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When the students refused, the cops waded in with truncheons and police dogs, arrested 25 "ringleaders." Word of the police action spread, and an hour later nearly 15,000 people gathered in protest at Wenceslas Square around the reviewing stand where Novotny earlier had taken the salute at the mammoth May Day parade. Shouting blatantly counter-revolutionary slogans such as "Long live freedom!" and "Down with the Gestapo!", the crowd withstood another police charge before it dispersed, leaving five more "ringleaders" in police hands.
However, in Prague, unlike other satellite capitals such as Budapest and Warsaw, students' demonstrations have never yet stirred violent reactions from the workers and bureaucrats whose mass support is essential to any serious challenge to the government. The nation's intellectuals also merely reflect discontent; they do not foment it. Indeed, as a venerable, non-Communist Czech author points out, "Novotny shouldn't be afraid of a revolution. No one is interested in politics any more. All anyone wants is to have more fun and more money. And a little, a really modest amount of freedom."