World: LIFE UNDER LIBERAL COMMUNISM'

IN Prague's baroque Lesser Town, 500 people gather in a square, and a young man mounts a box to unfurl a banner reading: DEMOCRATIZATION MUST BECOME DEMOCRACY. Everyone starts cheering wildly. Along the glittering Vltava River, bearded young men and miniskirted girls collect signatures on a petition demanding that the government resume diplomatic relations with Israel; after they have collected 30,000 signatures, they are invited to the office of the foreign ministry to have tea and cake—and discuss government policy. At a meeting in the city of Moravská Ostrava, Czechoslovak intellectuals face an...

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