Remix News

Tag: Victims of Communism

  • Czechs pay tribute to Dr. Milada Horáková, the only woman executed by the communist regime 70 years ago

    In a major memorial event, Czechs will honor the memory of Milada Horáková who was executed 70 years ago by the communist regime after a trial based on a fabricated charge of conspiring to overthrow the totalitarian government.

    Black flags and banners with the slogan, “Murdered by communists”, and a photo of Horáková will appear on buildings all over Prague with the electronic sirens system in the capital playing authentic recordings from her trial.

    Horáková was the only woman executed by the communist regime in the political trials of the 1950s, becoming a symbol of defiance against the injustice and violence in then totalitarian Czechoslovakia.

    After obtaining her law degree, Horáková headed the social care department at the Prague City Hall. During World War II, she joined the resistance movement, for which she was sentenced in 1944 to eight years in prison. After the war, as a member of the Czech National Social Party, she was elected a deputy.

    However, she gave up her elected position in protest of the communist coup in Czechoslovakia in February 1948 and then arrested in September 1949.

    Later, she was charged with high treason and conspiracy. The trial, led by Soviet advisers, began in May 1950, with the verdict being announced on June 8. However, Horáková refused to ask for a pardon despite many notable people, including Albert Einstein, asked the regime to change the verdict. She was executed on June 27, 1950.

    “Milada Horáková was murdered by the communists. There was only one reason for this crime: Dr. Milada Horáková was not indifferent to injustice and dared to face it. We must commemorate her story and defend it from those for whom the truth is still uncomfortable,” wrote Prague Mayor Zdeněk Hřib on Facebook, attaching footage of the trial.

    “I feel obliged to involve the city in the memorial event commemorating 70 years since the judicial murder of Dr. Horáková. She is a symbol of the despotism of the Communist regime and the total abuse of the justice system with the aim to remove uncomfortable critics. We must also commemorate such tragic events to keep in mind what has happened to our nation and not to be doomed to repeat our past,” explained Prague Councilor Jan Chabr.

    The political trials, first launched in the Soviet Union, hit the countries of the Eastern bloc after the Kremlin called for a “model process” that would deter all potential opponents of the regime.

    Eventually, Horáková was chosen by Soviet authorities to be implicated as the head of the fabricated conspiracy. Thirteen defendants, including Horáková, appeared before the State Court in May 1950.

    The lawsuit accused them of plotting a coup and several terrorist actions out of hatred towards the regime. Allegedly, they worked with the intelligence services of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Yugoslavia.

    A total of four people were executed as a result of this trial.

    Title image: Milada Horáková appears before the court (Rostislav Novák / Czech News Agency)

  • Hungarian Ambassador Kovács: Soviet flag waving in Brussels is an insult to all who suffered the horrors of communism

    After spotting a Soviet flag waving in the European Union quarter of Brussels, Hungarian Ambassador Tamás Iván Kovács took to social media to share a photo of the flag and question why someone in 2020 would celebrate a symbol of mass murder and oppression right in the heart of the EU.

    “Today in #Brussels’ #EU-quarter (we’re in 2020(!)) I never understood the glorification of #Communism, a failed system guilty of mass murder and all those #CCCP and #CheGuevara T-shirts in Western Europe… Haven’t they learnt from #Hungary 1956 and Central European #history?!?” wrote Kovács on Twitter.

    Kovács, who spoke to Remix News in a personal capacity and not on behalf of the Hungarian government, noted that it was the first Soviet flag he has seen since he came to Brussels, but has come across “many bizarre and/or revolting political statements, flags, posters, etc. during over a decade living in Brussels.”

    “But I was really taken aback by the sight of a Soviet flag on what seemed to be a private house in the middle of Brussels EU quarter when I was heading out for lunch with a friend, literally just a few hundred meters from the headquarters of the main EU institutions,” Kovács related. “This was my first, and hopefully the last Soviet flag sighting in Brussels.”

    ‘The Soviet flag is the hated symbol of Soviet occupation’

    Although the Soviet flag does not provoke the same shock that a Nazi flag for many Western Europeans, Kovács said that for those in Central Europe who suffered the horrors of communism, both symbols are equally despised.

    “As someone from Central Europe, to me the Soviet flag is no better than a Nazi flag. Both are symbols of brutal and murderous dictatorships guilty of killing millions and millions of innocent human beings,” emphasized Kovács.

    “To me as a Hungarian, the Soviet flag is the hated symbol of Soviet occupation of my country which lasted until I graduated high school. It is the despised flag of an evil superpower who crushed the 1956 Hungarian revolution and killed my compatriots who wanted freedom and democracy.”

    Approximately one million Hungarians were killed, imprisoned, or deported by Soviet authorities, etching deep scars in the country.

    On Feb. 25 of every year, Hungary honors the memory of the victims of communism, which is the same day in 1947 that Béla Kovács, a symbolic figure of Hungary’s multi-party system, was arrested and deported to the Soviet Union on fabricated charges of treason. Hungary also uses Feb. 25 to commemorate the 100 million victims of communism who perished globally.

    It is not just the issues of one Soviet flag for Kovács, but a general trend of acceptance towards communist symbols: “I never understood the glorification of Communism, a failed political system guilty of mass murder and all those ‘CCCP’ and Che Guevara T-shirts in Western Europe.”

    Although it is not that long ago that Central Europe experienced the horrors of communism, there are many leftists in Western Europe who seem to glorify the ideology.

    “I believe it should be an equal outrage apportioned to flying the Soviet flag as to the Nazi flag and it should never be acceptable for the reasons regarding what it represented. To me, the extreme left should not be more palatable and tolerated than the extreme right by any means,” warned the Hungarian ambassador.

    “I am very concerned about recent developments such as the erection of a new Lenin statue, whitewashing Marx’s legacy or romanticizing about the disastrous Communist ideals by some in Western Europe,” he continued.

    As statues from celebrated intellectuals, leaders and freedom fighters are toppled across Western Europe and the United States, a statue of communist leader Vladimir Lenin was erected in Germany just last week.

    Kovács told Remix News that his remarks on the flag were made on his personal Twitter account and do not represent official communications from the Hungarian government. While his account does feature his own personal observations, including regarding his experiences as ambassador for Hungary accredited to Luxembourg and Belgium, much of it is also dedicated to issues related to his homeland and Brussels, the city where he currently resides.

    Central Europe suffered greatly under communist repression

    Hungary is not the only country in the region to suffer under communism. The Czech Republic also makes it a priority to commemorate victims of the communist regime to avoid forgetting the painful part of its history. On Aug. 21 of every year, Czechs honor the victims of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, which led to the consolidation of communist control in the country.

    Czechs, like many who lived in Central Europe, also faced extreme restrictions on religious freedom. The Church, considered hostile by the communists as it represented traditional values, was targeted by Soviet authorities. In April 1950, communists launched Operation K, which caused the destruction of Czech monasteries basically overnight.

    In Poland, Soviet NKVD forces murdered 20,000 officers, clergy members, and intellectuals in the 1940 Katyn forest in a massacre that the communist government blamed on the Nazis for decades. Approximately a million Poles were deported to Siberia between 1939 and 1941 and approximately half perished while working in forced labor camps. Around 55 percent of deportees were women.

  • Hungary remembers the 100 million victims of communism

    Hungary honors the memory of the victims of communism with dozens of events across the country today, Feb. 25, which is on the same day in 1947 when a symbolic figure of Hungary’s multi-party system, Béla Kovács, was arrested and deported to the Soviet Union on fabricated charges of treason.

    Hungary, which saw an estimated one million citizens who suffered death, imprisonment and deportation under communist occupying forces, also recognizes the approximately 100 million victims of communist regimes worldwide on Feb. 25.

    In Soviet-occupied Hungary, Kovács, the secretary-general of the Smallholders’ Party, was one of the staunchest opponents of the introduction of a Soviet-style communist system. Although his party won an absolute majority with 57 percent of the vote during the 1945 elections, the Soviets forced the party to form a coalition with three other parties, including the Communist Party.

    Due to his continued resistance to Soviet rule, prompted when two Hungarian communist politicians demanded the Soviets occupy Hungary with military forces in 1947, then Prime Minister Ferenc Nagy, who also belonged to the Smallholders’ Party, moved to dismiss Kovács from his position.

    Kovács refused and the relevant parliamentary committee also refused to lift his immunity as a member of parliament.

    However, Kovács, who until his death denied any wrongdoing, surrendered voluntarily to state security and was subsequently convicted of conspiring against the legal order and organizing anti-Soviet resistance.

    He was held in a gulag until 1951, when he was transferred to the Moscow central prison of the KGB, the infamous Lubyanka.

    In 1955, he was transferred to the Hungarian state security’s (ÁVH) prison in Jészberény, Hungary and in January 1956 – the year of the anti-Soviet uprising – to the ÁVH central prison from which he was released in April.

    He was agriculture minister of the revolutionary government, and after Soviet troops crushed the revolt, he went into hiding. Later, in an attempt for the Soviets to appease the still-angry Hungarian population following the crushed 1956 Hungarian uprising, Kovács was allowed to run for office by Soviet authorities and again elected MP in 1958.

    He died in 1959 but was only declared not guilty of the crimes he was charged with by the Soviet Union in 1989.

    In June 2000, during the first government led by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s parliament declared the day of his arrest be recognized as the Day of the Victims of Communism.

    Title image: A Hungarian soldier, wearing an armband marking his defection to anti-communist insurgents, stands in front of a damaged Soviet tank in Budapest in late 1956.