An act of political defiance at the Brno city council in the Czech Republic has once again exposed the rabid anti-communism of the Czech ruling class and the broader reactionary campaign underway across Europe to criminalize the communist movement.
On May 19, during a council session, a woman raised a Soviet flag in protest against the gathering of the Sudeten German association in the city — an organization tied to the legacy of German revanchism and the post-war dispute over the Sudetenland. Police immediately intervened and authorities launched an investigation against the protester for allegedly promoting a… “totalitarian ideology”!
The incident is another example of how bourgeois states in Eastern Europe are intensifying anti-communist repression under the banner of “defending democracy.” In today’s Czech Republic, communist symbols and political expression are increasingly treated under the same legal framework as fascist propaganda, in line with the systematic effort of the European ruling classes to equate communism with Nazism and erase the decisive role of the Soviet Union and the communist movement in the defeat of fascism.
The hypocrisy of the Czech establishment is striking. While communist symbols are persecuted and anti-communist hysteria is cultivated at the state level, organizations connected to the historical rehabilitation of Sudeten German nationalism are granted legitimacy and political space.
The persecution of communists and the falsification of history go hand in hand with the broader offensive of European capitalism against workers’ rights, anti-imperialist politics and any force challenging the power of capital, the European Union and NATO.
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