Czech Premier Frames Take-It-Or-Leave-It Government : East Bloc: Adamec, the man in the middle, threatens to resign if his nominees are rejected.

Prime Minister Ladislav Adamec, warning that Czechoslovakia faces the danger of anarchy, said in a nationally televised address Wednesday that he will propose a new government today. He threatened to resign if the Communist Party and opposition forces do not accept his choices.

“I cannot bear responsibility for the further development of the situation” if the government does not have “public confidence in the sincerity of our intentions,” Adamec said. “In that case, I have only one honorable way out--to ask the president of the republic to release me.”

He said the country faces a choice of “stability or disruption of the national economy, democracy within the framework of the legal order or chaos and anarchy.”

Adamec has threatened to resign before, but close associates say he is now near exhaustion, isolated and deeply frustrated by the conflicting demands he faces as the man in the middle between his hard-line fellow Communists and the increasingly powerful opposition.

As one of the few Communists who has retained some credibility with opposition groups, Adamec has been an important bridge between the two sides. His resignation would deepen the nation’s political crisis.

In less than three weeks, Czechoslovakia has gone through a stunning transformation, compressing political changes that have taken its East European neighbors months and, in some cases, as in Poland, years.

“Everybody’s shocked by how fast the system has collapsed,” said Jan Urban, a leading strategist for the opposition Civic Forum. “It shows very clearly how rotten, how weak, the system was.”

But the rapid change has left both sides unprepared to assume the burden of governing at a time when Czechoslovakia faces fundamental economic change.

On Wednesday, as part of negotiations to organize a new government, Communist Party chief Karel Urbanek held an unprecedented meeting with Civic Forum’s leader, the playwright Vaclav Havel. Leading members of the opposition group said that Civic Forum is prepared to enter a new government.

“By this weekend, we will have Civic Forum ministers,” Urban said.

Civic Forum has resisted being drawn into the government, insisting that it is not a political party. Last week, the group refused to give Adamec a list of names for government ministries. Now, the rapid pace of events is moving Civic Forum into a more traditional political role, causing deep misgivings in some of its leaders.

“The Communist Party does not want to give up power,” Urban said. “It wants us to take responsibility.”

The move, he said, could trap Civic Forum into taking blame for government action it cannot control.

“We understand this,” he said, “but do we have a choice?”

The next government is widely expected to be forced to take difficult and unpopular steps to right the economy, which has deteriorated during years of Communist mismanagement.

Adamec’s new government will be the second he will have proposed this week. Sunday, he put forward a government consisting of 16 Communists and five non-Communists, and the opposition denounced it as insufficient.

Since then, Communist and opposition leaders have conducted intense negotiations to produce a new list. The process has been extraordinarily difficult, according to people involved.

Communist leaders have recognized the need for new officials. Party Chairman Urbanek said at Wednesday morning’s negotiating session that he wants the Communists to be represented in the government by young and competent people, a party spokesman said, and Civic Forum members confirmed this account.

Urbanek also assured Civic Forum that the Communists realize “the deeply rooted mistrust” with which they are regarded. They also understand that “the party must transform itself radically to become one of several forces with equal participation in Czechoslovak political life,” Havel told reporters.

But Urbanek conceded, Havel said, that he faced considerable resistance from conservative provincial and regional party leaders at a recent meeting.

“I tried to explain to them for three hours that the Communist Party does not favor a monopoly of power,” Havel quoted Urbanek as saying, “but some of them did not want to understand.”

After years in which the Communists put top priority on conformity, suppressed internal dissent and blocked advancement of non-party members, finding acceptable people has become a major challenge.

Policies adopted after the Soviet-led invasion of 1968 ended the last taste of reform here “made selection of the best of the best more difficult,” Adamec said in his speech. “Not a few talents did not get either education or opportunity.”

In the circumstances, finding talented people who are not politically tainted has become a daunting task.

“We could form the sort of incompetent government we have now in an hour,” Urban said. “We have to form a competent government. That’s the problem.”

If a new government is formed, it is expected to begin putting into effect Jan. 1 plans for economic reform. At least initially, these steps are likely to cause unemployment and higher inflation as resources are shifted to areas of urgent need and away from costly subsidies for consumer goods.

Political figures, involved in organizing new parties to compete in free elections that are expected in the spring, are not eager to take responsibility for such actions, said a Western diplomat.