Museum of Communism

While THC and Ms THC were on their recent visit to Prague (a beautiful city - go see it), their host and dedicated blog fan, JS, took THC to see the Museum of Communism, conveniently located across a passageway from a McDonalds and right next to a casino.  The Museum bills itself as featuring "Communism: The Dream, The Reality and The Nightmare", accomplishing that goal admirably in a small space with fascinating exhibits that can be seen in a one hour visit.

                                          (All other photos in post from Museum of Communism)
Czechoslovakia, the Bohemian and Moravian provinces of which have constituted the Czech Republic since 1993, was born when the four century rule of the Austrian Hapsburgs collapsed in 1918.  From 1918 to 1938 the country was a vibrant and prosperous democracy.  That abruptly ended in September 1938 when Britain and France acceded to Hitler's demands to transfer the Sudetenland area of Czechoslovakia to Germany thus denuding the Czechs of their defensive perimeter, in return for which Hitler promised that Germany had no further territorial ambitions in Europe, a promise that lasted for a mere six months.  In March 1939, Slovakia declared its independence from the rest of Czechoslovakia, a declaration immediately recognized by Germany, which had encouraged the Slovak action.  The Nazis then ended the existence of the defenseless rump state converting it into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ruled by Reinhardt Heydrich of the SS.

Czechoslovakia remained under the brutal Nazi rule until 1945 when it was occupied by advancing Soviet troops who were initially welcomed as liberators.  Like the rest of Eastern Europe the country came increasingly under the domination of the Communist Party and the Soviet Union in the immediate years after the war until in February 1948 it officially became a communist state, plunging back into a darkness that was to last for four decades.  One of the benefits of being a communist state was that you were able to put up giant statues of Josef Stalin, like this one that loomed over Prague in the 1950s.

The commies ran their usual gameplan on the country which the museum takes you through with its exhibits, including contemporary propaganda posters.

(The State and the The People work together to ensure no American spies will enter the country; oh, and by the way, we'll kill The People if they attempt to leave our Socialist Paradise)

           (Supporting the freedom loving people of North Korea against the American aggressors!)

(Control of the educational system was key to creating The Socialist Man.  The poster notes that "Pupils were raised or encouraged . . . towards class hatred against more wealthy classes, hostility towards democratic states as well as towards religion")

(The State Source Shops provide abundance to The People!  The Museum shows the reality - very few goods available for purchase though the privileged leadership cadre did have access to plentiful basic goods as well as luxuries.)

               (Timely arrival to work deals the decisive strike against the American aggressors!)

(This poster at the Museum explains how the Communist focus on materialism created a spiritual vacuum leading to environmental devastation and reductions of life span.)


In the spring of 1968, a new government came into power under Alexander Dubcek, promising "socialism with a human face" which proved to be too much for the Soviet Union which invaded in August 1968, installing a repressive puppet government which imposed "normalization", a synonym for alignment with Soviet policies.


During the early 1970s a Prague rock n roll band called Plastic People of the Universe (in tribute to Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention) began to subtlety protest against the status quo, receiving the support of some intellectuals, Vaclav Havel, a writer, a man of outstanding moral clarity and courage, an astute observer of the psychology of the totalitarian state and one of the great figures of the 20th century.

                                                                 (Vaclav Havel)

The regime itself staggered on until November 1989 when it collapsed in the face of the relatively non-violent "Velvet Revolution".  The Museum features an inspiring video of the events of those November days.  The first President of the newly free Czechoslovakia was Vaclav Havel.


For the ash heap of history