ar mies of both countries were put on alert. Tito and Ceausescu were concerned enough over Czechoslovakia, in fact, to get together for talks in the Yugoslav village of Ursac. The two considered calling for a European Communist Party summit to deal with the crisis. That might prove to be a highly uncomfortable gathering for Moscow (see following story).

What sort of bargain Svoboda and Dubcek might be able to strike in Moscow remained problematical. Pravda's massive editorial sounding the warning on the invasion made it clear that the Kremlin wants to be assured of several things before it withdraws its army. The Russians insist that the old-line cad res be kept in their jobs in the party and government. They want press freedoms curtailed. They want guarantees that Czechoslovakia's economy will remain oriented toward the Soviet bloc.

Many Czechoslovaks were encouraged by the length of Svoboda's stay in Moscow. "If the Soviets had been convinced that they were right," said Agriculture Minister Josef Boruvka, "the negotiations would not have lasted more than an hour." One report said that Svoboda was promising to reimpose a degree of censorship and brake the democratization a bit as part of a political compromise. The Russians, in return, would permit not only Dubcek but also Cernik and Smrkovsky to continue in office. This would leave mat ters pretty much where they stood after Cierna—except that Soviet tanks would still be in Czechoslovakia as enforcers of the agreement. There were even reports that the party bosses from Hungary, Poland, East Germany and Bulgaria might come to Moscow to give their endorsement to such an accord.

Whether the Czechoslovak people would accept it remained to be seen. Having tasted the heady air of freedom the past eight months and in their own way tested their mettle against Soviet tanks last week, they might well insist on a greater say in their own destiny in the future. Passive resistance is an art that, once mastered, can be applied in more than one situation.