Communists: dangerous or not?

And their verdict is negative, advising the government not to endorse the senators' proposal because, apparently, the Communists don't pose a threat to democracy. As evidence, officials point to the party's 20-year existence on the political scene, 13% voter support and the vague and cautious public announcements made by party heads about the return of socialism that evade legal prosecution.

But it's not all that easy. During their two years in office, senators have collected 76 proofs to the contrary. It's impossible to disagree with

Jaromír Štětina

that government officials have taken action they weren't in principle supposed to. Their paper substitutes the detailed and responsible work of the court—one which might generate a similar verdict, but whose source would be a democratic authority, not an anonymous official. Plus, they are also prompting the government to sweep the discussion on the Communists' offences under the table before it even began. That's not exactly the proper way to go about it.

After all, in the past 20 years, a hot debate on the Communist threat ignites from time to time, and, so, the senators are rightly and patiently satisfying the local societal desire to reach some sort of a comprehensible conclusion based on the evidence. Whether the Communists established themselves or not, or whether they garner 13% of votes or not, the principal question has always been whether, with their genocidal past brimming with murder and violence, they pose a danger to us or not.

Translated with permission by the Prague Daily Monitor.