World: WHY DID THEY DO IT?

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Rendering unto Moscow. The most telling clue lies not in what the Russians did bring with them to Czechoslovakia but what they did not: a new government. Had the political decision to bring Dubcek under control or to oust him outright been in readiness long, the Soviets would have followed up their efficient military takeover with an equally efficient installation of a ruling order more to their liking. Instead, they placed the country in a state of suspended political animation, letting a surrounded Parliament continue to meet, permitting "detained" leaders to go on bargaining. Having gone all the way militarily, the Russians then hesitated politically. Having forcibly grasped their victim, the Russians seemed to be trying to bring off a rape with consent.

The caution evident politically last week would seem to suggest that the Russian leaders had approached their dramatic meeting with Dubcek at Cierna with the hope of regaining sway over Czechoslovakia nonforcibly, if not amicably. It is quite likely that they expected to find a clique of dissidents in Dubcek's entourage through whom they could work for subversion. Dubcek. however, was able to draw the line so clearly between the right of Czechoslovaks to run their own na tional affairs and Russia's in ternational claims as bloc lead er that just before the conference opened he won a unanimous vote of committee confidence. To the Russians' chagrin, the entire Czechoslovak delegation came to Cierna determined to render unto Moscow only what was Moscow's. Two weeks later, East Germany's Walter Ulbricht journeyed to Karlovy Vary and presumably reported to Moscow that the Czechoslo vaks had been completely unchastened by Cierna, that the contagion of reform was sure to spread, both within and without Czechoslovakia.

The theory that a new, hard-line group has gained ascendancy in the Kremlin's labyrinthine power politics is intriguing, but far from demonstrable. As the theory goes, Russia's ruling troika—Kosygin, Brezhnev and Pod gorny—were called back from their Black Sea vacations by the party's new upper hand and presented with the decision to invade as a fait accompli. Aleksandr Shelepin, former chief of secret police and a longtime Brezhnev rival, is rumored to have put together the new alliance, which would probably include army leaders and militant young technocrats.

At any rate, the Soviets pounced, and now must try to translate their military takeover of Czechoslovakia into a realization of the political ends that inspired it. It will not be easy. At best, the invasion was too clumsy and too late to rescue a vacillating policy. At worst, it may prove a disaster destroying forever Moscow's claim to leadership in the Communist world. It may temporarily halt the trend toward more freedom in Eastern Europe and shore up Russia's buffer against the outside world for a little longer. But ultimately, the invasion can only serve to encourage the strong forces of nationalism and liberalization that are at work throughout the former Soviet empire.