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WHEN the curtain first went up on the drama of Czechoslovakia, TIME'S cover story (April 5) on Alexander Dubček observed that, more than any other man, he had "planned, pleaded for and nurtured the sweeping changes that promise to alter the temper and quality of Czechoslovak life, and perhaps the nature of Communism in the rest of Eastern Europe as well." As that drama began to climax with a confrontation between Dubček and a phalanx of irritated Russian leaders, TIME'S correspondents concerned themselves last week not only with the central characters...
However generous Russia's gesture, the Czechoslovaks were still very much under pressure-and not likely to welcome their guests with any brass bands. The Russians' mission is nothing less than to force the Czechoslovaks to forsake the democratic reforms that Party Boss Alexander Dubček has brought to the country over the past seven months. Moscow claims that the liberalization is paving the way for subversion and counterrevolution and weakening a keystone in the entire Warsaw Defense Pact structure. The Russian talks with Prague's leaders may well determine whether democracy will have any future...
...that the Russians had set up radio transmitters within Czechoslovakia with which they could either jam all Czechoslovak broadcasts or beam their own propaganda into the country's homes. They had also, reported Prchlík, invited ex-Party Boss Novotny to Moscow to broadcast a plea for Dubček's overthrow via their network. (Last week Novotny was waiting things out at a country villa at Rokycany, about nine miles from Pilsen, where he was under close surveillance.) The Russian embassy in Prague contains a printing plant that has been turning out a stream of antireform...
...Soviet Union ultimately takes in handling the Czechoslovak crisis - from inaction to armed intervention-it will have to pay dearly. If Moscow chooses muscle, it will not only antagonize most of the non-Communist world but will also alienate many Communist countries and national parties. If it permits Dubček to proceed, his sweeping reforms are bound to spread elsewhere and further weaken Russia's hold over its Communist neighbors. The Kremlin is caught in an enormous dilemma and. no matter what it does, the shape and strength of what used to be called the Communist bloc...
Moscow has watched the other Communist governments of Eastern Europe split badly on the Czechoslovak issue. Communist parties throughout Western Europe, moreover, reared back in almost unanimous disapproval of Russian pressure on Prague. In campaigns to win support from respectable liberals, their leaders had advertised Dubček's "renewal," as Italian Party Boss Luigi Longo called it, to be the party's exciting new image. Now Moscow has damaged and perhaps destroyed that image. The resulting bitterness in the Communist camp has raised serious doubt that the Kremlin will really be able to hold the summit meeting...