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After the elections: Communism in the Czech Republic
After a devastating loss of support that saw one of the most successful Communist parties in Europe fail to enter parliament, international head JAROSLAV ROMAN speaks to Conrad Landin about how the nation's left can recover
"We chose the better from the worse” — Jaroslav Roman, the head of the international department for the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia
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The EIS president who defended Marxist politics in the 1980s fought Thatcherite educational policies while organising Teachers for Peace rallies and ensuring Morning Star circulation in Scotland’s pit villages and factories, writes JOHN FOSTER
SINCE the fall of the Warsaw Pact, the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM) has been among the most electorally successful of Europe’s Communist parties — consistently finishing in the top five slots in the Czech Republic’s legislative elections.
All that changed last month — when for the first time since the Nazi-aligned protectorate of 1939 to 1945, the territory which makes up the modern-day Czech Republic found itself with no Communists in Parliament. In the October elections, both the KSCM and the Czech Social Democatic Party (CSSD) finished below the threshold required to enter the Chamber of Deputies.
“It was not only a setback: it’s generally accepted within the party that it was a historical debacle,” says Jaroslav Roman, the head of the KSCM’s international department. “Frankly speaking, people are shocked. We had not expected such a heavy defeat.”
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