CZECH REPUBLIC: Communist Party's velvet return
A spectre haunted last November's celebrations of the 10th anniversary of the "velvet revolution". After years on the margins, the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM) had suddenly doubled its rating in the opinion polls, to the dismay of the Czech Social-Democratic Party (CSSD) which came to power in 1998.
The CSSD is one of the parties originating in the Civic Forum, the mass movement that overturned the regime in 1989. It therefore has little in common with parties of similar name in neighbouring countries, which for the most part are the former communist parties, transformed and renamed.
The jump in support for the Communists does not reflect growing fondness for the pre-1989 regime. Party chairperson Miroslav Grebenicek is clear about the reasons: "The brand new capitalist system is not working. That is to say, it's working very well for the lucky 10,000 at the top of the social pyramid and very badly for the rest of us."
CSSD leader Milos Zeman defeated his conservative opponent, Vaclav Klaus, on the strength of four promises: to reverse the decline in productivity, halt the fall in living standards, cut unemployment and end the "white-collar crime" accompanying privatisation.
He also benefited from the total absence of nostalgia among radical voters for the totalitarian practices of the Communist Party, which had been purged of its reformist wing after the "Prague Spring" of 1968 and was incapable of coming up with new solutions to the problems of a capitalist country.
The KSCM vote seemed blocked at 10%. Half came from former civil servants from the old regime, embittered by the changes, and the other half mainly from retired people, unskilled workers and Roms — those whom the new system had left in the lurch.
According to the mass media, the problem of residual support for the Communists would be solved by demography. Nostalgic old-timers would leave the party one by one or die of old age.
'Democratic bloc'
Meanwhile, the other parties had formed a "democratic bloc" that rejected any form of cooperation with the KSCM in parliament or local government. Nonetheless, more reasonable 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ of the CSSD were prepared to accept the KSCM into the parliamentary system provided it carried out a thorough self-critique, dropped the word "communist" from its name, and based its electoral program on the mixed economy and multi-party democracy.
The practical effect of this strategy was to ghettoise the KSCM during the years of right-wing government. But the situation changed with the formation of a social-democratic government in 1998.
Zeman, the new prime minister, recognised that he had been somewhat naive and admitted that, once in office, "everything seems much more complicated".
Paradoxically, the social-democrats' election victory marked the end of their period of grace. Up till then the social-democrats had appeared to be the only progressive political movement with a future. But the facade of success they inherited from the previous government concealed a serious crisis and a multitude of financial scandals.
The jewels of Czech industry had been sold off over the last 10 years. Privatisation and foreign investment no longer sufficed to cover the growing indebtedness of private enterprises that had undergone a transfer of ownership but had been only superficially restructured.
The European Union had urged the previous government to privatise the banking sector. But to do so would have revealed the extent of the corruption among businesspeople close to the political authorities and would probably have bankrupted 20% to 30% of all private and semi-private enterprises.
As a result, the rise in living standards promised by former Prime Minister Klaus and President Vaclav Havel was postponed indefinitely.
Worse still, painless liberal reform became increasingly difficult. Up till then, multinational companies had been able to acquire Czech enterprises only when they guaranteed to develop local production. The social cost of transition had been cushioned by the growth of the private sector, which had provided jobs in trade, the tourist industry and metallurgy for the surplus workers of public enterprises.
Zeman decided to go for an increase in productivity, at the cost of an austerity program of which the previous right-wing government would have been proud. To survive, his minority government depends on an agreement with the largest conservative party, the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) led by Klaus.
The new prime minister has even threatened to freeze public sector wages and committed himself to partial privatisation of the state pension scheme. He also plans to rescue the banks by selling them to foreign bankers.
Nothing now seems to stand in the way of the bankruptcy of a large number of struggling enterprises.
Unemployment has risen above 10% for the first time since the beginning of the reforms, and the Communists are cashing in on the frustration caused by the gap between the social-democrats' promises and their actions. The CSSD's opinion poll rating fell from 26% in mid-1998 to 15% last November. In the same period support for the Communists rose from 12% to 24.5%.
New voters
The profile of the Communist electorate has also changed. The new voters have no historical connections with the party. They are mainly unskilled or semi-skilled workers of over 40 who appreciate the KSCM's fighting talk on unemployment, privatisation and workers' redundancy rights. There are twice as many men among them as women.
Significantly, only 15% of those whose voted for the KSCM in 1998 would like to see a return to the pre-1989 regime. The party is undergoing a major mutation. With its rapidly growing popularity, those nostalgic for the old regime no longer form its only social base.
This puts the KSCM in an almost ideal situation. The social-democrats and their friends in the trade union leadership are seriously embarrassed by demonstrations of redundant workers demanding payment of their last few months' wages.
The Communists, excluded from the "democratic bloc", are riding the wave of growing anger and frustration, and their proposed policy of job creation through virtual re-nationalisation is strengthening their image as the "party of the workers".
"We intend to give the state the enterprises it needs in order to play its proper role", says Vojtech Filip, coordinator of the Communist parliamentary group. "We are thinking in terms of creating new enterprises. But compulsory re-purchase — re-nationalisation, if you like — is also an option."
Among the general public, anticommunism is not what it was.
Taken aback, the right-wing parties are redoubling their efforts to strengthen the cordon sanitaire around the KSCM. But 43% of voters now say they are now prepared to accept Communist participation in the government.
Though still a parliamentary pariah, the KSCM has overcome its isolation among the population at large and is no longer worried about its image.
Party leader Miroslav Grebenicek is preparing the membership for a possible "reassessment" of past crimes. But this cannot be rushed without risking the defection of nostalgic old-timers to the Party of Czechoslovak Communists, a neo-Stalinist sect led by former Prague party boss Miloslav Stepan.
And there is more to the renewed influence of the KSCM than nostalgia for the regime before the "velvet revolution". There is also nationalist sentiment.
Nationalism
Many Czechs resent the idea of Germans buying houses in the borderlands, which were cleared of their German population at the end of the second world war. Similarly, many potential Communist voters are offended by the Western life style of the nouveaux riches. Interviewed on Prague radio during the last KSCM congress, Grebenicek said: "You can reject such feelings as 'nostalgia' if you like. But for me they are an expression of patriotism."
Finally, anti-communism has no deep roots among the under-25s, who never really lived under the old regime. What is more, a growing minority among the young are attracted to the idea of communism, to communist ethics and commitment. Prague anarchists are increasingly joining KSCM militants in demonstrations against rent increases and in protests at the lack of services for the people of Prague in an increasingly tourist-oriented city centre.
"There is more to the Communist past than totalitarianism", says Grebenicek. "From the time we won our independence (on the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918) until the Nazi invasion in 1938, the Communist and social-democratic parties in the Czech lands were among the strongest in Europe. In the 1960s — 20 years before Gorbachev — we produced a rich, pluralistic Communist culture that was geared towards the transformation of society and was profoundly democratic. That is also part of the Communist past."
[Translated by Barry Smerin.]
BY ADAM NOVAK