Soviets Took Over Prague Some Time Ago
By SLVCHSTNDVRYN DWV
Very Important Czech Historian

Apparently, there was this whole different system of government in the Czech Republic for almost half a century. In 1945 a big war between Germany and every other country ended, and the United States of America (bless her heart) liberated a bunch of Czechoslovakia but stopped short of freeing Prague because it, the USA, was afraid of pissing off Stalin (and who wouldn’t be, really, I mean if anyone ever woke up on the wrong side of the bed, it was that guy). The American general, Patton, was ordered to stand down. “Stand down,” said the USA through a bullhorn. “Stand down, General Patton.” He started to march resolutely toward Prague, determined not to let the Soviets terrorize all of Eastern Europe for 40 years.

“I’ll be damned if I’m going to let the Soviets terrorize all of Eastern Europe for 40 yea—” Patton said, whereupon the USA shot him in the head and kicked him out of the army in a posthumous court-martial.

So then the Red Army of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics entered the Czechoslovak capital as liberator. By this time the Czechs and Slovaks were sick of all the liberating, because they had already been liberated from the Hapsburgs in 1918 and then in 1939 Hitler liberated them from having universities or sovereignty, so by 1945 they were like, “We’ll skip the liberation.” Luckily, the Soviets were only trying to help; they got rid of the Nazis and went back to whatever godforsaken country they were from. But by that time they had clued Czechoslovakia in to the hip new thing out east, Communism, a sort of government where everyone was equal, especially the working class. Finally, people who actually did something for a living (as opposed to, for example, college students writing newspaper columns from cushy attic rooms with skylights in Prague) were rewarded for all their hard work, primarily by not getting paid. Or that’s how it would have turned out if people weren’t so damned greedy, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

In 1948 (which—wait for it—is an anagram of 1984!!! like the book about totalitarianism!!!), the Communists finished taking power in Czechoslovakia (which has had roughly 17 names in the past century, all big on syllables) and renamed it the Czechoslovak Soviet Socialist Republic. To celebrate the new dawn of socialism, they promptly arrested 200,000 people who were not good Communists and expelled them from the country, which in its hard-to-place resemblance to Nazi practice may offer a clue about why no one had been thrilled by the liberation.

After they had arrested the people who pissed them off, the Communists set about forming a government consisting of whomever was left. A lot of the positions they filled were essentially redundant bureaucracy posts, which meant that when they arbitrarily dragged someone away into the night and left his wife sitting in the corner smoking cigarettes and weeping for their innocent child who would never have a father (we read a story about it in class), no one really noticed at work the next day.

Guy A: Hey Comrade, welcome to your new job at the Ministry of Evil. Where’s Comrade Margolius?

Intern: I am Comrade Margolius, return to your work.

Guy A: Who is Comrade Margolius and why are you distracting me from my work? Make coffee or Xerox your ass, I don’t care.

By this time the Soviet Union had installed advisors around the Czechoslovak president to dictate policy from Stalin. These advisers stayed in place several years after Stalin was dead, during which time the Czechs constructed the largest statue of Stalin in the world. When it turned out that Stalin not only was dead but had been a ruthless murderer of millions, it (this part is completely true) took them two years of sustained, frustrated effort to blow up the statue, even though they had planned to do it overnight so no one would notice, both because it would be evidence of an embarrassing policy reversal and because Praguers had been effectively required to volunteer their Saturdays to the construction of the monument, and no one likes to see the product of their Saturdays dynamited. As it turned out, that is precisely what they saw. For two years.

Followed by twenty. (Somewhere in the early part of that was a brief glint of hope in the form of a few powerful politicians’ admitting that socialism was basically a flop; but this admission prompted the Soviets to commence a full air and land occupation of the CSSR that lasted two decades, rendering the flop question irrelevant.) In November 1989, a bunch of students were feeling bored and, just for the hell of it, decided to make another go of convincing the government to take a no-fault retreat and allow democratic elections. At this point, history hiccuped.

“You’ve got a point,” said the government.

By 1991 Czechoslovakia had elected new leaders. Then the Czechs and Slovaks realized they were divided on a few things and decided to liberate themselves from each other, which they did, leaving the Czech Republic to sort things out on its own. The United States helped, mostly by sending tens of thousands of expatriates to live in Prague, where everything eventually got translated into English, but then the Americans had to move back to their parents’ basements because a Republican president got installed and revived such conservative projects as euthanizing the economy, curbing human rights and inciting global hatred.

The Czechs, having just emerged from their own bout with totalitarianism, took their new friends back to the airport.

“Well,” they said, with genuine pity. “It sucks that the tables have turned. We’re a democracy now, and you guys are going back to a police state.”

“Yeah, that sucks,” said the Americans.

“See you later, then,” the Czechs said.

“OK. See ya,” said the Americans. You couldn’t blame them if they looked a little bummed getting on the plane.