Czech Premier Meets Opposition Leaders

PRAGUE, Czechoslovakia--The Communist premier held unprecedented talks with opposition leaders yesterday, then joined bold reformer Alexander Dubcek at a prodemocracy rally before 300,000 elated, flag-waving demonstrators.

Even the armed forces and riot police, who just nine days ago beat peaceful protesters, indicated backing for the growing reform movement. "We support the democratic changes," a riot police officer told the crowd, which braved freezing weather and snow.

Premier Ladislav Adamec became the first top official in 20 years to share a platform with Dubcek, the former Communist Party leader who spent two decades in political exile after Warsaw Pact tanks crushed his "Prague Spring" reform movement in 1968.

Adamec also held his first talks with leading dissident Vaclav Havel and independents in an effort to find a way to end the political crisis and propel Czechoslovakia toward democracy.

The talks seemed intended to clarify the situation as the Communist Party's policymaking Central Committee began its second emergency session in three days yesterday.

New party chief Karel Urbanek, addressing the meeting, said the Central Committee will make further personnel changes following a major shakeup in the ruling party last Friday. He also proposed an extraordinary party congress on January 26 which would have the power to elect an entirely new Central Committee.

Urbanek also asked the Czechoslovak premier and the premier of the Czech republic to submit proposals on changing the functions of their interior ministries--which are responsible for the police--in the wake of police brutality against peaceful Prague demonstrators November 17 that touched off the past nine days of mammoth anti-government rallies.

"Dialogue has begun!" Havel declared triumphantly at the rally, which capped a week of prodemocracy demonstrations and hectic moves by the Communists to regain control.

Demonstrations were also reported in Bratislava, Brno, Plsen, Hradec Kralove, Ceske Budejovice, Kosice and other cities.

"Civic Forum is ready to create a bridge for a peaceful path from totalitarianism to civil freedom, which will later be guaranteed by free elections," Havel said, referring to the new pro- democracy group Civic Forum.

Adamec told the cheering crowd there was "noplace for rivalry and interests of prestige."

State-run television reported 800,000 people atthe rally, but reporters estimated no more thanabout 300,000.

Also yesterday, state television reported thatthe leaders of the People's Party, a small partyallied with the Communists, submitted theirresignations, apparently because of theanti-government protest. A meeting was scheduledtoday to choose replacements.

Dubcek urged the Soviet Union, East Germany andBulgaria to join Poland and Hungary in condemningthe 1968 invasion that smashed his attempt tocreate "socialism with a human face."

Those countries have in various degreesaccepted the reforms introduced by Soviet leaderMikhail S. Gorbachev. Hard-line leaders whorejected change--Erich Honecker in East Germany,Todor Zhivkov in Bulgaria, and most recently MikosJakes of Czechoslovakia--have been ousted.

The Soviet Union signaled support for thedevelopments in Czechoslovakia yesterday with anarticle by Gorbachev in the Communist Party dailyPravda that praised Dubcek's catchphrase"socialism with a human face."

In other East bloc developments yesterday:

.Hungarians voted freely for the first time inmore than 40 years in a national referendum thatwill decide when their new president will beelected and whether politics should be kept out ofthe workplace.

.Reform-minded East German Communists demandedan investigation into alleged diversion of hardcurrency revenues from about 100 party-ownedbusinesses, and a high-ranking Communist said theparty has lost 200,000 members since September.

.In West Germany, Bonn's Die Welt newspaperreported Soviet military leaders told East Germantroops not to use force against prodemocracydemonstrators in their country