World: A TIGHTER VISE ON CZECHOSLOVAKIA

As if in a nightmare, the dreadful events of last summer seemed to be recurring. Across the bridges of the Vltava River, 68 tanks rumbled noisily into Prague. The acrid smell of tear gas hung over Wenceslas Square, where troopers wielding submachine guns faced angry demonstrators. Even the cries of the crowd had a haunting familiarity. "We want Dubček!" shouted the demonstrators, paying tribute to the man whose attempt to give Communism a more human visage had brought Czechoslovakia a heady, hopeful "Springtime of Freedom." But there was a tragic difference. Last August, the tanks and troopers were Soviet. Last week, on the first anniversary of the invasion, the Czechoslovaks served as their own warders.

Crimean Warning. They had little choice. Three weeks earlier, Soviet Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev had summoned the Czechoslovak leaders to the Crimea, where he delivered a grim warning: If the Czechoslovaks themselves did not suppress the protests, the Soviets would send in their tanks to crush the demonstrators. As the country marked its "Day of Shame," the Soviets kept their 100,000 occupation troops well out of sight, though they were poised to strike in the event the demonstrations got out of control. There were even rumors that archconservative elements in the Czechoslovak party might provoke serious outbursts in order to provide the Soviets with a pretext for another intervention.

Conscious of their country's dilemma, Czechoslovak passive-resistance leaders implored the people to engage only in nonviolent demonstrations and to refuse to be baited into fights with the police.

Party Leader Gustav Husák, who replaced Alexander Dubček in April, was also anxious to ensure calm—though his government's threats against demonstrations only tended to increase the country's nervousness.

Outraged Bystanders. Two days before the anniversary, crowds in Wenceslas Square clashed with police and troops, who seized on the mildest provocations—even catcalls or whistles—to beat demonstrators and hose them with water cannons. As the crowd around the equestrian statue of St. Wenceslas grew in size, ten armored personnel carriers inched slowly from side streets. "They can't be ours?" a secretary asked incredulously as she emerged from a building. People tried to escape into shops and hotels. At the doorway of the House of Food, Prague's leading delicatessen, a jittery cop shot a man in the foot. Bystanders were outraged. "If I could do as I wish," cried a waitress to one of the policemen, "I would raise my skirt and show you my bottom. That is what I think of you."

The following day, the crowds in the square were twice as large. As 10,000 Czechoslovaks, curious tourists and journalists milled about in the afternoon sunshine, the armored personnel carriers and water cannons appeared again. Without warning, the police suddenly began lobbing tear gas into the crowd. As people fled down side streets in panic, the cops pursued them, truncheons flailing. Before the streets finally emptied late that night, 320 people had been arrested and two killed.