Remembering The Past; Honoring Its Victims

Overcoming history
Marking the 60th anniversary of the communist coup
On Feb. 25, the Czech Republic commemorated the anniversary of the coup that brought the communists to power.

For many at the time of the 1948 takeover, the event represented a new beginning and a bright future. Throughout the communists’ subsequent rule from 1948 to 1989, the anniversary was revered as a glorious day, when people took justice into their own hands and threw off the shackles of capitalism.

Of course, it can now be said that the communist takeover plunged the country into decades of darkness and terror.

This year’s memorial services over the weekend of Feb. 23 and 24 and into Monday were of a somber tone, reminding participants of the pro-democratic student marches that took place during the 1948 government crisis and the thousands of people persecuted, killed or unjustly sentenced during the following 41 years.

One service Monday morning took place on the spot near Prague Castle where a peaceful student march protesting the communists was stopped and attacked by police Feb. 25, 1948. Those young demonstrators were remembered by today’s politicians as well as surviving witnesses. Some 100 people gathered to listen to the service.

“We should remember those who were capable of thinking for themselves and did not exchange the legacy of president founder Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk for cheap Stalinist propaganda,” Senate Chairman Premysl Sobotka said in an address to the crowd. “The events that took place here should serve as a memento to the fragility of freedom and democracy.”

Zdenek Bohác, chairman of the Prague Academic Club 48, personally took part in the marches, and sadly observed, “There are not very many young people here today. Today’s students are not interested in politics as much as we used to be. That is a great source of personal grief for me. Some traditions should not be forgotten.”

Step by step

The events of February 1948 were just the end of a process that started years earlier. Even before the end of World War II, the Communist Party was preparing a National Front of parties that would participate in elections after the war.

In the 1946 elections, communists secured 40 percent of the seats in the temporary Parliament and started to slowly infiltrate other parties within the National Front as well as the police and army. By the beginning of 1948, their control was almost complete, and communist ministers led by Prime Minister Klement Gottwald decided to move quickly in order to ensure complete control by the upcoming election that May.

However, the final changes in police command sparked a government crisis, precipitating the resignation of 12 noncommunist ministers, who expected President Edvard Beneš to respond by forming a caretaker government that would lead the country to the May elections. But the communists were prepared for such resistance, and their loyal supporters sparked a wave of protest against “reactionary forces trying to undermine the new people’s republic.” The Soviet Union also quickly promised armed help to Czechoslovak communists.

When noncommunist party leaders saw where things were headed, most of them emigrated, leaving Beneš to stand alone against the full might of communist propaganda and military force.

Historic protests

University students organized only a few marches to support the president, one of which took place Monday, Feb. 23. Despite attempts by the police to disperse it, the students were joined by many others, forming a crowd of several thousand people that reached Prague Castle late that evening. A five-member delegation of marchers was allowed to see the president. Among them was young national socialist MP Josef Lesák. Now the last surviving member of that pre-communist Parliament, Lesák shared his memories of that meeting with The Prague Post.

“We were brought in to see Beneš around 10 p.m. He looked very sick and tired,” he said. “We saluted his accomplishments in the fight for an independent Czechoslovakia during both world wars. We also told him that we hoped that he would preserve freedom and democracy even in these difficult times.”

Beneš responded by promising the students he would do everything in his power to ensure the continuation of the state as envisaged by the first president and his close associate, Masaryk. However, his chancellor warned the students not to get their hopes up, as events were simply moving too quickly by then.

The communists were determined not to let another march occur. When, on Wednesday, Feb. 25, the students again attempted to reach the castle, they were brutally stopped by special police forces. Lesák was among them.

“Our only weapon was the national anthem. Whenever the police advanced, we sang it and they had to stop and salute,” he said. “They soon caught on and attacked despite our singing. Blood was flowing everywhere. The boys tried to protect the girls from gun butts and kicks, but to no avail. Most of the police were young kids just like us, and one of them got scared and shot a fellow student, crippling him for the rest of his life. Then the peaceful demonstration broke up, because everyone was too scared.”

Unbeknown to them, Beneš, ever the pacifist, had already given in to communist demands fearing a civil war and armed intervention by the Soviet Union. Even as police were attacking the student protestors, Prime Minister Gottwald was addressing a crowd on Wenceslas Square, announcing that Beneš had accepted all his proposals.

Every step of the government crisis leading to the communist victory was taken in accordance with the Constitution. It just happened that the result meant the end of democratic rule for the next 41 years and the country’s descent into a dark period. Most of the democratic activists of February 1948 who didn’t manage to flee abroad were jailed or sentenced to years of hard labor. Even 60 years later, their fight for democracy is not forgotten.

Today, the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia does not celebrate “Victorious February” as it used to, says party vice chairman Jirí Dolejš. Instead, the party views the takeover as an important and inevitable historical development based fully on democratic elections that happened in accordance with the Constitution.

“After World War II, people wanted a change, and they saw a chance in socialism,” he said. “The fact that Soviet influence became so important was an unfortunate accident that led to serious crimes, but we have already renounced these mistakes.”

Soviet influence was not an unfortunate accident, kretén, and you damn well know it.

Via The Prague Post