How Will It Play in Pribram? Reformers Worry : Czechoslovakia: The winds of democratic change take their time getting to the provinces.

By DAN FISHER

Dec. 4, 1989 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

PRIBRAM, Czechoslovakia — The revolution is a little more tense in the Czechoslovak provinces than it is in Prague.

Consider, for example, the sign posted near the door of a neighborhood Pribram restaurant over the weekend. “Attention!” it read. “Civic Forum was recognized by the government as an equal partner in conducting all social dialogue. The removing of posters and declarations of the Civic Forum is a sabotage of this dialogue.”

The good news is that the umbrella opposition group, which is leading the campaign for political pluralism and free elections in Czechoslovakia, has an outpost here in the wooded countryside about 50 miles outside the capital, Prague.

The bad news is that it has enemies that have been tearing down its signs--and worse.

In fact, entrenched opponents of democratic change have been making mischief in many provincial towns as Czechoslovakia has gone on the political equivalent of fast-forward to join the revolution sweeping Eastern Europe. Their tactics range from threats and provocations to cutting off the town power supply when representatives of Civic Forum are on television.

Civic Forum strategists in Prague say they are concerned that the party’s central leadership, which appears to have accepted the inevitability of change, is no longer in control of its own local, district and regional apparatus.

The strategists fear that these lower-level officials, possibly in partnership with recently deposed hard-liners from the central party organs, could trigger a dangerous backlash that would threaten all that has been gained in just two heady weeks.

Diplomatic analysts agree that the countryside is both more conservative and more subject to hard-line manipulation than urban areas, but they believe that the Civic Forum strategists may be overstating the danger.

“It’s not that things are reversible,” said one. “I don’t think they are. But this type of thing could make it messy.”

The sense in Pribram is that although the revolution has clearly arrived, people are still looking nervously over their shoulders.

“Everything is slower here,” said Lenka Salkova, 25, a teacher who lives in Pribram and works in the capital. “In Prague, there is enthusiasm, and people lived (the political upheaval) right from the beginning. Here, you have to push people into it.”

Attempted intimidation by old-style Communist Party bosses desperately trying to retain their power is only one reason for this situation, and perhaps not even the most important.

Pribram’s main industry is uranium mining, mostly for export to the Soviet Union. And although the mines are rapidly playing out, the miners are among the most generously rewarded of Czechoslovakia’s proletariat. Surrounding cooperative farms are also relatively well-to-do, and as a result, the standard of living here is good by East European standards.

Ask an average Pole what is lacking in the stores and he will probably list everything from meat to toilet paper. But a Pribram homemaker listed a color television, automatic washing machine and a freezer. “I have a beautiful house, a car and a weekend place,” boasted a retired technician who would not give his name.

Another reason for political conservatism is that it is a lot more risky to stand up and be counted in the provinces. “In a small city, you haven’t got the anonymity you do in the city,” said Bohomil, 51, a Pribram engineer who also asked that his last name be omitted for fear of possible repercussions for his two children.

“If you stand up, everybody knows who stood up,” he added. “So, if there are any doubts that it may turn around, people in a small town are more reluctant to get involved.” Also, noted a Western diplomat, the power of patronage “extends very deep in the countryside.’

It all adds up to a greater sense of political caution in the countryside--a sense clearly reflected in a weekend opinion poll distributed by the official CTK news agency. It showed that while 58% of the population in Prague supports Civic Forum, the figure including the provinces falls to 30%.

The political difference is almost instantly clear in Pribram. Across from the party’s cavernous marble headquarters building with the imported windows and gleaming steel trim are several red-and-white propaganda banners flying from apartment buildings and stores. The banners used to be common throughout Eastern Europe, but now they are rare in Prague or even Moscow.

There aren’t nearly as many opposition notices as one finds in Prague, although at Civic Forum’s main meeting place, in the town’s theater, there was one homemade poster urging: “Give us freedom for Christmas!”

The retired technician, who had stopped to read the Civic Forum bulletins, conceded that Pribram is more conservative than Prague. But he said it is only “a question of time” before the political situation catches up.

“It can’t be stopped,” he said. “What do people want? Nothing but justice--and that we should be better off than we are. And we want it all to take place in calm, without any repression, in a reasonable manner.”

A week after police brutally suppressed a student march in Prague--the Nov. 17 incident that triggered the rapid political changes--local party leaders were still saying the action was justified, even though the central authorities had long since backed down.

Engineer Bohomil and his wife, Bozena, worry about a possible backlash. She said their college-age son called her a “reactionary” when she warned that he might risk being thrown out of school for his activism. “He said that it was no wonder we lost in 1968, if that’s how cautious we were,” Bozena said in a blushing reference to the ill-fated Prague Spring reform movement 21 years ago.

“I told him he might see it differently, too, if there were a tank facing him,” Bohomil added.

In the end, youthful exuberance won out. Their son was among throngs chanting “Come out!” as they marched to party headquarters at a protest last week.

When he got back to their apartment that day, Bozena recalled, her son flung open the door and shouted gleefully: “Mom! I welcome you to free Czechoslovakia!”