The “Velvet Revolution“ in Czechoslovakia after 30 Years

[Editor’s note: a Gumshoer from Slovakia has made another contribution.]

by Ivan Hecko 

This is an adaption of my blog for eventual readers who are not familiar with the topic.

Czechoslovakia was the last of the Central Europe countries to shed the communist system in November of 1989. My opinion presented here is that we went too far right after shedding the extreme left. The title in Slovak was this:

Untrue communist system → a long-term supply of lies → truth and democracy (??)

The memory of the Velvet Revolution (VR) went around the scheme shown above – the process of the change of society. However, the first two phases could never end up in the final status shown, but in the version presented (mostly) by the media phase 2 was dropped, and lies were contained also in the present description of the revolution itself – here I gave a link to a full info from another blogger in (unfortunately only) Slovak – by a blogger gumurin.

This is not meant against the VR itself, basically, it was necessary, and in many (most) ways positive. But more so the initial moment, starting point, a chance, which at the same time was a chance for any change. Repressive forces quickly joined in, so did the communists, foreign countries, and the direction changed. The game turned towards big politics, distribution of wealth, and the world power manipulation. And surprise – considering the previous experience – not by Russia then.

But let us compare some features of the “communism“ of those days against the system we have now.

Communists declared a so-called classless society, where all were equal, the system imitated a republic. But in reality, we were sorted according to position/ relations/ connection in the subsystems created for controlling the society outside the official means of control – along the (only) communist party lines – and that was pushed into the Constitution of that time.

George Orwell describes that as “all animals are equal but some are more equal than others“. Communists pushed Slovakia to work in accordance with the interests of Russia, which is foreign interests. When they woke up in 1968, and tried to turn from the party towards the people, plus stopped controlling all media by the Party, plus some other changes, the Russians invaded us.

Now we can fluently switch over to the status quo. The Constitution was changed, we have a regular Republic. But the international set-up swerved from what we expected – a standard republic and market economy.

After the annulment of the Warsaw Pact Europe was for a while a safe zone, as there was an agreement of not extending NATO further East. This agreement, however, has turned out to be something that the democratic and peace-loving West, mainly the US, could not swallow, NATO went to the Russian border, and the danger of war was restored (sharp up after scrapping INF).

Well, weapons producers have the same right to do business, don’t they? This led to a renewal of mass weapons production, and the danger of war is back, and so is the negative impact of this enormous production on the planet. And the “right to do business“ was gradually extended towards the occupation of foreign countries and the robbery of their mineral wealth.

The prominent dissidents are today in prisons in the Democratic West, they are in prison without any official charge (no breach of law exists) and are in danger of dying there. A model Truth and Love (that was one of the slogans of the VR). And now to the most important point – state of the society.

The VR originally really led to a state of society when the possibility existed – perhaps gradually – in theory – for the rule of truth and democracy to come. But we have entered a system which “was already joined“ into a larger system, and we again, in a perceptible extent, lost our independence.

The tools by which we are pushed to act in the interests of some foreign countries called allies, especially the main ally – the US, have changed too. The pressure used is economic, quasi-legal, when various legal speculations are used, or eventually just various “general (universal?) rights“. And our country is maybe most being influenced by people and institutions created by those allies, paid by foreign oligarchs and governments (e.g. British Integrity Initiative, Soros, …I already wrote on the US not being really ruled by elected representatives, but by the deep state in the hands of oligarchs, with Trump shocking them now and then and then they withdraw underground and plot).

The state of “Truth and Democracy“ corresponding to this state of affairs is not too different from what the Communist one used to be, just the people who push it do it for money (from the West), they do have to obey someone. And practically also the same as in Communism, this part of the society has the media in their hands, even (in non-marginal extent) state-owned ones, which practically leads to frequent breach of the Laws of Slovak Republic, where objectivity is required for them.

And probably the worst is – since it puts the present system at exactly the communist level – a part of the state machinery, including the police, secret police, justice, is misused for political purposes, by means of leakage of secret data from investigation and pre-judicial phases – with the political aims of “allies“. Again some foreign environment pushes our political direction using absolutely anti-democratic tools, just this time exclusively in favor of the political right-wing. And it is called Truth, Love and Democracy.

I have never noticed any rebuke from the EU about this – how is that possible, considering various previous ones for deeds of much lower importance? And we have also had misuse of military eavesdropping system against opposition, but right-wing was at the power, and it was ignored by the EU (we were not members yet). Democracy and Equality.

But why do we keep on lying?

Why do we try to persuade ourselves about something which is not true? What is the purpose – for what or who – is probably the basic question.

Now we fairly clearly see that the “West“ has “liberated us“, to get us under control, and rather not so much in favor of us, but in a long run in favor of those few families of “its“ financial oligarchs.

Those are not interested in our culture and traditions, (maybe in their own either), only if it makes money, and it makes little money and could hamper subduing a nation. Culture will be gradually rolled over by present American anti-culture, which has already rolled over the valuable parts of the American culture, and that was some size, a wide media front works on this diligently.

The general direction of the newly installed “Truth“ and “Democracy“ is very bad. And, in spite of my care being primarily Slovakia, I feel bad with respect of the whole Europe, where lies the origin of today’s culture, being rolled over by primitive interpretation of “entrepreneurship“, “growth“, “democracy“ (turned inside out into formal imitation, phrases, plus manipulation, with a strong position of so-called “newspeak“, “correct formulations“ which are considered far more important than the truth, and were pushed in for the purpose).

Some closing remarks.

After the separation of Czech Republic and Slovakia (also a “velvet separation“) my report represents purely my personal view – from Slovakia – with which many (maybe most) would disagree, including Slovaks. Although I follow what is going on in Czech Republic, having quite a few Czech TVs, I do not follow it deeply enough to be able to say anything on their situation or opinions. To me, they look a bit more orderly than us from here.