Solidarity with the Czech KSM?

Class War recently had an e mail from the Republican Socialist Youth Movement, (which seems to be an IRSP run group) urging us to support the Czech Communist Union of Youth.

I print the RSYM e mail, and a reply below, and would be interested in the views of other groups and activists......

--- Seán MacRuadhán wrote:

*Solidarity with the Czech Communist Union of Youth

The RSYM stand in solidarity with the youth communist movement of the Czech Republic as it comes under attack from the Czech government.

The Interior Ministry of the Czech Republic has threatened to ban the Communist Union of Youth (Komunisticky svaz mladeze, KSM). This is the progression of recent anti-communist movements in Bohemia and Moravia which have attempted to outlaw communist parties and even the word communist itself. The KSM is being coerced into rejecting the theories of Marx and Engels or be punished. As Czechs have long valued their sturdy independence against despotism and religion, this new inquisition is absurd.

Other draconian laws include making it a crime to defend or deny alleged communist crimes have been passed by the House of Deputies of the Parliament. The recurring theme in the Czech anticommunist movement is to equate communists - the liberators of Prague - to the Nazis!

We encourage everyone to write and express their disgust with the Czech

Interior Ministry and solidarity with the KSM:

Ministerstvo vnitra (Ministry of Interior)

oddeleni volebni a sdruzovani,

namesti Hrdinu 3,

140 21 Praha 4

Czech Republic

Fax: ++420 974 816 872

e-mail: stiznosti@mvcr.cz <mailto:stiznosti@mvcr.cz>

benesova@mvcr.cz <mailto:benesova@mvcr.cz>

krivova@mvcr.cz <mailto:krivova@mvcr.cz>

Embassy of Czech Republic in Ireland

57, Northumberland Road, Ballsbridge

DUBLIN 4

Ireland

Phone: +00 35 31/ 668 11 35

Fax: +00 35 31/668 16 60

Here's the reply that went off to the RSYM:

Are these guys a load of (young) Stalinists?

If so, they hardly stood up for anyone else on the left (whether anarchists, trotskyists, independent trades unionists or whoever) during the days of the communist regimes in eastern europe.

That the boot is now on the other foot in eastern europe is hardly a surprise. Dialectics?

Perhaps the KSM's political seniors ought to be apologising to us all for the mess they made of communism and marxism in eastern europe (making our jobs as revolutionaries all the harder) before any

fresh campaigns are launched.

Instead the KSMs last congress declared its solidarity with North Korea, one of the most despicable regimes in the world (See link below) Perhaps instead of sending the North Koreans solidarity, they would have

been better off sending them some food?

http://www.korea-is-one.org/article.php3?id_article=2197

The people of the Czech Republic deserve a lot better than the government they currently have, with its censoring ways. Socialists and Communists the world over however, deserve a lot better than the KSM and there forefathers.

John McDonald

for Class War.