Communist plans announced by Czech MEP Konečná align with Putin's

US President Donald Trump’s policy is sparking an economic crisis – for instance, by raising tariffs on the import of European aluminum, automobiles, and steel. It is also sparking a geopolitical crisis, chiefly by the USA turning away from its allies and Ukraine and turning toward Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Czech Trumpists are not bothered by the fact that their idol is intentionally harming us Czechs and us Europeans. They are not bothered by the fact that he is destroying democracy, they all agree with him.

Trumpists in the Czech Republic are not bothered by his legitimization of extremist groups and individuals, by his obvious racism, by his vindictiveness, or by his xenophobia. They like it that Trump stands on Putin’s side.

When it comes to siding with Putin, Czech MEP Kateřina Konečná, her Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM), and the conglomerate called “Enough!” (Stačilo!), through which the communists plan to run this fall, have excelled all the other Trumpists. The previously unthinkable is here: the communists are ideologically aligned not just with Putin, in many ways, as could be expected, but also with Trump.

Eurasia – Putin’s idea of ascendancy

Konečná claims Russia is not dangerous, that we have nothing to fear from it, and that we therefore must believe Putin when it comes to peace in Ukraine, that he is serious about it and well-intentioned. She is doing her best to be clever about this, as one can hear in the contorted sentences she uses, the meaning of which is clear, however: “I am not a supporter of Vladimir Putin. In my eyes he is an oligarch who is not governing Russia as I would imagine. However, on the other hand, he is just defending his country from jeopardy,” she said in one of her many appearances on CNN Prima NEWS.

The message to the viewers is clear: Konečná is reiterating Kremlin propaganda in her own words, namely, the notion that the war on Ukraine was begun by the “collective West” and Russia is a victim of this war that is “just defending itself”. Czech MEP Filip Turek, the guru of “Motorists Unite!” (Motoristi sobě!), is similarly manipulative in his own appearances, saying this about Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine: “The cause of that war was the expansion of NATO, that’s the reality.”

The only reality to see here is that Turek is literally reiterating what Putin claims. The reality is that Russia started the war on Ukraine for its own ideological, imperialist, power-play reasons.

According to Konečná, EU and NATO membership for Ukraine “will not calm the conflict” – understand her here to be arguing that Russia’s demand that Ukraine not join the EU and NATO is legitimate and proper. Czech communists, led by Konečná, want the Czech Republic to leave NATO, so this demand from Russia corresponds to their vision of the world, but above all it plays into the hands of Putin’s Eurasia project, which the Russian president has been brandishing since 2011.

In an article for the newspaper Moskovskiye Novosti on 27 February 2012, Putin wrote: “In the long run, Eurasia will overtake the European Union and grow into a wider European Union stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Lisbon to Vladivostok. Not joining Eurasia is to encourage separatism in the broadest sense of the word.“

That “separatism” – in other words, insisting on the independence of one’s own state – is something that Putin will not tolerate, as we can currently see in Ukraine. If we have to take Putin seriously on anything, it should be exactly on this intention of his, because he has already been fulfilling it through his efforts to subjugate Ukraine.

The Czech Republic and the EU are in danger

It may come to pass in time that NATO will be replaced by a “coalition of the willing” or a European Army because of Trump’s hostile policy towards us, the Allies, but it is extremely important that we still retain Europe’s alliance, both within the EU framework and militarily speaking. If we were to leave either, we would soon become part of Eurasia, which is meant to be the enemy of democracy.

After America’s policy transformation, Europe today is the only force that can protect us from a new totalitarianism à la Putin. That is precisely why we are not safe, and Konečná must be aware of that, because she is clever and knows how to think.

The Czech Republic and the EU are threatened by the Government of Russia because it wants to spread its wings over Europe – first of all, of course, over its possessions from Soviet Union times, including the Czech Republic – with the aid of Europe’s extremist, fascisizing, national-populist, ultraconservative and other groups and parties. In the Czech Republic that includes the KSČM and Stačilo! (Enough!) as well as “Freedom and Direct Democracy” (SPD) and “Motorists Unite!”.

The opposition Association of Dissatisfied Citizens (ANO), run by Babiš, is balanced on the razor’s edge between the anti-Putin and pro-Putin camps. By now it is apparent that the ideology and interests of the Czech communists align with Putin’s plans in many areas.

If anybody has any doubts about Russia’s expansionism (its imperialism), perhaps the Russian president himself can persuade them. Putin compared himself several years ago to the Tsar Peter the Great, who ruled at the close of the 17th and start of the 18th century.

Allegedly, just like Peter the Great, the current leadership of Russia has to shore up its power and try to restore the territory of its former empire. The BBC reported Putin saying the following during a meeting with young entrepreneurs: “Peter the Great waged his Great Northern War for 21 years. It might seem that he was trying to forcibly tear something away from Sweden during that war. He wasn’t tearing anything away, he was restoring it… Judging by everything, it is also our destiny to restore things and strengthen ourselves.”

We should not take Konečná, Okamura, or Turek seriously because they do not see a danger to the Czech Republic in Russia. Nor does the ANO movement.

ANO lawmaker Karel Havlíček’s logic that while Putin is an aggressor, we can best stop his aggression by facilitating its completion (by no longer sending Ukraine weapons) speaks for itself. Such “logic” is shared by all those named above.

As we know from history, people who have nothing with which to defend themselves become slaves.

Parroting propaganda from Russia

Konečná is being give the protection of more than one Czech media outlet that has given up its social role as the watchdog of democracy, and they are giving her even more protection than they are to the Motorists and Turek. That really says something.

Of the best-known Czech media outlets, this primarily applies to the news reporting of TV Prima under the rubric of CNN, which of course is more reminiscent at times of a different American television channel – Fox News. When Trump took office, that channel transformed itself into an instrument of his power.

Let us not be surprised, therefore, to hear that “Enough!” (Stačilo!) has a chance of being elected to the Chamber of Deputies this fall, according to some polls. Take the example of how such an instrument of power moderates debates: if somebody reproaches Konečná for parroting propaganda from Russia, the moderator responds that there are propagandists on all sides, smiling victoriously all the while.

Yes, there are propagandists on all sides, but that does not refute the fact that Konečná parrots propaganda from Russia. The moderator will pass that fact over, though.

Propaganda from the West has not used a campaign of covert disinformation on a massive scale through cyber-attacks on the Internet and social platforms, as Russia (or China) do. The moderator is silent on that difference, too.

Konečná’s position is not much different from her Stalinist predecessors, and what’s more, she still closely collaborates with one such Stalinist, Josef Skála. She is an excellent speaker, good at crafting ideological propaganda, and she responds promptly to criticisms directed at her.

Behind this fashionable cover is the familiar Marxist-Leninist class warrior who will calmly sacrifice the Czech Republic to our obvious enemy in order to advance her ideology. It is clear that a government of ANO with “Enough!” (Stačilo!), “Motorists Unite!” or the SPD would be a tragedy for our country.