Prague: Rebirth by Students : Czechoslovakia: The opposition won the first round of revolution. Now come harder questions: Who will govern, how to proceed?

The current Prague revolution began without me in mid-November; my anguish about sitting in Santa Cruz increased daily until I grabbed an opportunity to go back to Czechoslovakia, to visit the city where I grew up, attended college, earned my first political credentials as a dissident--the city where old friends are often closer than brothers.

This revolution is not much like the Prague Spring of 1968. First, this is indeed a revolution; 1968 was a reform. No matter how strong the push of popular forces, no matter how enlightened the leadership of Alexander Dubcek, the 1968 process was managed--and its limits dictated--by the Communist Party.

In 1989 no such limits are apparent. The Communist Party is being swept away, almost as an irrelevant irritant, stripped of its hitherto constitutionally guaranteed “leading role.” This is a step we never dreamed of in 1968. The country is heading for free elections; the Communist Party might win only 10% of the electorate, losing two-thirds of its own members’ votes. In 1968, such results were unthinkable.

Everyone I saw in Prague was astonished by the speed of change: They talked about 10 years for Poland, 10 months for Hungary, 10 weeks for East Germany and 10 days for Czechoslovakia. Not boasting--pure wonderment. They understood that speed was multiplied by developments in other East European countries; there could have been no Prague without a Warsaw, no Prague without a Budapest or Berlin. But they also told each other that speed is testimony to the rottenness of the old regime.

Dizzying speed, however exhilarating, makes it hard to see where you are going. The leadership of the Civic Forum, an umbrella group that has emerged as the most powerful opposition voice, relies on a handful of individuals who carry extraordinary physical and psychological burdens.

Playwright Vaclav Havel, the best-known personality of the Forum, has more mandates than minutes. He is needed everywhere simultaneously: to negotiate with the government, to confer with colleagues, to meet emissaries from the provinces, to address the public, to draft documents, to comment on position papers. To maintain some semblance of physical control, Havel seems to travel with a half-dozen karate experts--guarding him from journalists as much as from other dangers. When I saw him in Prague at the end of November, the strain showed.

Civic Forum was operating out of execrable spaces. Headquarters were in the basement of the Laterna Magica theater in the center of Prague: only a couple of telephones, none with multiple lines; no copying machines on site, never mind faxes or computers, no secretarial support to speak of. Information flowed by courier. The press of people trying to get into the basement was constant. Only one narrow section of the entrance was kept open; a visitor’s business had to be ascertained before entry to the foyer of the theater; to reach the basement, one needed a special pass reserved for Civic Forum activists.

An old friend from 1968 was my passport. Vlado Prikazsky is a former radio journalist who covered “our” student strike in November, 1968. He was kicked off the air during subsequent government purges. Now Vlado is back in action, part of the Civic Forum, one of dozens of old friends reunited after more than 20 years. With each of them, I continued interrupted conversation. The only evidences of time passed were our graying hair and pictures of 15-year-old children.

The old friends helped reconstruct what had happened. The first phase of the revolution erupted on Friday, Nov. 17, when a special unit of riot police from the Interior Ministry savagely beat up as many as 2,000 demonstrators, most of them students. The assault was unprovoked; the protest was nonviolent. The demonstrators’ only crime was failure to disperse; instead, they sat down on the cold Prague pavement and refused to budge. Vlado took me to the site; the pavement has become a little shrine, adorned with dozens of candles.

Police brutality lit the fuse. Over the weekend, students made nationwide plans for a general strike and people started gathering in the city center, at Wenceslas Square. The regime realized it had gone too far; the Wenceslas Square crowd was not attacked. On Nov. 20, the demonstrators issued a list of demands, vowing to strike until demands were met.

This is a students’ revolution. They spearheaded it, had the courage to face police, mobilized the population at large--frequently against the wishes of parents who had found a way of cohabiting with the regime.

I visited a couple of universities and talked to striking students. They wanted to know about Prague Spring--about democratic political processes the regime never taught.

The students were joined in the strike by actors who added professional skills to convey the message, helping win over factory workers. In the battle for hearts and minds, Communist Party propaganda hacks were completely outclassed. Theaters were open every evening for panel discussions with students and other opposition speakers. And every night every house was packed.

During my visit, what can best be described as a revolutionary gala was held at the National Theater. Arias from Bedrich Smetana’s patriotic operas were sandwiched between appearances by popular scholars and actors--some of whom had been banned from the stage for 20 years.

This has been a disciplined, gentle, even good-humored revolution. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered daily in city center, with no police presence. Not a single window was broken. Current playfulness contrasts dramatically with the dourness of the Communist Party. A Hungarian dissident addressed the crowds one day and apologized for his awkwardness with the Czech language. The crowd roared immediate response; one man yelled, “He speaks better than Jakes,” referring to Milos Jakes, the former party boss famous for his inability to string a decent sentence together.

On Tuesday, Nov. 21, a loudspeaker was installed on Wenceslas Square. Civic Forum leaders could at last address the throng and the people took direction. From then on, revolution was unstoppable--short of a Tian An Men Square massacre. Even the soon-to-be deposed apparatchiks didn’t have the stomach for that, although there is evidence that militia troops were brought in to the outskirts of Prague from outlying areas.

The people have won the first phase hands-down. The opposition demands presented to Prime Minister Ladislav Adamec were accepted--including free elections. Then Adamec resigned. His designated successor was Marian Calfa. The people were still unsure last week. They had won but could hardly believe it. It all seemed too easy.

A more difficult phase has opened, with questions about composition of the government, the timing of elections, the identity of Civic Forum--a political party or a Solidarity-type trade union? Prime ministers change within days. Real economic and social difficulties remain. Parties spring up from nowhere, frequently representing no more than the megalomania of individuals.

The chasm between freedom of speech and freedom to vent hot air grows more apparent. No multiparty elections have been held since 1946. Ignorance about the democratic process, about electoral systems, about campaign mechanisms is endemic.

Yet fundamental assets are equally apparent: a smart people who will work hard, determined to end the nightmare of communist control. Many of us who have been biding time abroad are now deciding how best to contribute to the new Czechoslovakia, the one students have freed.