There was true and heartfelt elation in May 1945, when the Red Army liberated Prague. General George Patton’s troops were only 50 miles to the west of the capital, in Pilsen (yes, the birthplace of the original Pilsner beer, brewed there since 1375 under a special “beer right” granted the city by King Charles IV) Liberating Prague was part of the Allied final push but the powers-that-be decided to stop Patton’s tank divisions in their tracks, and the victorious Red Army entered Prague from the east. The enthusiasm of the people was real. They kissed and hugged the Russian soldiers, cooked them meals and brought them flowers. And it was true that the Red Army fought valiantly until the last moment, conducting house to house sweeps and eliminating the last of the Wermacht resistance. Of course, many realized that arresting Patton’s advance meant that Czechoslovakia now found itself in the Soviet sphere, though not much thought was given to that fact during the wild May 9th celebrations. The presence of allied troops on Czechoslovakian soil also meant that NKVD (KGB) infiltration and intimidation couldn’t start immediately, the way it did in Poland and Hungary - countries about whose Communist future there was no doubt. In Czechoslovakia, the Soviet overlords were forced by circumstances to permit three years of democracy and free election. Therefore, the country was not truly pushed behind the Iron Curtain until 1948, despite the fact that Churchill coined the phrase in 1946. The Soviets had a huge advantage in Prague: there was no ancient hatred (like in Poland) and no strong nationalist anti-Communist mood (like in Hungary) During the three years between 1945 - 1948, the year in which the Communist party staged a coup d’etat, there were free elections in which the Communists grew more and more successful. The complete takeover happened in February of 1948, following a few stormy months of government infighting, as the mood in the country indicated the Communist party would be soundly defeated in the planned May 1948 elections.
The introduction was is perhaps a bit more detailed than I had intended but it’s important for understanding what happened in the months and years after the “putch” My father - himself a member of the Communist party at the time - told me that millions of people had high hopes and that initially the nation didn’t really understand what had occurred. As I said, the attitude towards our “liberators” was positive and naïve. Life went on. The shelves did not immediately empty, most people continued working as before. They did not realize the scale of the catastrophe that had befallen them. It did not take long for the cracks to appear. Suddenly there was a shortage of meat. The radio would cheerfully announce “Rumors about meat shortages are completely unfounded. Our socialist economy produces plenty of excellent meat for everyone” Then public transit became more expensive as the regime raised taxes. “Our cities boast some of the best transit in the world. In the capitalist west, in the racist United States of America, if you cannot afford a car and hire a Negro driver, tough luck, you must walk 10 miles to work each day. Workers are exploited like slaves. Not like in our Socialist homeland, where we are all equal and all able to make a good living” And so it went on for years and the gap between the reality on the streets and the propaganda on the radio grew wider and wider. On the radio, we were a veritable promised land, overflowing with milk and honey, our devoted, selfless leaders creating paradise on earth. The West, and especially the United States and later the “Zionist entity” were backward, racist, underdeveloped and jealous of our success. They were also forever planning to invade our country. “On Guard” became a buzz word, a slogan with which Party meetings began and ended. Another buzzword which morphed into a favorite Communist greeting was “venerate labor”. When someone barked “Venerate labor”, at you, he was either a devoted Party member or a hopeless commie sycophant. Within three years, all shelves were empty, the economy was failing, a currency reform had wiped out people’s savings and the show trials began. My father had already lost his faith in the Party but the show trials - in which 9 out of the 11 accused of treason were Jewish - sealed his conviction that the country had been hijacked by a band of thugs, no better than the Nazis only a decade before. My uncle Martin, dad’s brother, was arrested and spent two years in detention without ever being charged with a crime. The reign of terror was upon us.
No one believed the newspapers which sang of Communists triumphs or the radio which spoke lovingly and enthusiastically of our brotherhood with the Soviet Union, the savior of the world, the originator of all good in the world, our shield before the imperialist attackers. But the only attacks were around us: attacks on truth, on decency, on goodness, on the family, on productivity, on hope, on joy. As time went on, people found an outlet in black humor:
“Jan, where have you been? I haven’t seen you for a while!” “Yeah, I was in prison. I got three years!” “Three years? You? For what?” “Nothing, three years for nothing!” “Now I know you’re lying. For nothing you get ten!”
Two friends meet on Wenceslas Square. “Josef, where have you been? It’s been ages since I saw you!” “Yeah, I just got out of jail” “My God, I’m so sorry. What did you go to jail for?” “For laziness!” “How do you get jail time for laziness?” “Well, six years ago, I’m walking home from work, right here on Wenceslas Square, minding my own business and I run into Vladimir. We start chatting, you know, small talk. How’s work, how’s the family, where are you going on vacation…stuff like that. We said good-bye and I kept on walking home. And as I walk, I’m thinking…should I denounce him or shouldn’t I? Should I denounce him or shouldn’t I? It was raining and I wanted to get home. I was lazy………he wasn’t!”
Life went on. My mother would get up at 5 am to line up for milk, line up for bread and, if any meat was to be had, line up for that too. You watched your mouth. You never talked to strangers about anything but the weather, and never let anyone you didn’t know (and even those you did, sometimes) lure you into a political conversation. All our liberties were stolen. We couldn’t travel or congregate, speak or write freely. In exchange we got “free” healthcare and “free” education up to and including post-graduate study. Of course, to be admitted to a university, your personal history had to be squeaky clean - if one of your grandfathers had owned a factory, you were a “suspicious cadre” and automatically excluded. Corruption was endemic. Anything you needed done necessitated a “gift”: American cigarettes, if you could get them, or a bottle of French cognac.
Within a few years of Communist rule, the country was seized by a never ending ennui. There was nothing to look forward to, no one to believe. Even the sky was always grey because of the industrial pollution caused by antiquated machinery and lack of care for nature. Now that “everybody owned everything”, nobody owned anything. Forests were denuded, lakes and rivers polluted, yet the radio told us we were far ahead of the capitalists. On my first visit to a western country (neighboring Austria), we could not believed how tidy and colorful everything was.
And so it went for 40 years, until the “velvet revolution” of 1989. In those 40 years, two generations were morally stunted, people had forgotten what personal responsibility meant, they had forgotten how to find their place in the world and make a living because the state - while allowing you nothing - took care of everything. Suddenly, in 1989, people were faced with a wonderfully open world but one they did not know how to operate in: they were allowed everything but the state now did not take care of everything. And because people had gotten habituated to the stunted, reversed ethics of Communism, millions did not like the new reality. “Give us back our safety, our free healthcare! The Communists knew how to run things better” That was the complaint of people over 50. The younger generation had no such problems. But it was clear that there was a very large segment of the population to whom freedom didn’t mean much.
That is the danger in which we now find ourselves. Millions are silently welcoming the Covid regime which dangles in front of them the lure of safety. It may be illusory but it seems very real because the media and our ideologically infected overlords (the CCP trained public health mob) have been successful in frightening us out of our wits. Just like the Communists did with their threats of invasion and ruin. Only THEY were capable of defending us and giving us a way of life we desired. Just like the illusory safety of today, everyone knew it was a lie but faced with repercussions and jail, people accepted safety and free education as bribes.
We must not give in to the ennui. We must not let our institutions bribe us with “safety”. We must not let them pervert our morality and shake our belief in what we know is right: individual choice, individual liberty, individual decision making. The collectivist dream they are selling is a nightmare.
Well said. Elon Musk is very excited to tell us no one will have to work in his vision of the future. Robots will do it all for us. A perfect world. What could possibly go wrong? This is the subject of my next essay.