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by Noah Tucker / December 16th 2006

Crimes against ideology

When the interior ministry of a European Union country banned a dissident civil society organisation - not for supporting terrorist activities or accepting funds from abroad, but for having views which run counter to the ideas allowed by the country’s constitution - the European Union had nothing to say on the matter; neither did the USA’s National Endowment for Democracy, nor did George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, or the British Government.

Although the event was almost unreported in the mainstream media in Britain and the USA, a small article in the EU Business Observer explained why the measure was necessary:

“The Czech interior ministry dissolved the Union of Young Communists on Wednesday [18^th October 2006] due to its hostile stance against private property, ministry spokeswoman Marie Masarikova said.

“She said the ministry took the decision because its programme calls for ‘the elimination of private ownership of the means of production and its replacement by common ownership’ as well as ‘the establishment of democratic socialism.’

“The party's goals are in ‘contradiction with the constitution and with the charter of fundamental rights and freedoms,’ Masarikova added.”

The Young Communists [KSM] were placed by the on a list of extremist groups by the Czech security service in 2003, because of their “rigid” ideas.  In 2005, the KSM was issued with an instruction from the Interior Ministry that it must change its opinions or be banned.  The group refused to agree to “renouncing its political program, communist identity, goals, and theoretical basis in Marx, Engels and Lenin”.

Bono: one of several famous figures who have condemned the ban on the KSM

The banning of the Young Communists is part of a determined policy by the state, the media and most of the political parties to eradicate communist ideas and to present the country’s 40 years under socialism as a grim and terrible period.  In 2005, a new penal code was issued which equates communism with Nazism and makes it a crime to approve of or deny the “crimes of communism”.

A government department, the Office for the Documentation and Investigation of the Crimes of Communism has been in existence since 1995 with the aim of punishing former officials of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic; the most celebrated success of the office was the conviction in 2003 of Karel Hoffman, who was head of telecommunications in Czechoslovakia in 1968. 

Although Mr Hoffman held this senior post, he was a dissident from the Communist Party line at that time, believing as did many others that pro-market reforms being implemented by the then party leader, Alexander Dubcek, would lead to the re-introduction of capitalism. 

In the late evening of 20th August 1968, troops from the USSR and other Warsaw Pact countries entered Czechoslovakia, putting an end to the reform process.  The Czechoslovak Communist Party leadership issued a statement condemning the invasion, but Czech radio went off the air for 2½ hours in the early hours of 21st August, shortly after beginning to broadcast the statement.  It was alleged that Karel Hoffman was responsible for this break in transmission.

Karel Hoffman

Ironically, although Mr Hoffman was convicted of ‘abuse of office’ and ‘sabotage’, the substance of the charge against him brought by the Office for the Documentation and Investigation of the Crimes of Communism was that he had failed to publicise the policy of the Communist Party.

Karel Hoffman was sentenced to six years in prison.

The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, which does not have official links with the Young Communists, has also been subject to a campaign in the Czech media demanding that it should either reform itself (by removing the word ‘communist’ from its name and fully accepting the principles of capitalism) or be suppressed.  But the Party has a high level of electoral support (it won 18% of the vote in the Czech Republic’s EU Parliament elections in 2004) and its stance on socialism and Marxism is more moderate than that of the KSM, making it a more difficult target for prohibition.

With only 600 members, the KSM is a small body, but it has been gaining in influence because of its role in the opposition to the building of the US anti-ballistic missile installation (the successor to the ‘Star Wars’ project), which the United States administration has decided to construct in either Poland or the Czech Republic; there is also a proposal to split the facilities so that both countries can host the installation.

The proposed US base is important for the Czech ruling elite who wish to cement the country’s relationship with the USA, making it less politically dependent on France and Germany.  But this is hardly an argument which can win over public opinion. State policy on the issue is at odds with the feelings of the vast majority of Czechs- an opinion poll in September 2006 found that 63% opposed the base, with only 23% in favour.

While only a minority of Czechs have gained economically from the re-introduction of capitalism, with many suffering badly from the loss of job security and cuts in the value of workers wages in the 1990s, support for ‘transition’ has been maintained on the basis that the country is now independent and democratic.  Both of these conceptions are undermined by the siting of a foreign military base of huge global significance against the overwhelming wishes of the population.  To have a youthful group of self-proclaimed communists playing a leading part in the anti-base campaign is a serious embarrassment.

The task of enforcing the ban is likely to cause further embarrassment.  A spokesperson for the Young Communists stated:

“The KSM in spite of its official dissolution by the state power is going to carry on the struggle for the rights of majority of young people - students, young workers and unemployed - and for socialism!”

They clearly have no intention of going quietly.

A KSM anti-war demonstration