Tightening Rule

All forms of political protest are now strictly forbidden in Czechoslovakia, but the people still find ways to express their sentiments. In a cacophony of defiance, workers in some Prague factories last week tootled the plant whistles at odd hours as a gesture of their dis pleasure with the regime's repressive ac tions. Leaflets were surreptitiously dis tributed in Prague calling for non-violent demonstrations on August 21, the first anniversary of the Soviet invasion.

All across the country, thousands of Communist Party members have found another effective form of dissent: they have stopped paying their party dues.

To the delight of their audiences, performers in theaters and cabarets occasionally throw barbed double-entendres at the Soviet occupiers and their Czechoslovak collaborators.

The unhappy Czechoslovaks have much to protest. Since stern Gustav Husak replaced Reformer Alexander Dubcek as party chief in April, the country has been gripped by an ever-tightening rule. In a swift series of purges, the liberals of the Dubcek era have been removed from the Central Com mittee. Among those dropped was Ota Sik, who earned Moscow's ire as the architect of Dubcek's economic reforms.

He is now lecturing at the University of Basel. The vacancies have been filled by Soviet-lining conservatives, including Vasil Bilak and Alois Indra, who won infamy last August as two members of the lone trio of Czechoslovaks who initially cooperated with the Russian invaders. The purges continue throughout the country, and more than 2,000 "control and revision" committees have been set up to oversee the ouster of lesser party officials and state bureaucrats whose liberal tendencies conflict with the policies of the new regime.

Partly Line. Under severe pressure from the Soviet-supported conservatives, Husak has dismantled the last vestiges of Dubcek's promising "Springtime of Freedom." The press, which was free and sassy for a few heady months in 1968, once again is tightly controlled. The journalists whose daring reporting helped fuel the Czechoslovaks' demands for reform have either been sacked or effectively muzzled. Radio and television now echo only the party line. The student union, the stronghold of the reformist youth, has been disbanded.

A measure of the Czechoslovak dilemma is that many liberals feel that Husak is their only hope of preventing the situation from becoming even worse. Despite his severe measures, Husak, a genuine Slovak nationalist, is not a Soviet puppet. Once jailed himself for political reasons, Husak has given his solemn word that there will be no return to the reign of police terror that characterized the days of deposed Stalinist Boss Antonin Novotny. So far, there have been no reported arrests. The fear is that Husak will be elbowed aside by the new No. 2 man. He is Lubomir Strougal, 45, a conservative Czech who is a tough political infighter and has no qualms about political arrests. Gustav Husak spent nine years in Novotny's prisons, while Strougal served the old dictator for four years as Interior Minister and boss of the secret police.

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