Thread by @akoz33

1/27 A very long thread on my impressions from a visit to the Prague Museum of Communism.

General impression: a lot of information & impressive documentation, with many moving photographs (especially from the Soviet invasion of 1968). However, for someone who experienced

2/27 communism in Poland, there is a pervasive feeling of “naivety” as well as consciousness of the difference (in addition to many similarities) between communism in Poland and in Czechoslovakia.

There is a refreshing honesty about the darker aspects of Czech history, such as

3/27 postwar expulsions of the ethnic Germans. But some things are missing that one feels ought to be here. For example, the note about the liberation of Czechoslovakia makes no mention of general Vlasov’s ROA (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_L…) even though it was ROA and not the Soviet

4/27 Army that liberated Prague. Nothing illustrates better the Western ignorance and naivety about stalinism than the treatment of ROA. ROA was made up of Soviet prisoners of war who fought for the Germans. Many did so to get out of German prisoner of war camps but many out

5/27 of hatred of stalinism. Yet Western leaflets intended to persuade ROA soldiers to defect promised them “a quick repatriation to the Soviet Union”. No wonder many chose to fight to the death. In the end, most of those who survived were “repatriated” only to be hanged, usually

6/27 after severe torture. Those Soviet prisoners who survived the German camps but did not join ROA, did not fare much better. This history is now well known in Russia, but still largely ignored in the West. Because of the special connection between ROA and Czechoslovakia & the

7/27 role it played in the liberation of Prague and the existence of graves and memorials, one would think this would be an appropriate place to mention it. On the other hand, one feels that in a museum aimed at Western tourists with very little knowledge of the complexities

8/27 it would be difficult to give this matter a fair and understandable treatment.

As for the apparent “naivety” (in the eyes of someone with a Polish experience and viewpoint), this is related to the historical difference in the attitudes to both Russia and communism between

9/27 Poland and Czechoslovakia.

For Poles Russia was a historical enemy as well as one of the partitioning powers, with a history of violent repression of the Polish subject population. It was also a historic symbol of tyrannical government so contrary to Poland’s tradition.

10/27 In WWII it was seen less than a liberator as the original aggressor and ally of a Nazi Germany.
Czechoslovak historical view of Russia was very different. Never having a border with a Russian state, they had no negative experience. Onnthe contrary, during the period which

11/27 many Czechs and Slovaks saw as “German” rule, Russia was seen as a “brotherly Slav nation” and a potential ally and liberator.
While “slavophilism” had little attraction for Poles, it was a popular cultural and political movement in Bohemia and Slovakia under the Hapsburgs

12/27 Some of this attitude survives to this day.

The attitude towards communism was also quite different in Poland and in Czechoslovakia.
Pre-war Poland was chiefly an agricultural country and communism was never found appealing by rural populations in Europe. In addition,

13/27 the Polish Communist Party opposed the struggle for independence as a “diversion” from the proper aim of “world revolution”. As a result it remained a party of national minorities, never reaching more than 16,000 members. It was dissolved by Stalin in 1925 with accusations

14/27 “trotskyism” and most of its leaders executed in Stalin’s purges. The reconstituted post-war communist party did not use the word “communism” in its name and rarely in its propaganda.
By contrast with Poland, pre-war Czechoslovakia was one of the most industrialised

15/27 countries in Europe. Communist ideas and the USSR were quite popular among its large working class. In 1946 the Czechoslovak Communist Party received 38% of the vote in a free election (after which it proceeded to stage a could and end democracy). Such a result would have

16/ 27 been unimaginable in Poland at that time. The result of all that is that the Czech view of communism, as presented in the Museum, is primarily based on disappointment and disillusionment. This is particularly visible in the many photos of the protests after the 1968 Soviet

17/27 invasion. By contrast the reaction of most Poles would have been: what else could you have expected?

However, another reflection that camevto my mind was how much harsher the communist rule was in Czechoslovakia compared to Poland.

18/27 In both countries the communist period was characterised by terror, political trials, labor camps & executions but the targets were different. In Poland the terror was primarily aimed at former officers of the Polish Home Army, loyal to the Polish Government in Exile. Some

19/27 were involved in active resistance which lasted until the early 1960 (Józef Franczak). Others were murdered because of their great prestige in Polish society & the potential role in resistance. This included some of Poland’s greatest wartime heroes, such as

20/ 27 Witold Pilecki and Emil Fieldorf. On the other hand, the Czech victims were civilians, often former socialists, such as Milada Horakova.Morever, unlike in Poland the stalinist leaders were purged by Gomułka, who had been in prison before emerging as new leader

21/27 stalinism in Czechoslovakia continued with a new mask. When Gomułka triumphantly came to power in 1956, he was believed by most of the population to be a liberal reformer. In fact he turned out to be a doctrine communist, but of a somewhat different kind from the

22/27 stalinists before him. By contrast in Czechoslovakia the new giant monument of Stalin was unveiled only one year before Khrushchev’s speech denouncing Stalin’s crimes. The monument was secretly blown up during a night only in 1962.

23/27There were of course many similarities between Polish and Czechoslovak communism, for example the “currency reform”, which deliberately pauperised the population

24/27 However, there were crucial differences: the most important being that the Polish communists throughout their entire period of rule never dared to carry out collectivisation, much to the charging of their Soviet overmasters

25/27 Another, of course, was the power of the Polish Catholic Church, which the communist never managed to crash and had to try to learn to live with. It proved to be one of the causes of their undoing.

26/27. There were of course, many other differences. E.g. Poland did not have any borders with non-communist countries so direct escape became impossible & it also (luckily) did not have uranium mines.

27/27 On the whole my impression was moderately positive. The biggest weakness was pointed out by my wife (who is Japanese without personal knowledge of communism): there is not even an attempt to explain why it all “went so wrong”?
AI heard a Czech guide (too young to have

28/27 experienced of this and an American visitor agree that “there has to be a middle way” (between communism and capitalism).
To me this suggests an overall failure.