Review III: Czech Republic

I visited the Czech Republic this spring break. Although I only spent a couple of days in Prague, I still gained some insights into the public perception of communism, and how it tried to revolutions under the pressure of the Soviet Union, which is helpful for my research about brutalism in many aspects, especially in the content about the ideological environment under the Cold War. The article will talk about what I saw and what I learned from the visit; it will cover the range from historical material to in-person experience.

Due to the appeasement of the UK and France toward Nazi Germany, Czechoslovakia was annexed by Germany in 1938. From then on, as 7th biggest industrial country in the world at the time, the country's factories constantly provided tons of productivity for the war machine of Nazi Germany throughout World War II, including renowned Škoda. With the end of the war, Czechoslovakia became independent, and the communist party won the most seats in Parliament in 1946. In the following years, the Communist Party fully took over the country and was under the control of Moscow like many other Eastern European countries became one of the satellite states.

Peace for Our Time, Neville Chamberlain, 1938

However, as a frontier of the Warsaw Pact against Western NATO, maybe Czech or Czechoslovakia was naturally different from many socialist countries from the beginning. Although it has the qualities of a typical socialist country like an authoritarian communist party and planned economies, meanwhile, its political movement and the will for reformation were intense at the time because of its speciality in tradition, geography, politics etc. Its citizens and government were not satisfied with the interference of the Red Empire. Many socialist countries like China and Yugoslavia were unpleasant about the dominance of the Soviet Union as well and a lot of friction has happened politically and militarily since the end of World War II. Due to the shortfalls of the rationing system, the economy of Czechoslovakia faced a great challenge during the 60s. Therefore, The Czechoslovak Communist Party, led by Alexander Dubček, began a series of market-oriented and democratic reforms, which is known as the Prague Spring. However, the reform was forced to pause because of the military interference of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries in 1968. In the following decades, the country went through huge changes a couple of times, like the Velvet Revolution and Velvet Divorce. The Velvet Revolution ended the one-party rule of the Communist Party peacefully in 1989, and the Velvet Divorce made Czechoslovakia divided into two countries, which Czech Republic and Slovakia, in 1992. From the 90s until now, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Czech became a member of the European Union and NATO, and gradually participated in the affairs led by Western countries. In other words, it attempts to draw a line under its socialist past.

Prague Spring, 1968

The historical and political fluctuation in the past and geography made the country look distinct from many other European countries, it combined the characteristics of Eastern and Western Europe. Moreover, the ideology shift also made the country different even today. My first impression of the Czech was its transportation system because I had to reach downtown Prague from the airport. The main approaches to transportation in Prague are tram, metro, and bus. Its metro is hugely different from the newly built metro in China or other countries, for example, the Elizebeth Line in London uses brand new coaches with high-tech facilities, in contrast, the Prague metro still uses old coaches that look like from the 70s. It reminds me of the metro in Pyongyang and Moscow I saw in the videos before. Likewise, the metro system in Czech is deep like many metro systems in socialist countries, I think it is because it has to defend against the potential nuclear bomb attacks during the Cold War. Moreover, the payment method of transportation in Prague is also unique. Passengers only need to purchase a paper ticket from the vending machine with the valid time they want and insert the ticket into the yellow machine to print the valid date, then passengers can travel all around the city without the ticket check. It made it very different from the transport payment methods in other countries using contactless cards or digital tickets, it is still old-fashioned in some way. Prague's trams use a mix of old and new carriages, the old tram uses the same colour combination as the metro carriages, which are creamy and red. However, the new tram carriages look boring just like those used in any other country, except they are produced by local Škoda. To some extent, the transport system of Prague retains many characteristics of the socialist period and still reminds me of the connection from its now to the past.

Prague metro

Prague tram

Another point have to mention about Prague is its entertaining industry and nightlife. Czech is the birthplace of the famous lager beer, Pilsner Urquell, and the biggest beer consumer country per capita in the world with about 188 litres per person annually (Kirin Beer University Report, 2019), which about more than two times more than the UK (70.3 litres per person annually). Not only at night, but you can also see people sitting beside the road and drinking in the daytime everywhere. More than that, the pornographic and cannabis industries flourished in the Czech as well nowadays, related shops everywhere in Prague. Therefore, you can see all kinds of people in the street when nightfall: Some youngsters dressed in full sets of tracksuits gathered around the car drinking and laughing, they resembled Russian Gopnik; young girls chatting and laughing passed by streets with mini skirts and high heels. Overall, Prague's social openness nowadays forms an intense contrast with socialist conservative rules.

Prague night

Erotic shop

Cannabis alcohol

A memorial I passed by when I took the tram attracted my eye at the time, although only a few seconds. It was a scene of several humanoid sculptures descending the stairs. After I saw it, I searched for the memorial's information online, and it is called Memorial to the Victims of Communism located just beside Újezd Street. It is so unfamiliar and shocking for a person who grew up in a socialist country, the most memorials I have seen in the past were about praising great socialism and the Communist Party. Even where capitalism originated, in the United Kingdom, I did not see any memorial like this against communism, instead, many people lay wreaths on the tomb of Karl Marx in Highgate Cemetery. However, from the memorial, I can see the general public attitude toward the communist regime today. It is still hard for the Czech people to recover from the wound of communism. However, communism left a heritage to Czech in the religious composition. Czech has the third biggest group of atheists proportion among countries, just behind China and the UK, with about 21.6% (World Population Review, 2024).

Memorial to the Victims of Communism, 2002