Columnist
While watching the storming of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump on Jan 6. 2021, on TV, I had a vivid flashback on the Communist coup d’etat in Prague, Czechoslovakia. In late February 1948, the Communist party of Czechoslovakia, with Soviet backing, performed a coup d’etat, taking control of the government of the country. This was the onset of four decades of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia and the start of the Cold War. I was there, witnessed and reported on every aspect of the Communist takeover of the country. Following World War II, the Communist party of Czechoslovakia had a favorable reputation in the country. Its wartime record was clean, it cooperated with non-Communist parties and its identification with the Soviet Union, the country’s main liberator from the Nazis, was advantageous.