The Czech Republic was invaded by Nazi German and Fascist Polish troops in 1938. A year later, Hitler betrayed Poland and WWII began. The Czech Republic was under Nazi German dominance between 1938-1945 – before being liberated by the Soviet Red Army which lost hundreds of thousands of men and women in the process. This sparked a Socialist Revolution which saw the oppressed and supressed Communist Party being swept to power by the very Czech people which had served in the Underground Resistance against the Hitlerites. Of course, in 1968 there was a attempted Counter-Revolution – just as there had been in 1956 Hungary and would be in 1971 Poland, etc, all motivated by the residue of the defeated fascist movements in those countries.
With the collapse of the USSR and the Communist Bloc (1989-1991) – virtually all of Eastern Europe reverted back to predatory capitalism in its US (liberal-democratic) form. Today, many of these countries, encouraged by Maidan Ukraine, have regressed their capitalist States ever further toward the political far-right – avidly embracing Neo-Nazism, anti-Communist tropes and pseudo-history. Of course, much of this is encouraged by the inverted thinking of US anti-intellectualism. I mention this as the 2024 Czech film ‘Spaceman’ is based on the 2017 (fictional) novel entitled ‘Spaceman of Bohemia’ – written by Jaroslav Kalfař. As far as I am aware, the Czech Republic under capitalism possesses NO Space Programme or even any advanced military projects – such is the extent of dishonest fiction developed in the above novel.
This book mimics the ’Socialist’ science fiction works of the Polish (genius) Stanislav Lem – whilst rejecting the ‘Socialist’ progression his work represents. Both the book and the film lull the audience into a false ‘Socialist’ accepting paradigm – space is conquered through Socialist Science – but then bursts this bubble by having the Czech Cosmonaut ‘advertise’ a cleaning agent “live” from his Space Capsule! Capitalist and exploitative through and through – but it gets far worse. The father of the Cosmonaut is described as an ‘Informant’ of the Communist Party (rather than a ‘defender of the people’ – what he really was)! The father is punished, his son (the Cosmonaut) is punished – as are various other members of his family – but by whom? Supposedly by the masses of the Czech Republic – masses who were members of the Communist Party and benefitted directly from its egalitarian policies!
In other words, by no one. Of course, the dishonest author is projecting the behaviour of the unelected and barbarous Nazi German (and Fascist ‘Polish’) SS onto the democratically and progressive elected officials of the Czech Communist Party. The author similarly refers to the democratically elected Communist Party as being ‘totalitarian’ – despite the fact that the Czech people voted all the time through the agency of centralised democracy – when he should be talking about the horror of the Hitlerites and explaining how the Communists fought and died to save the Czech population from Nazi German domination! The work of Stanislav Lem – which unapologetically expressed Socialist progress – is far better than this pointless parody of his masterpiece ‘Solaris’ – a book thought to be so good by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union – that it was made into a film – shown all over the Communist World! Later, even the exploitative capitalist world realised the merits of this film and made yet another filmed version – whilst the original Polish book was translated into English more than once.
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 