Museum Review: Museum of Communism

You would think this would be one I'd enjoy tremendously. A museum geared toward the history of communism in the former Czechoslovakia. It should be my dream come true.

But the Museum of Communism in Prague proved something of a letdown.

For starters, by focusing on Czechoslovakia, and really on the Czech lands, the museum limits its scope too narrowly. There is indeed a long and fascinating story of communism to be told in the Czech lands, one that begins earlier than most countries and continues into the present. But so much of communism was transnational; indeed, it was conceived as a truly international, worldwide movement, one that would leave no corner of the globe untouched. And by and large, it succeeded in a certain sense in realizing this vision. Communist regimes may not have taken root in every country, but the permeance of communist doctrine and the Cold War that centered around it was vast. Plus, as a country at the heart of Europe and considered integral to the Warsaw Pact, Czechoslovakia belongs in that wider context of bloc relations and Cold War tensions. There's some of that, but it's more cursory and leaves much to be desired.

In addition, the museum takes a very narrow, exculpatory view of Czechoslovak history and communism's role in it. By and large, communism is presented as a foreign phenomenon, imposed on poor Czechs and Slovaks by a power hungry tyrant in Moscow, and is treated practically as one, long, undifferentiated whole of misery. While that may be an accurate picture in certain respects, it's not a very satisfying characterization on the whole, and this is really where the interpretations presented disappoint. If your knowledge of Czechoslovak history and the communist phenomenon are rudimentary at best, and more thank likely this is the case with most visitors, then you'll come away with this kneejerk "communism bad!" view that doesn't enlightened as much as it just stokes the flickering flames of Cold War-era emotions.

Thus, I didn't get the sense that communism was both quantitatively and qualitatively different in Czechoslovakia. The story of interwar Czechoslovakia as an island of democracy and prosperity is there, but not emphasized are the other unique facets of it; the fact that Czechoslovakia was also an anomaly in the region because it gave legal status to the Communist Party (CPCz), and that the relatively large industrial working class of the country found the ideas of communism receptive to a certain degree.

Also absent is a stronger treatment of the impact of the Second World War in making Czechoslovakia particularly fertile ground for communism. The defeat of fascism, resistance of communists, etatization of the economy, experience of occupation -- these all gave communism a popular resonance, perhaps unmatched in any other country. And the elections of 1946 -- the only largely free postwar elections in the region until after 1989 -- revealed this appeal: between the Communists and the very left-leaning Social Democrats, some variant of Marxism or socialism enjoyed a democratic majority in the Czech lands. The appeal of communism was markedly lower in Slovakia, but that's also missing from the museum.

Life under communism is a major emphasis of the museum, with its recreations of a communist classroom, workshop, grocery store and interrogation room. The picture is bleak; endless propaganda, rigid discipline, scarce consumer products. Undoubtedly, this was a part of everyday life for many. But there's another facet of this story that's still missing: some people benefited in these early years, often because they belong to the party, but their reasons for joining the party are unclear.

Justifiably, the Prague Spring is presented as a moment of hope crushed by a foreign, chiefly Soviet invasion. But even in this, there's something missing that would enhance the drama and make the point of the museum more powerfully. Although the Prague Spring was a short-lived period of optimism, the frustrated desires it unleashed and the profound hope it released caused the invasion to be felt as an even greater tragedy than it would seem from the museum's display. This is regretable.

"Normalization," the period following the Soviet invasion when hardline control was reimposed to a degree, is also glossed over in certain respects. The normalization regime of Gustáv Husák was hardline, but not Stalinist. The quiescence of the population was bought more with material concessions than with brutality, although the latter certainly still existed. But the relative material boon in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 1980s, along with the negative consequences of the turn inward by many Czechs and Slovaks, doesn't receive any attention.

Overall, the interpretation of communism presented reflects two reinforcing biases on display. The first being the fact that the museum is owned by an American living in Prague, with his own outsider view of the Cold War era, the second being a Czech desire for exoneration of culpability in the communist experiment.

That said, the museum isn't without its redeeming qualities. A rather impressive collection of vintage propaganda posters and reproductions is worth the price of admission alone. Likewise, the odd bits of statuary, along with mock-ups of the communist store, etc., and a moving video about the police repression of student protesters that ignited the Velvet Revolution, all combine to make this a place worth seeing, even if it must be taken with a grain of salt.