JULIUS FUCIK AND HIS MODERN-DAY JUDGES

Posted on September 8^th, 2013.

Dedicated to the 70^th anniversary of the tragic death of Julius Fucik, the Czech hero-martyr, fallen in the struggle against Nazi Germany in World War II, and celebrated as such for nearly half-a-century on that account, until in the post-Communist era he was disowned and vilified by his own, for the sole reason of having been a… communist!

The tragic case of the great Czech national hero Julius Fucik (1903-1943) serves as a cautionary tale in the annals of post-Communist history of Eastern Europe. An outstanding and fearless journalist, Fucik became a member of the Communist party of Czechoslovakia ever since its foundation in 1921. During the German occupation of his country, Fucik became an active member of the Resistance. In 1943 he was captured, tortured, and executed, his legendary status in post-war Socialist Czechoslovakia thus being eminently deserved. After 1991, however, his association with the Communist Party became a stigma, which posthumously removed him from the heroic pedestal, making his name anathema to the newest, “post-Communist” version of Czech history. Yet, he was a bona fide hero, and this act of blindness and prejudice on the part of the new Czech leaders is shameful and unpatriotic. For this reason, I have only disdain for these leaders, including their iconic wonder-hero the late Vaclav Havel. None of the Czech leaders who have been so base as to disavow their bona fide hero on such irrelevant and demonstrably prejudicial grounds deserve a place among those who had earned it without the obscene compulsion to build their glory on the disavowal of their nation’s best heroes of the past.

And in conclusion let me say this. Julius Fucik was a sincere and idealistic Communist who joined the Party when it was an “unpopular” and politically incorrect thing to do. Furthermore, he remained a Communist to the end, which in those years was virtually synonymous with being an antifascist. He could have saved his life by repudiating both of these allegiances, and the fact that he chose not to, speaks more to his credit than a million declarations of love to the newest twin idols of the free world: freedom and democracy, whatever these mean nowadays…

But today he is judged by a tribunal, consisting of those erstwhile “communists” who joined the Party when it was the most profitable and politically advantageous thing to do, but renounced their Party as soon as the political tide had turned against it. Let history be the supreme justice on this case, separating the real heroes from the fake ones, “gathering His wheat into the corner and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3:12).