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When Dubček demurred that such a large Soviet garrison would leave little barracks space for the Czechoslovak army, Brezhnev replied: "We could use about 250,000 of your troops along the Chinese frontier." When Dubček tried to explain that his side had fulfilled the conditions of the first Moscow accord, Soviet President Nikolai Podgorny ordered him to shut up. The Russians told the Czechoslovaks not to hope that outrage among the free world's Communist parties would deter the Kremlin from cracking down harder on Czechoslovakia. In the words of one Russian, "For the next 30 or 40 years, socialism has no chance in the capitalist West," All in all, Dr. Gustav Husak, the Slovak party leader who was a delegation member, later confided to friends: "They treated us like scoundrels."
Anti-Dubcek Factions. Once again, the Czechoslovak leaders returned from Moscow beaten men, committed to imposing a fresh series of repressive measures on their people. For a short time Dubček, who was reportedly in a state of near hysteria, considered quitting his post. But after a couple of days of recuperation, he and the others regained much of their spirit. Premier Oldrich Cernik, who had been in Moscow, implored Czechoslovaks to refrain from wry, between-the-line digs at the Soviets, adding in colloquial Czech: "What about some expressions of friendship, boys?" Similarly, Dubček conceded on television what he called "deficiencies" in his policies and termed essential the elimination of points of conflict with the Soviet Union. At the same time, he pledged anew that there would be no return to the police-state practices that prevailed before his rise to power last January.
There were signs that the Soviets were growing weary of dealing with such resilient men. Despite their overpowering military presence, they still remain unable to find a political quisling to do their bidding. Even so, the Soviet press opened a new attack on the Prague leadership, There were also reports that Soviet army officers were encouraging conservative Communists to form anti Dubček factions. The main problem is that Dubček's popularity remains so high among Czechoslovaks that any move to overthrow him would most likely require direct Soviet military action and perhaps even the creation of a military government. Under those circumstances, the Kremlin leaders still seem reluctant to pursue their claims of total domination of the Socialist Commonwealth to the final logical, if bloody, conclusion.