The Uncompleted Revolution? The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia in the Post–Communist Reality

The change of the political regime in Czechoslovakia, called the Velvet Revolution, is considered as a success story of transformation after 1989. However, in nowadays Czech Republic, the Communist Party still exists – this is the only such case among democratic countries of Central Europe. It makes us ask the question: is the Velvet Revolution completed? The author treats the activities of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia as a criterion for the assessment of changes in the Czech Republic after 1989 and wonders how strong for the assessment of the transformation influences the relics of the former regime. He stresses that transformation in the Czech Republic can’t be assessed on a comparative scale, because pace and effects of changes were different in different countries, as different was the nature of the previous regimes. The author concludes that the existence of the Communist Party is the natural element of contemporary political reality of the Czech Republic, which negates the achievements of transformation in no way.