Czech communists cited unreformed western parties to justify retaining their name

Evidence

Nor was the question of the party’s name settled at the Extraordinary Congress. By February 1990, a full-blown crisis erupted within the party. Although the name was changed from the “Communist Party of Czechoslovakia” to the “Communist Party of the Czech Lands and Moravia” in March 1990, this clearly did not satisfy party reformists. On the one hand, reformers in the parliamentary club argued that the name must change to reflect the dramatic collapse of the discredited communist system. On the other, the central party leadership argued that, “KSCˇ M is, was, and will be, the communist party of Czechoslovakia. We will not take on a different name, and 95% of members agree with us.” Part of the argument for preserving the name was that it would satisfy the members. The other justification was that the “biggest and strongest European parties, the French, Italian, Portuguese, have retained their communist names.” — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 489

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader question about whether parties can keep an unreformed identity when the original threat/regime that defined them vanished in 1989 — the prestige argument borrows legitimacy from still-existing Western communist parties rather than finding a new purpose. — connects to: Even extreme discreditation did not force the Czech party to reform — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 446; Czech communists preserved old leaders despite claiming reformist transformation — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 460