Though the decision came under the government of rightwing ODS (Civic Democratic Party, the main bourgeois party in Czech rep.), the ministry nitiated it already under the rule of the Czech Social Democratic Party. This banning is a result of a hysterical anti-communist campaign against the “adult” Communist Party of Czechia and Moravia (KSM), with which the KSM stands in solidarity. KSM was chosen as a target because of its relative weakness. At the same time this decision can and will serve as precedent for further attacks not only on KSM but also on other far-left groups and individuals, including these that do not have in their tradition glorification of the former Stalinist regime, such as Trotskyist or anarchists.
The initial pretext for this ban was the charge that KSM as a civic association is conducting political activities (this type of organisation is not allowed to do so). The Ministry of Internal Affairs initially called on the KSM to avoid these political activities and remove from its programme parts which point to overcoming the present capitalist system and its replacement with socialist democracy. At the same time there exists in the Czech Republic different civic associations conducting political activities and have no pressure or persecution from the state. The most obvious example is the Young Conservatives, who openly ideologically fight for abolishment of the social state and promote neo-liberal reforms. This association is no problem as far for the respective ministry. The capitalist state is not a neutral institution, it exists to protect the capitalist mode of production and capitalist privileges. That’s the reason why it is attacking the left and not the right wing associations. The KSM is being blamed for its warm relation to the Stalinist regime and many people on the left reject their politics which glorified Stalinism. Despite that the KSM is a relatively significant part of the Czech left movement and attack on it from the part of the capitalist state is an attack on the movement as a whole.
Although we as Trotskyists reject Stalinist and the reformist politics of the KSM we absolutely condemn interventions of the bourgeois state into affairs of the working class movement. We understand the need to defend all tendencies within this framework, however politically wrong they are, against attacks of the capitalist state. It means a fundamental attack on the freedom of opinion and suppression of socialist ideas. Not only every socialist but every real democrat has to resist it.
It is not possible to assume that this constitutes only an excess on the part of one Czech minister. It is in the whole European Union after many years a case of an official ban of a far-left organisation. The European right will see it as an example worth following. Attempts of the right-wing fraction of the European Parliament to equal fascist crimes with the “crimes of communism” follow the same aim as this small “Czech” ban. It is the determination to knock down the European working class movement, defending itself militantly against neo-liberal attacks on economic, social and political rights of workers and oppressed. The European left due to its long tradition has a good understanding of the sense of such attacks. The attacks on political rights is only the first step in a crusade against the working class and its defeat.
This is the reason why from acrosss Europe come voices of solidarity with the KSM and protest against this blatant decision of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Disagreement with the dissolution of KSM expressed hundreds of youth, student, left-wing or trade union organisations. Thousands of people addressed their embittered letters to authorities of the Czech republic abroad. SOP, the Czech section of the League for the Fifth International vigorously rejects this undemocratic decision of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and expresses its solidarity with KSM in the struggle against the capitalist apparatus of the Czech state.
* We call for solidarity with the KSM!
* For freedom of meeting and opinion!
* For independence of the working class movement on the bourgeois state!
* Resignation of the Minister of Internal Affairs!