Communists will never be silenced!: KSCM stands against Czech anti-communist laws

Communist Party of Bohemia & Moravia leader and EU MEP Kateřina Konečná at a rally in 2023 -- image via X

In a shocking, profoundly anti-democratic development on Friday, May 30, the Czech Chamber of Deputies approved an amendment to Section 403 of Czechia’s criminal code that could make the “promotion of communism” punishable by up to five years in prison.

This action is being condemned by the country's Communist Party of Bohemia & Moravia -- which has an elected Member of the European Parliament as well as many elected members of regional and local councils -- as well as other Communist parties internationally such as the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and the Brazilian CP.

Communists will never be silenced!

The Chamber of Deputies of Czech Parliament definitely confirmed that it is silencing its opponents by restriction of constitutional laws and freedoms, when it approved, within the amendment of the Criminal Code a criminal offence of all the forms of support and promotion of the communist movement.

Petr Fiala's government is so far responsible for the introduction of censorship, prohibition of web-pages and persecution of the political opponents, their criminalization and their firing from jobs for political reasons.

The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM) strongly rejects such an amendment of the Criminal Code. It considers that it is purpose made and discriminatory. Repeated attempts that were rejected by the public in the past to outlaw the KSCM, the instigators of the move want to satisfy the rest of their voters and intimidate whoever is criticising nowadays regime.

The KSCM won´t be silenced by anybody, as well as the values that the communists are advocating – values of international cooperation, solidarity, progress and peace.

Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, Czech Republic

Statement by the Press Office of the CC of the KKE

We condemn the decision of the government to criminalize the communist movement in the Czech Republic

We condemn the new anti-communist decision of the Fiala government and the Czech Parliament, which criminalizes ‘any form of support or promotion of the communist movement’ as part of the changes to the criminal code that were adopted.

We express our solidarity with the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, and with the communists in the Czech Republic in opposition to this unacceptable development that criminalizes political life in the country. We reiterate our opposition to the idea of outlawing the Communist Party in the Czech Republic.

The criminalization of communism promoted in the Czech Republic is an application of the unhistorical “two extremes” theory, the equation of the monster of fascism–Nazism with socialism–communism and the unscientific approaches about “totalitarian regimes”. These are an integral part of the European Union’s policy, and have been implemented for years in more than a third of its member states, where various kinds of bans have been put in place against Communist Parties, communist symbols and communist ideology, as well as the entire historical period of building socialism in the USSR and other European states.

This is not the first time that such measures have been sought in the Czech Republic, but have been cancelled by the people’s struggle. This new attempt to criminalize communism is taking place in the year marking the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War and the Great Anti-Fascist Victory of the Peoples. Attempting to identify the USSR, the Red Army and the Communist Parties that led the heroic struggle of the partisan movements against the Nazi occupiers, with the Nazi-Fascist beast is a great provocation to the peoples. This insults the memory of the millions of fighters who sacrificed their lives for the anti-fascist Victory, as well as their children and grandchildren.

The attempted distortion of history and the memory of peoples and the prohibition of the free movement of ideas and political opposition within the so-called “freedom and democracy” of the EU, has gone so far as to demolish anti-fascist monuments and restore and glorify local fascists who joined the German Nazi Wehrmacht and the SS as heroes, as has been happening for years in the Baltic countries.

What ‘hurts’ the capitalists, their governments and the EU, especially in the countries where socialism was established, is that the peoples now have a benchmark. They can see the dead ends of the barbaric exploitative system served by bourgeois governments, and they are filled with nostalgia for socialism, which despite its shortcomings, offered people an overwhelmingly higher standard of living 50 years ago than capitalism does today.

Such efforts whitewash the fascists and their collaborators. They are grist to the mill of their nostalgists today and are being used to escalate the anti-people attacks on workers’ and people’s rights by the EU and its member states.

On the 80th anniversary of the Great Antifascist Victory of the Peoples, we declare that capitalist barbarity and anti-communism will fail and that historical truth will triumph. The peoples will once again take centre stage and the 21st century will truly be a century of new workers’ revolutions.

ATHENS 05/06/2025

THE PRESS OFFICE OF THE CC OF THE KKE

FULL SOLIDARITY WITH THE COMRADES OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF BOHEMIA AND MORAVIA!

On May 30 of this year, the Parliament of the Czech Republic approved a hateful amendment to the country's Penal Code, which includes the criminalization of all forms of support and promotion of the communist movement.

The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM), the legal political organization of Czech communists—which has even elected deputies to the European Parliament—has strongly protested against this anti-communist legislation. The comrades of the KSČM state:

"The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia vehemently rejects this proposed amendment to the Penal Code and considers it deliberate and discriminatory. By repeatedly attempting to ban the KSČM—a move already rejected by the public multiple times in the past—the proponents seek to please their remaining voters and intimidate anyone who criticizes the current regime. However, the truth cannot be silenced or banned. No one will ever silence the KSČM, nor the values that communists stand for—the values of international cooperation, solidarity, progress, and peace."

The Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) knows all too well the frenzy of anti-communist legislation. In our more than 100 years of existence, we have spent over half of that time outlawed—especially during the U.S.-backed business-military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985, when we operated in the strictest clandestinity. Recently, even here in Brazil, spokespeople of the neofascist far-right have attempted to push for the criminalization of communism.

The PCB condemns in the strongest terms the approval of this anti-communist amendment to the Czech Republic’s Penal Code and expresses its full and unrestricted solidarity with the comrades of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia.

AGAINST THE CRIMINALIZATION OF COMMUNISM IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC!

FULL SOLIDARITY WITH THE KSČM!

IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC, IN BRAZIL, AND ALL OVER THE WORLD: NEOFASCISM SHALL NOT PASS!

Brazilian Communist Party

Central Committee

International Relations Secretariat