Czech young communists meet after four-year ban

LONDON (Morning Star) — Young Czech communists met in Prague on Saturday for their first congress since the government banned their organisation nearly four years ago.

The interior ministry dissolved the Czech Communist Youth Association (KSM) in October 2006 on the basis that its programme violated the former socialist country’s constitution by advocating the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist order and the social ownership of the means of production.

The KSM appealed against the decision and, under pressure from progressive opinion at home and abroad, Prague City Court annulled it in January.

KSM member Jakub Holas described the association’s first congress in over four years as a “great victory, not only for the communist movement, but for all democratic and progressive forces in the Czech Republic.”

The group issued a statement calling on citizens to resist ongoing efforts to ban the KSM and the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia.