NEWS ANALYSIS EAST BLOC : Hard Line, Prosperity Can’t Coexist

Those who write the history of the second “Prague Spring” will find its beginnings on a crisp autumn night one week ago in this city’s Narodni Street.

It was here that yet another hard-line Communist regime lost its ultimate weapon of power: fear. Riot police systematically beat many of the 20,000 young people who had come into the street that night to demand an end to the regime and immediate free elections.

But they failed to crush the overwhelming emotion that filled those who marched, sang and tossed flowers at the police that night--the conviction that freedom’s hour was at hand.

Within two days of what Prague students now call a police massacre, as many as 30,000 were back on the street. A day later, it was nearly 10 times that number, and the instruments of state repression began to crumble.

“Now those who have drowned our wishes in blood are afraid of us,” the country’s leading dissident, Vaclav Havel, told an anti-government rally Wednesday. Speaking beyond the crowd to the beleaguered Communist regime itself, Havel declared, “Now your time has come.”

Indeed, to many it seemed that way: The government suddenly said it would no longer use force against protesters. At Prague Radio and Czechoslovak television, decades of straitjacketed reporting vanished when the news staff refused to put up with the constraints any more.

One excited Czechoslovak journalist, near tears as he looked out on the sea of people crowded into the capital’s main Wenceslas Square earlier this week, could only repeat, “It’s so wonderful, it’s so wonderful.” Then he exclaimed, “Perhaps I can even write about it!”

By Wednesday, Czechoslovak TV was covering the massive demonstrations live.

The dramatic suddenness of the change caught even the most astute, seasoned analysts by surprise. In part, the groundswell of opposition in Prague was sparked by a powerful message from the streets of neighboring East Germany: Peaceful change was now possible from the street, even against the most repressive Communist states.

But there is another explanation for the breathtaking speed with which these regimes have unraveled in Eastern Europe.

The Czechoslovak leadership became trapped by the same dilemma that Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev saw before he began his major reforms, and that the East German leadership only belatedly understood: In the late 20th Century, prosperity and political repression simply do not mix.

The choice facing these leaderships was a simple one--economic stagnation and decline or a loosening of their repressive control.

But once launched on a path of economic reform that required a freer flow of information, less centralized control and greater independent decision-making, the hard-line Communists were doomed.

In retrospect, what is surprising is that these leaders failed to comprehend the consequence of such economic reform. Especially in Czechoslovakia, those in the regime had convinced themselves that economic liberalization was possible without political change.

Only last week, in a speech to the country’s Parliament, did Czechoslovak Prime Minister Ladislav Adamec admit he had misjudged the situation. He said a year’s experience had convinced him that he had, in fact, been wrong.

“Economic reform cannot be successful without political reform,” he said.

But by last week, it was too late for the regime to control events. Once students gathered in strength last Friday, they took courage from their numbers and began shouting for freedom.

The students who placed flowers on police shields, lighted candles and rattled keys as a symbolic death knell to the regime at that first major demonstration had shown they were no longer afraid.

Although crushed by police, they were quickly joined by others. As the taunting of Communist Party leader Milos Jakes and demands for the resignation of other senior leaders escalated, the regime was paralyzed. With its most vital weapon--fear--now gone, it had no response.

The threat of last resort--Soviet tanks--also no longer applied.

The new confidence of the Czechoslovak people is fragile and most visible at the daily mass rallies. The scars of decades of repression do not vanish overnight, and many say the hard-liners’ only chance to cling to power is if they can reimpose that fear.

“This is a very important psychological moment,” said Vaclav Maly, a dissident Roman Catholic priest and spokesman of the recently formed Czechoslovak opposition group Civic Forum. “When people are in crowds, they feel stronger.”

So do others--bystanders who viewed the initial demonstration last Friday with curiosity and occasionally waved their support were cheering and wildly applauding by Tuesday as the processions passed by. The uncertainty and tension that ran through the initial demonstrations had vanished.

The sight of defiance unpunished had ignited the silent, long-cowed majority and swept through the capital like a firestorm.