Statement of the Collective for Work, Culture and Science on the Criminalization of Communist Ideas and Movements in the Czech Republic

 

Statement of the Collective for Work, Culture and Science on the Criminalization of Communist Ideas and Movements in the Czech Republic

 

The Collective for Work, Culture and Science strongly disagrees with the amendment to the Criminal Code, approved on 30 May 2025 by the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, which makes the establishment, support, and promotion of a communist movement punishable by a prison sentence of one to five years.

The criminalization of communist ideas and movements is part of a broader series of repressive measures implemented by the current capitalist system and its regime, extending beyond the Czech government. Many of these repressive measures are also supported by other systemic parties, including the opposition, the courts, state authorities, and private capital groups.

The repression and surveillance of entire segments of the working class are not accidental. They are a consequence of the sharpening contradictions within the imperialist system and its complex crisis, which led to the outbreak of a multifaceted unjust war of global proportions in 2022. Imperialism has intensified the exploitation and impoverishment of the majority of the people and curtailed basic human rights and freedoms.

The EU, of which the Czech Republic is a subordinate part, is significantly losing in the imperialist competition and fears for its own existence. This project of Western European capital, the prison of nations, believes it will ensure the system's decline, its regime, and its success in the war by militarizing life, repressing oppositional and seemingly oppositional views, and fomenting further war conflicts. Therefore, it is instigating an anti-people policy, including repression, adopting statements equating Nazism and Communism, the USSR and Nazi Germany, organizing surveillance of people, and extending censorship.

The Collective for Work, Culture and Science strongly rejects the identification of Nazism and Communism. Nazism, as a form of fascism, is a product of capitalism in its decadent and crisis stage, designed to ensure capital's domination through war and aggression by blaming other political trends, peoples, races, and religions. Through their terrorist oppression and murder, they let off steam the masses of people impoverished and demoralized by capitalism. First and foremost, communists, trade unionists, and socialists were and are the targets of Nazi and fascist incitement.

The communist movement, on the other hand, is based on a scientific and comprehensive worldview and is the continuation and heir of a millennial popular movement for social justice without exploitation, oppression, and war. It was this movement, led by the USSR, that saved the world from Nazism and fascism; it was this movement that made the greatest sacrifices in the struggle.

The approval of the amendment to the Criminal Code, i.e., the preparation for the suppression of the communist movement, places the Czech Republic among the most reactionary countries in the EU and Europe - Ukraine, the Baltic States, Hungary, and Poland. This step is not only a matter of communist concern; it also carries a patriotic dimension. In the Czech lands, the last time the communist movement was subjected to such repression was during the fascist Second Republic. In conditions when the mass anti-fascist movement, with the Communist Party and its allies at its core, successfully countered the efforts to fascize the First Republic and subsequently played a crucial role in the anti-fascist resistance. It lost one in three of its members. The current regime has aligned itself with a regressive tradition that contradicts the progressive legacy of modern Czech history.

The Collective for Work, Culture and Science stresses that the repressive and other steps of the current political regime in the Czech Republic, including the amendment of the Criminal Code, complete the change in the character of the regime. Formal, i.e., bourgeois democracy has effectively ceased to exist, and we have moved significantly closer to an authoritarian, open bourgeois dictatorship.

The present system and its regime believe that repression will ensure its rule in perpetuity. They believe that by law, they will stop development, the dialectic of history, and the aspirations of the working class and the popular classes for liberation and a more just order. We are convinced that the only way imperialism can break the laws of history is by destroying life on planet Earth.

We believe - although it is not apparent in our country - that it is not only the specter of communism that is circling Europe. The ruling powers are aware of this, which is why they are also allied with fascist and Nazi reaction in the holy war against it. But a popular movement with a proletarian, communist movement at its core will defeat this reaction.

Class resentment and intolerance, according to our deep conviction, are provoked above all by the present system, its regime, and its governments - by impoverishing and exploiting people, by plundering the planet, by warmongering and war, by throwing people out of work, by campaigns against and repression of specific people.

We call on all workers and employees, members of the popular classes, patriotic and progressive parties and organizations to oppose, in various non-violent forms, the criminalization of the communist movement and ideas, and other repressive actions of the present regime.

We call on progressive scientists and artists to oppose the anti-democratic, fascist developments not only in the Czech Republic in their work and research.

We are convinced that criminalization and repression will not stop with the communists - the next victim, the target of repression, could be any of you.

The anti-communist law in the Czech Republic also has a distinct international dimension, similar to the planetary dimension of imperialist crisis and war.

Proletarians, comrades abroad, trade unionists, neighbors! We already know authoritarianism, fascism, and the anti-communist campaign in the Czech Republic from other countries. Unless we confront it in international, organized, and conscious unity in various ways, our present development is the future of the rest of you. The expression of solidarity is certainly important, but even more important, absolutely essential, is the organization and political struggle at home and in international cooperation, the pressure on your governments, on the Czech puppet regime. Spreading awareness of the authoritarian conditions in the current Czech Republic is also important.

Workers, employees, students, pensioners, tradesmen, farmers, and the unemployed of the Czech lands! It is high time to start building, organizing, and educating a popular movement that will be a real opposition and alternative to the current capitalist system and its regime. Without this basis, parliamentary games are political charlatanism and blather. No amount of repression, laws, or brainwashing will stop a quality mass and organized popular movement that is consistently linked internationally, including in the world's decisive capitals.

 

 

Collective for Work, Culture and Science