Sobota 30. března 2024, svátek má Arnošt
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Lidovky.cz

Senator Štětina’s opportune de-Bolshevization crusade

  15:36

Czech Interior Ministry doubts grounds for Communist Party ban, but suspension might be enough for one active critic

Možná by bylo naprosto nejpříhodnější, kdyby si senátor Jaromír Štětina za trest sám pozastavil vlastní frenetické aktivity. foto: © ČTK, ČESKÁ POZICEČeská pozice

The Ministry of Interior has completed an analysis of the basis for banning the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM) that comes down against the move. According to paper Lidový noviny and magazine Reflex, the main mover behind the original motion with the final ambition of winning a court ban on the party, senator Jaromír Štětina (Top 09), has reacted skeptically to the conclusions of this analysis.

The analysis was penned by Karel Bačkovský. This is the same Bačkovský who contributed to the government move to disband the far-right Czech Workers’ Party (DS). The Supreme Administrative Court decision that agreed to the proposal to disband the DS had to be furnished first with specific reasons before it could approve the move against the Nazi-inspired party.

Outspoken declarations in the Czech parliament by politicians are simply insufficient for a party to be banned and disbanded. The decision to ban or not had to weigh up the activity of the party as a whole and not just the excesses of a few hotheaded individuals. That is why the analysis with regard to the KSČM came up empty handed for those seeking tough, radical action.

‘What we are seeking is not the end, but the suspension of the KSČM. During that time its major defects can be dealt with.’

“The program of the party in the context of the declarations of its leaders, supporters, official material or web presentations do not give rise to reasons to believe that legal steps against the KSČM would have any hope of success,” the report concluded.

It is necessary to quote Senator Štětina’s reaction word for word. “What we are seeking is not the end but the suspension of the KSČM. During that time, its major defects can be dealt with which are on the one hand the party’s name and history and on the other the adoration of Marxist-Leninist violence, which clearly goes against Article 5 of our constitution. So for me, the standard analysis of the Ministry of Interior is not what counts, it is rather the ruling of an independent court, which is what the Senate first mentioned in 2008.”

Article 5 is the constitutions states: “The political system is based on free and voluntary assembly and free competition between political parties which respect basic democratic principles and refuse violence as a means to pursue their interests.” In this respect, according to him, the KSČM falls down.

Let’s try to distance ourselves from the rhetoric and the overuse of the term Communism in all its different guises. Instead, we should seek out what was problematic or shocking about the previous regime and try to ascertain if the same is present today.

It will not, of course, come as a big surprise to find that many of the same types of people can be found then and now; let’s say those types of people who are the living examples of opportunism and who are attracted to power and the use of any ideology as a means to attain and keep it.

KSČ past

Let’s remember that we are being commanded here by a former member of the Communist Party (KSČ). Štětina handed in his party card sometime after the August 1968 occupation of Czechoslovakia [by Soviet-led Warsaw Pact forces], but he was not persecuted for this, rather the reverse.

After his questioning by the state security services in 1977, when he gave up the names of a few people who might be able to deliver copies of Charter 77, he signed a agreement to cooperate. He opted to collaborate abroad because his file was administered by the first section of the intelligence service. Afterwards, traces of Senator Štětina disappear. Either the archives were cleaned up or the papers were filed in another country.

If we carefully heed Štětina’s pronouncements, one of the biggest problems he has is the name of the KSČM. Can we believe that the actions of the party would not bother him if the name was changed? Aside from the name, another of the party’s main defects is its history. It is almost incredible to reflect on the fact that Senator Štětina, as a former Bolshevik, is now recommending that the party distances itself from its history or at least the history of its name.

Absolution

For those who find the logic difficult to follow, let’s underline the fact that after these shortcomings are dealt with there would, for Senator Štětina, be nothing in the way of the party continuing. According to Štětina, renaming and falsifying the party’s history would itself represent a considerable step on the road to democracy.

A further shortcoming is the “adoration” of Maxist-Leninist violence. Karl Marx is according to a survey of British people by the BBC the most significant thinker of the second millennium. Such an attitude by Brits clearly borders on adoration and could be qualified as reasons for steps towards their suspension.

Due to his own undoubted adoration, which as a Communist Party member Senator Štětina was undoubtedly guilty of, maybe a suspended sentence for his past sins could be a ban on his own frenetic political activity. That at least might pave the way for the country to start fulfilling the other part of Article 5: free political competition.

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