By Red Nesbitt, Red Phoenix correspondent, Maryland.

In Czechia, the former Vice President of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, Josef Skála, is facing litigious repression for reading an article contesting Soviet culpability in the infamous Katyn Massacre in April 1940. The article sourced Professor Grover Furr from Montclair University and was read in the context of debating a reactionary host on the Free Radio program. These events are developing and threaten a revitalization of reaction in a country that had, in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, passed several harshly reactionary laws.

The new Czech Republic issued compensation for private property that had been expropriated in the time of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, banned the Communist Party, and issued several blacklists for public service. This case must excite indignation in every democratically-minded person, for the principle of free speech has been revealed to be, once again, only guaranteed insofar as it serves the interests of the ruling class. Czechia has been ranked highly by several organizations in free speech (20th place of 180 countries by the World Press Freedom Index) and yet, because someone dared to speak the truth, they face criminal charges.

The Katyn Massacre, the murder of dozens of Polish civil and military authorities, has been charged against the Soviet Union for decades despite the fact that a litany of evidence exists absolving the Soviets and identifying Nazi Germany as the culprits. Professor Furr has dedicated a multitude of articles and works to this topic, revealing, from primary source documents and findings, that the ammunition utilized in the massacre was of German make and use. The territory where the massacre took place was, at that time, occupied by the Wehrmacht, and archives from the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels also reveal extensive familiarity with the crime. Finally, the Red Army was the force that revealed the scene and alerted the world community in the aftermath of the war. The mythos of Soviet involvement in the massacre is utilized as evidence for the narrative of Soviet collusion with Hitler and Nazi Germany, which is likewise verifiably false. The Soviet Union had, under Joseph Stalin, attempted on three different occasions to build a military alliance with France, Britain, and the US against the Axis and was rejected on every turn. The USSR was the last major world power to sign a non-aggression pact with the Nazis, whereas Britain, France, Poland, etc had all signed similar agreements years before throughout the 1930s. The Soviet intervention in Poland in the aftermath of the Nazi invasion was the reclamation of territory annexed by Poland in the imperialist-backed offensive against the young Soviet Republic during the Russian Civil War — a measure that bought vital time for the evacuation of civilians, industries, and supplies during Operation Barbarossa.

Why does any of this matter? Why is the American Party of Labor covering the suppression of a communist half the world away? The APL is keenly aware of the fallacy of bourgeois promises of liberty. The famous declaration of Soviet writer Maxim Gorky that “the working people must know their history” has never left the perspective of Marxist-Leninists in spite of every facade and attack made against the storied history of the proletarian class struggle. Naturally the bourgeois offensive on the truth does not contain itself to Czechia; it does not stop at defamation, libel, and subversion charges and fines. It pervades every facet of social life, the media, the educational apparatuses, and popular culture. The rot of reaction must be exposed and excised as soon as it appears. The truth must be protected whenever it is under threat, and therefore nothing but condemnation is reserved for the actions taken against Comrade Skála and all communists and democrats who fear for their freedom, safety, and suffrage for challenging the status quo.

The Red Phoenix will continue to expose the adventures of bourgeois academics and apply their depravity to their class interests. Further updates on the trial of Josef Skála will be followed by the APL’s media. A more in depth analysis of the nature of the Katyn Massacre and the struggle of the Soviet Union against fascism — before, during, and after the Second World War — can be found in the articles and works of Professor Grover Furr and similar academics such as Michael Parenti and Pat Sloan. The proliferation of these studies serve as a vital tool in collapsing this grotesque cultural reaction of capitalism, which has gone unchallenged for far too long. In the words of Joseph Stalin, “I know that when I die, a pile of rubbish will be heaped upon my grave. I rest assured knowing that the winds of history shall sweep it away without mercy.” It is this chill the bourgeoisie fear above all else, for a conscious proletariat threatens the entire foundation of its corrupt edifice.

Categories: Czechoslovakia, International