Czech government bans communists
The future of the Czech Communist Youth Union (KSM) is looking grim this New Year. The youth and student wing of the Czech Republic's third biggest party is under threat from the country's Home Office, which will ban the organisation unless it relinquishes its commitment to revolutionary Marxism.
The KSM was founded in the early 1990s after the collapse of the communist system in what was then Czechoslovakia. The organisation's parent party the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM) is the successor of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia which ruled the country as a one party state from 1948 until the peaceful Velvet Revolution of 1989. Since the restoration of democracy the KSCM has enjoyed repeated electoral success. In 2002 elections for the Chamber of Deputies, the country's lower legislative house, saw the party receive 20% of the vote and become the third largest parliamentary group. The more recent European elections in 2004 saw the party making further gains, becoming the second placed party by taking six seats.
The party's success is attributed to continuing economic problems in the country, particularly the high rate of unemployment which in some areas rises to 20% of the workforce. Such a situation was unheard of under the communist regime.
However, there is still a bitter legacy from the years of communist party rule. Dissidents, such as the country's first post-communist president Vaclav Havel, faced persecution at the hands of the communist run state. In addition the country's other main political parties the Social Democratic Party, Christian Democratic Party and the Liberals are frustrated by the KSCM's recent electoral success which has forced the creation of an uneasy coalition government. Therefore these parties have every reason to attempt the weaken the strength of the communists.
The Czech Home Office apparently hopes to place the KSM on the same level as fascist groups, which are banned in the Czech Republic. The deadline for the KSM to abandon its ideological attachment to revolution was December 31st 2005. There have been no signs that either the KSM or the Home Office have backed down. The struggle to ban the KSM is likely to be difficult; the KSCM alone has 120,000 members and many more supporters. The political struggle over the legality of Czech communism will prove to be interesting, the Council of Europe is currently discussing a document condemning communist crimes in the former Soviet Bloc and there have been calls in the European Parliament for a Europe wide ban on the Nazi swastika and the communist hammer and sickle. Over 150 years ago Karl Marx wrote, "There is a spectre haunting Europe, the spectre of communism." His words ring as true today as they did then.
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