Keeping the red flag flying at a Prague hotel

It was a little bit as if time had stood still. With its 1970s fittings and overall atmosphere, Prague's high-rise Hotel Olympik still has a flavour of the old regime, and it seemed rather an apt venue for a gathering of communist and hard-left parties from around the world. Under a banner pointing to a socialist future in large red letters, several dozen delegates from 32 different countries - mostly in Europe, but also including China, Vietnam and North Korea - came together to discuss the future of socialism in Europe.

A small anti-communist demonstration, photo: CTK

On Saturday there was also a small anti-communist demonstration outside the hotel, but generally public and media interest was minimal - quite a contrast with the days before 1989. In an interview with Radio Prague's David Vaughan, conference delegate Miroslav Prokes who is a member of Prague's regional assembly for the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, insisted that this was not a communist gathering in the old style.

"The final aim of all participants here is socialism, but maybe in different forms. You can see a big difference from what had been convened by the Soviet Communist Party before 1990, where unity had to be demonstrated. Now there is really a democratic, broad spectrum of opinion."

In the Czech media and a wide section of the Czech public there would be a great suspicion of a conference like this, that it's the old guard trying to put the clock back.

"I would not even say that this view is prevailing here. There are individual opinions like that, but the prevailing majority looks to the future."

And in what sense do you mean that?

"Well, some modern form of socialism, which has learned from the previous form of Soviet-shaped socialism or communism. So it will, according to Marx, shape a new, more democratic form of socialism."

Unlike many communist or formerly communist parties in Central and Eastern Europe, the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia has chosen to keep the word "communist" in its name. Is it not distancing itself in a way from the process of reform?

"We cannot distance ourselves from everything which came before 1990. For example - full employment, social and health care and education for free. They were also big values which were even recognised in the West. But of course we distance ourselves from the negative phenomena of that era, like the political processes and even executions of political opponents."

But some would say that the very principle of the "class war" created fertile ground for that kind of heavy hand of oppression.

"You cannot turn history back. If the Catholic Church were to gain full power now, it would certainly not go back to the Inquisition, crusades or burning witches. It is the same with socialism. It will be shaped differently than in the 50s or 70s. In the 21st century it will be based on full respecting of human rights and democracy."