Czech Republic

Abstract

In this chapter Handl reflects on the rich and controversial history of the radical left in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, dominated by the strong, disciplined but also largely ‘bolshevised’ Communist Party (the 1968 Prague Spring being a brief exception to the rule), now called the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM). In 1989, the party was defeated and gave up its monopoly on political power. It gradually arrived at a survival strategy of ‘leftist retreat’, thus maintaining its name, returning to its roots and focusing on its own membership/electoral base. The party consolidated its position as a protest party and achieved considerable electoral success until 2017, when it fell under 10 per cent of the vote for the first time. At the same time, it represented an ageing, conservative, national-socialist left focusing on a strong nation state and social redistribution, siding internationally with Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea etc. Its anti-establishment appeal evaporated first when Andrej Babiš’ populist ANO movement overtook it electorally; and second, when the party backed Babiš’ minority government after the 2017 elections. Inevitably, just as before 1989, a modern radical left has developed outside the KSČM in various small groupings and initiatives, including anarchists, ecologists, NGOs and intellectual circles.