The Ksc Party

In the early periods of Normalization thousands, of Czechoslovaks fled the country which seemed to be a sinking ship. As the months progressed and the Soviet Communists solidified their power in the state borders were closed off and passports confiscated. Anyone who had been in any way associated with the former Social Democrat Party or who supported a free market economy and democratic ideals were immediately black-listed and found themselves unable to obtain work or aid and at the forefront of persecution. Those who were suspected of having loose loyalties were aggressively interrogated and if enough suspicion was established they were relieved of their employment and dismissed from their schools pending improper trials for crimes that were …show more content…
This then begs the question why would they allow for this villainous party, which had been the architect of all their miseries for the last 40 years, to go on existing without repentance or reform? The wide assumption is that politicians expected the party to die on their own due to lack of public support but this was not to be the case. The influence of communism on the Czech people ran to deep to leave it up to the people to vote out the communists. Another thing, was the stagnant and perhaps counterproductive transformation in economic structure. The Czechs, who had prior operated under a free-market system were now at a loss of how to revert back to such a model. Reformers decided to pursue the transformation from a technical standpoint, failing to understand the social, legal, and ethical aspects that allowed a free-market economy to thrive. Then there was the attempt to introduce rule of law and propel the civil society into modernity. The Czechs struggled to implement this ideal then and they still struggle with this today. Sociologist Jiri Pehe claims that “…good institutions and laws do not suffice to build a rule of law; law-abiding citizens are equally important. Respect for the law is directly tied to the maturity of civil society.” This is a concept that the Czech reformers failed to understand; they focused all of their attention in building proper institutions and constitutions when they should have been reviving Czech nationalism through civil reforms and reinforcing the Czech identity only now rooted in democratic values. Pehe notes in an article that “…large parts of society remained rooted in the patterns of behavior inherited from communism.” They had truly lost