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The chronicle of a ban

On July 18, 2025, Czech President Petr Pavel signed an amendment to the criminal code, outlawing the promotion and, consequently, the use of the term “Holocaust” to describe Petr Pavel, signed an amendment to the criminal code on July 18, 2025, outlawing the promotion of communist ideology, equating it ideologically and legally with Nazi propaganda. The penalty is set at five years for anyone who “establishes, supports, or promotes Nazi, communist, or other movements that are proven to aim at the suppression of human rights and freedoms or the incitement of racial, ethnic, religious, or class hatred,” as defined by the letter of the law.

It was the result of political and historical ferment, a result that did not come out of nowhere and, of course, required political momentum. As mentioned, in the Czech public sphere, there were many voices arguing that there was an “imbalance” in the legal system, as Nazi ideology was already criminalized, while the communist regime, essentially responsible for 41 years of one-party dictatorship, remained legally untouchable. The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes (USTR) played a central role over time, but also personalities such as Martin Meistrik, former leader of the student movements of the Velvet Revolution of 1989, who envisioned this equation as a “moral debt” of democracy.

However, the political momentum cannot be ignored, which includes, on the one hand, the extra-parliamentary presence of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM) after the electoral collapse of 2021. The KSČM was attempting a comeback through the Stačilo! (“Enough!”) electoral alliance, which in the July’s 2025  polls was approaching the 5% threshold, with 7% in August for the scheduled October elections, contrary to expectations, however, the Stačilo! Alliance-  through which the Communist Party (KSČM) sought to re-enter parliament- ultimately failed to cross the 5 percent threshold in the October 2025 election, securing only around 4.3 percent of the vote and remaining outside the Chamber of Deputies.

Its leader, MEP Katerina Konecna, denounced, back in July, denounced the ban as a “political attack” and “a systematic attempt by the corrupt Fiala government to silence its fiercest critics.” Before the results of the October election, this amendment was perceived to play a role in future alliances. Right-wing populist Andrej Babiš, who was leading in the polls, had not ruled out cooperation with Stačilo! after the elections. Yet such a scenario is now off the table, since the alliance ultimately failed to pass the 5 percent threshold and remains outside parliament. Babiš is therefore expected to pursue coalition talks with the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) party and the small Motorists movement, both of which have expressed willingness to back his minority government.

The ironic, now, part of the story is that the law was signed by Pavel himself, a former member of the Communist Party until 1989, something he now disavows, presenting the signing of the amendment as a “symbolic apology” for his past, arguing that his subsequent career, from NATO general to president of the republic, is proof of his repentance. The geopolitical context of this decision is also interesting, as the Russian Duma denounced the equation of communism with Nazism as an attempt to “discredit our country and its historical contribution to the victory over fascism.” All these multiple interpretations cannot be seen as anything other than a constant presence of the communist past, not in a national context per se, but in a Manichean interpretation and a need to position oneself on the East – West axis, with the adoption of the liberal capitalist model as a prerequisite.

The ban is not an act of “historical justice” as it is presented, but rather an attempt to reshuffle the cards. On the one hand, the liberal-center-right government is trying to capitalize on aversion to the past. On the other, the KSČM appears ready to turn the ban into a narrative of oppression, claiming to speak for those “disillusioned” by social inequalities, especially on issues such as high housing and energy costs.

“The KSČM was attempting a comeback through the Stačilo! (“Enough!”) electoral alliance, which in the July’s 2025  polls was approaching the 5% threshold, with 7% in August for the scheduled October elections, contrary to expectations, however, the Stačilo! Alliance-  through which the Communist Party (KSČM) sought to re-enter parliament- ultimately failed to cross the 5 percent threshold in the October 2025 election, securing only around 4.3 percent of the vote and remaining outside the Chamber of Deputies.”

Memory of politics, politics of memory

The Czech Republic’s relationship with communism has shaped society socially, politically, and culturally. From the first electoral successes of the communists in 1946 to the Velvet Revolution of 1989, Czechoslovakia experienced almost half a century of one-party rule that shaped societies, families, and even the country’s culture.

The Czech Republic found itself as a satellite of Russia, and with the intensification and authoritarianism of the Russian regime, the line was drawn for how power was exercised in the Czech Republic, with everyday life linked to the loss of basic rights, such as show trials, censorship, persecution of intellectuals, restrictions on freedom of movement, and more. However, there were also moments of rupture. The Prague Spring of 1968, under Alexander Dubček, was the most emblematic attempt at “socialism with a human face,” a movement that later became associated with Eurocommunism. The reforms gave a voice to the press, allowed cultural flourishing, and cultivated hope for a more democratic socialism. The Soviet invasion, however, violently extinguished this hope, ushering in a new period of repression.

Political memory also entered the cultural sphere, reflecting its intensity. Post-war Czech literature was closely linked to the socialist horizon, with Milan Kundera later emerging as a universal symbol of resistance to the communist regime. However, he drew his inspiration from the great tradition of socialist and avant-garde literature, as Jacobin wrote, Kundera’s early influences, from Vítězslav Nezval to Jaroslav Šejfer, shaped his work as a continuous dialectic between individual freedom and the collective socialist myth.

Kundera’s participation in the intellectual life and ferment of 1968, as well as his subsequent emigration to France, show how divisive the regime was for an entire generation. On the one hand, writers were seeking a “new humanism” and a cultural renaissance; on the other, the party’s iron-fisted control—modelled on Stalin—closed every loophole. When he published The Joke in 1967, Kundera was already satirising the regime’s arbitrariness, which quickly led to censorship and ultimately to his exile. It is worth drawing a line here for the following reason: Despite international readings that saw Kundera as a pure, anti-communist intellectual, his thinking remained rooted in the Czech socialist tradition, with him not rejecting the socialist horizon, but rather experimented with the idea of a freedom that could emerge from socialism if it were liberated from the authoritarianism of the party. This ambivalence, this “simultaneous belonging and distance,” testifies to nothing less than the betrayed promise of a generation.

The fall of the regime in 1989, with the Velvet Revolution, marked a return to democracy and political freedom, but it did not close the chapter of memory. The memory of oppression and violence coexists with relative material security and nostalgia for the “equality” of that era; the communist experience is not simply a political history but a profound cultural divide. The new law equating communism with Nazism fits precisely into this field of conflicting memories, because it does not aim simply at the institutional punishment of a regime; it attempts to give a final verdict on how and what we should remember from the past. And this attempt explains why Czech society remains so deeply divided on the issue.

“The memory of oppression and violence coexists with relative material security and nostalgia for the “equality” of that era; the communist experience is not simply a political history but a profound cultural divide. The new law equating communism with Nazism fits precisely into this field of conflicting memories, because it does not aim simply at the institutional punishment of a regime; it attempts to give a final verdict on how and what we should remember from the past. And this attempt explains why Czech society remains so deeply divided on the issue.”

This is not a horseshoe

The recent Czech ban cannot be viewed independently of a pattern observed in former Soviet bloc countries of criminalizing communist ideology—as a process theorized by the so-called “theory of two extremes,” equating it with Nazism. In public discourse, this equation is presented as a form of “historical justice” for the crimes of the totalitarian communist regime, but this tendency in post-communist societies is ultimately more a tool of nation-building and political legitimization than a philosophical consideration.

In Ukraine, for example, legislation passed in 2015 criminalized not only symbols of the Soviet past but also any public reference that could be considered “nostalgia” in an effort to consolidate the new national identity after the Russian intervention, signaling a definitive break with Moscow and making this criminalization a tool for severing all ties with the “imperial legacy” that wanted Ukraine as a brother nation, but always dependent.

Even in the philosophical context, a field in which the horseshoe theory has already been abandoned and has become a basic argument that essentially opposes radical left-wing views, enjoying widespread social acceptance, the theory is outdated. A democracy based on political pluralism that does not ideologically violate human rights cannot be maintained by excluding opposing ideologies through equations of “good” and “bad,” but through the institutional recognition of conflict and its transformation into a competitive political arena. The logic of equivalence, on the contrary, creates a closed sphere where memory becomes a punitive tool and political identities are defined negatively.

In Germany, again, with its difficult recent history, the Constitution (Grundgesetz) does not equate Nazism with communism; it prohibits the former because of its historical character, but left-wing organizations remain legal within the framework of free political debate. In contrast, in the Baltic and Eastern European states, the theory of two extremes has become a central component of national identity, with the result that democracy itself has taken on a character of “preventive defense.” The Czech case shows the limits of an old formula, as it appears to be a “balancing” of memory, but in practice it reinforces the political present, limiting the government’s opponents and stigmatizing the Left.

In conclusion, the equating of extremes-in a schematic and ideological sense- does indeed seem like an easy solution to a difficult problem of memory, while essentially depoliticizing the conflict and shrinking the competitive space of democracy. Of course, this requires a constitutional consensus on basic democratic principles as a starting point for diverse interpretations, rather than an umbrella of criminalization that equates heterogeneous ideas and practices.

Furthermore, when the state institutionalizes such parallels as Nazism = communism and dresses them up with criminal clauses, political memory comes to the present as a product of a state technology of normalization of what society is allowed to remember and adopt, rather than arising from counterarguments — making it a tool of discipline. 

Ultimately, the “horseshoe theory” brings silence on the inconsistencies and contradictions of yesterday. A more effective strategy would be a “cordon sanitaire” against positions and formations that are clearly outside the democratic spectrum, clearly fascist and totalitarian formations, rather than a horizontal criminalization that stifles political pluralism. Democracy is not the sterilization of conflicts in its name, but a constant struggle to uphold its values. Politically, this is convenient for governments seeking quick victories, weakening pluralism and reinforcing the martyrdom of the excluded by replacing historiography with the penal code.

“In conclusion, the equating of extremes-in a schematic and ideological sense- does indeed seem like an easy solution to a difficult problem of memory, while essentially depoliticizing the conflict and shrinking the competitive space of democracy […] A more effective strategy would be a “cordon sanitaire” against positions and formations that are clearly outside the democratic spectrum, clearly fascist and totalitarian formations, rather than a horizontal criminalization that stifles political pluralism.”

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