>From: Saul Thomas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: Czech Communists > >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Status: > >The Prague Post >Wednesday, March 8, 2000 > > >The red and the righteous Maligned as a retirees' party, Czech Communists >begin uphill battle to woo youth vote > >By Dennis Moran > > >For Czech Communists, Eva Benesova and Michal Hurta are the best of >possible comrades. And they're not even 20. > >Long perceived as little more than a repository for roadside discontent, >the resurgent Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM) is eagerly >seeking out the one ingredient that might put it on the road to >cosmopolitan legitimacy: the youth vote. > >Which makes Benesova and Hurta rare and precious commodities. Despite the >party's significant inroads in national polls, young believers willing to >speak their mind and perhaps cast a Com-munist vote have been scarce. > >"This government will probably remain because there is no alternative in >sight, but the future won't be better," Benesova says. "I'm sure I won't >have a job when I finish gymnazium [high school]." > >At 18, Prague resident Benesova is hardly a bitter retiree. Nor is Hurta, a >19-year-old from Ostrava. Both are attending a Communist Youth Union >weekend study session where The Communist Manifesto is required reading. >Open to the public, the meetings are held about four times a year by the >union, an adjunct of the KSCM. > >Though the Communist Party platform for the 1998 parliamentary elections >included a plank calling for measures against the "Americanization" of >Czech culture, Hurta seems unworried by cultural imperialism. > >He wears a Chicago Bulls sweatshirt. > >"I don't think there is any threat," says Hurta, dismissing concerns about >the loss of national identity. "The culture here is very strong. And why >should we isolate ourselves?" > >Does he not worry about communism's tyrannical past? > >"The same thing would not be able to happen twice." > >The gray revolution >So far, the KSCM's popularity surge -- fed by disgust and despondency >toward the current government -- has been mostly a gray revolution, its >numbers rising with age. > >Though attracting youth to the Party is seen by many as a tall order, >Communist Youth Union organizers predict that their message will catch on. > >"I think for young people this is a sort of path as they continue to sober >up from the November [1989] euphoria," says Josef Gottwald, 29, Youth Union >chairman. "Today they are finding out that after university, for example, >they cannot work in their fields. And they can't afford an apartment, and >they can't afford a family, because the economic situation in our country >is in a huge crisis now." > >A February poll by the research agency STEM put the KSCM second to the >Civic Democratic Party (ODS), 21.6 percent to 17.9 percent, but among 18- >to 29-year-olds the KSCM managed only 7.9 percent support. At the other >end, 34.2 percent of those 60 and over said they support the KSCM. The >party's overall numbers are down slightly from a late-1999 STEM poll that >gave it 20.4 percent overall. > >The Communist Youth Union was born 10 years ago, not long after the >revolution. The weakness of the new system was apparent to some youths even >then, Gottwald says. It was hardly democratic, he argues, when government >dissolved Czechoslovakia, and when the Czech Republic joined NATO without >holding a popular referendum. > >Czech voters who turned to the Social Democratic Party (CSSD) in the last >parliamentary elections in June 1998 now find themselves betrayed by that >party's deepening nod to the right-wing Civic Democrats. > >But the KSCM must reckon with its own ideological contradictions. > >The Party still pledges allegiance to socialism, but officials say it is >also committed to democracy and a combination of private enterprise, >collective cooperatives and state-run firms. At the same time, however, it >has little patience for Czech membership in NATO and looks upon membership >in the European Union with disdain. > >Fraud and privatization >Much rides on semantics. While the Communists sound very much like >socialists, they insist they're somehow more reasonable than they were in >their Cold War pariah days. > >"It's not true what people say about us -- that if we gain power, we would >take property from people as in 1948," says Vlastimil Balin, KSCM first >deputy chairman. "We openly say we want a change in the system, heading >toward socialism. But not in the total form as we had before 1989." > >Privatization has occurred too fast, he says. It hasn't been thought >through or properly regulated, leading to fraud and lost jobs. > >As if to build a feasible bridge between past and present, Youth Union >leader Gottwald admits the pre-1989 regime would have benefited from a >small private sector -- "the services were really bad," he says. But now, >he adds, "we're getting into the situation that small and mid-sized >entrepreneurs cannot survive in the current conditions." Small private >farms, he argues, are simply not faring as well as the former collectives. > >Gottwald, like many European Communists, tries to spin the collapse of >communism into a cleansing, or would-be rebirth. "It's a paradox," he says, >"but 1989 did bring positive changes to the Communist Party. Those who were >there just for their own benefit left the party, and some of them went >right from the Communist Party to the right-wing parties. Today's KSCM is >supported by people who do care about the social welfare." > >Petr Pracny, 32, a laid-off coal miner from Most and a Communist Party >supporter, is a different kind of youth. > >"Things might not have been working 100 percent OK before the revolution, >but the army was subsidized, agriculture was subsidized, highways were >being built, housing was being taken care of, health care and everything," >he says. > >Though a nominal Party member before the 1989 revolution, his conviction >didn't deepen until later. "After the revolution, I started inclining >toward the Communist Party because I used to have social benefits such as >the right to work, and other social benefits such as free health care, and >now I don't." > >North Bohemia's Most district, home to downsizing giants Chemopetrol >Litvinov and the Mostecka uhelna spolecnost mining company, suffers from >the country's highest unemployment rate -- 20.47 percent in January. > >A true believer >"I was the first unemployed person in Most," local Communist Party official >Jiri Kurcin says. An office worker for the district government office, the >50-year-old says he was fired in 1990 for refusing to renounce his >Communist Party membership. > >"I was pushed away by Communists who had been in the party longer than I, >and in higher posts. They told me, 'Throw your ID away and we'll find you >something.' And I said, 'I'd rather be a doorman than throw away my ID, my >communist past.' " > >Ironically, he's now an entrepreneur, operating a small shop in Most. But >he's still a true believer. Most people were doing well under the old >system, he says: production was better and industry had a plan -- a >five-year plan. > >"If you ask the miners [now] how much coal will be mined in five years, no >one knows. At least then people knew what was going to happen in five years." > >Disillusion grew, he added, as corruption plagued privatization efforts and >foreign firms were permitted to buy too many strategic companies. > >"We have to stand on our own feet," Kurcin concludes. "We are in the >situation where most of the big businesses are in foreign hands. We are >becoming a semi-colony, because the decisions on how the industries are >going to continue working are basically being decided out of the Czech >Republic." > > >Dennis Moran can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >http://www.praguepost.cz/news030800a.html > > __________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. 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