Riot Police Smash Protest by Czechs : East Bloc: More than 15,000 students vent their wrath before being routed. But the march may mark the beginning of the end for the hard-line regime.

More than 15,000 Czechoslovak students shouting anti-government slogans marched through the streets of Prague on Friday before riot police brutally broke up the demonstration. The protest was the largest show of public dissent in more than 20 years against the hard-line regime.

Several times during the course of the four-hour demonstration, the crowd chanted, “Jakes out! Jakes out!”--a reference to Communist Party chief Milos Jakes.

In ending the demonstration, police systematically split up the crowd and viciously beat groups of demonstrators with clubs. Witnesses said police also used tear gas.

Scores of people were injured, several seriously, and many Western reporters covering the demonstration also were attacked.

The demonstration took place in an atmosphere of growing anticipation that Czechoslovakia’s hard-line Communist government, one of the last such governments in Eastern Europe, might be entering its final phases.

Protesters Friday appeared in larger numbers and were bolder and more aggressive in their opposition to the government than at any time in the past, according to those who had witnessed previous demonstrations in the city.

The police action was also the severest in memory.

Reporters estimated the crowd at tens of thousands, but the state news agency CTK said only 15,000 took part.

Chants from the crowd, vowing to meet again at a main square today, raised the possibility of a second street confrontation between students and police.

The demonstration began at Prague’s Charles University, just south of the city’s center, and commemorated Czechoslovak student martyr Jan Opletal, who died at the hands of the country’s Nazi occupation forces 50 years ago. The occasion has long been commemorated in Stalinist Czechoslovakia, and Friday’s demonstration began as an example of a government-touted liberalization.

It was only the second officially sanctioned non-government demonstration permitted in the country since Czechoslovak hard-liners crushed then-Communist Party leader Alexander Dubcek’s liberal experiment in 1968.

The official Communist youth organization, the Union of Student Youth, was a main sponsor of the rally. But it quickly became clear that the majority of those who gathered had come to demand change.

The main speaker from the Communist group was whistled down, while independent speakers calling for change were cheered loudly.

“We’ve never doubted that oppression is worse than death,” said Martin Klima, an independent student spokesman. “You cannot live without freedom.”

Other speakers also called for change as the crowd chanted, “Resign! Resign!” and “Freedom! Freedom!”

Several large banners also proclaimed opposition to the government. One read “Stop Beating Students,” while another proclaimed: “We Want Freedom for Christmas.” A third declared, “Who, If Not Us? When, If Not Now?”

At the same time, some officially sanctioned student youth banners called for dialogue.

In the past few weeks, Czechoslovak government leaders, apparently after prodding from the Soviet Union, have begun to emphasize the need for political as well as economic liberalization.

The recent, sudden unraveling of a similar hard-line Communist regime in neighboring East Germany, along with the arrival of democracy in Hungary and Poland, has heightened expectations of possible change here--especially among young people.

Western diplomats say they now believe that major change is inevitable in the country. The only question remains when.

Following the rally, the demonstrators marched to a nearby cemetery where Opletal is buried. There, they lit candles and sang the Czechoslovak national anthem.

Along the route to the cemetery, the only police visible were four traffic officers, who smiled when the students began to chant, “Join us! Join us!”

When the large crowd began snaking its way toward the city’s central Wenceslas Square, bystanders waved and residents watched from upper-floor windows.

The square is a traditional place of protest in Prague. It was here that an illegal demonstration of about 10,000 Czechoslovaks was broken up by riot police last month. It was also here where another Czechoslovak youth, Jan Palech, set himself afire in 1969 to protest the Soviet invasion of a few months earlier.

On the way toward the square Friday, some well-dressed people attending a National Theater performance appeared at the theater’s windows and waved. Students responded with shouts of “Stage Havel plays!”--a reference to playwright and leading Czech dissident Vaclav Havel.

However, when they neared the square itself, the crowd met a phalanx of riot police. Following a 20-minute confrontation, during which students placed lighted candles at the feet of police and tossed flowers into police ranks, the students turned and began moving toward the square via a different route, where a similar, hourlong confrontation took place.

But that incident ended with police wading into the crowd, systematically seizing small groups of people and then beating them.

With the mass of demonstrators trapped in a main street, lines of police moved in from both the front and rear of the crowd.

Police trapped many in doorways or just pulled them to the ground and beat them repeatedly. At one point, the only visible movement above the panicked crowd was the rising and falling of police truncheons. Some of those beaten were merely walking in the area.

Within 10 minutes, the streets were largely clear except for the sound of police boots and the whimpering and crying of the injured.

A camera crew from Cable News Network was attacked and a cameraman was beaten severely as he cried out, “I am an accredited journalist!” A correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, Paula Butturini, was briefly hospitalized.

State television said that some of the demonstrators “misused the mass gathering for anti-socialist performances” and “attempted to violate public order.” Attempted violation of public order has been used previously as a pretext for police intervention.

Western diplomats said they found it hard to assess the possible political repercussions of Friday’s demonstration.

“It’s hard to know whether this action will politicize the students (further) or subdue them,” one diplomat said.

Until now, Czechoslovakia’s small opposition has been comprised largely of intellectuals, with the students remaining mostly passive and on the sidelines. If this group of the population begins taking to the streets in large numbers, as they did Friday, it would signal a major escalation in the opposition to the Czechoslovak regime.

With the exception of Romania, Czechoslovakia remains the only East Bloc country that has not begun to move toward liberalization.