Ivo Klouda

* 1938

Witnesses of local events connected to WWII, Svědci lokálních událostí z éry komunismu
1944 - 1945 - The liberation of Czechoslovakia, 25. 2. 1948 - Communist coup d‘état in ČSR, 20. 11. – 3. 12. 1952 – Rudolf Slánský’s trial, 14. 3. 1953 – Klement Gottwald’s death, March 5th, 1953 - Death of Josif V. Stalin, 30. 5. 1953 – 3. 6. 1953 – The monetary reform and subsequent public upheaval, 5. 1. - 21. 8. 1968 - The Prague Spring, 21. 8. 1968 - Invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops, 16. 1. 1969 – Jan Palach´s self-immolation , 17. 11. - 29. 12. 1989 - The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia
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    We believed in socialism with a human face

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    duration: 02:06
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    "I need to be frank. As the Communist Party member, I did have some advantages. I never tried to use them on purpose but for example, I could go to college, unlike others. I always got a higher level jobs, never any subordinate position. Back then, I felt that the Party is supporting me, that in case anything bad happened, they would stand at my side. Not only at my side, at the side of every party member. And then it was all entirely different. They just poured it in us under pressure since childhood. You mus realise that as a child, I kept hearing that the Soviet Union is our moder, that they have the best milkmaids, the best animal breeders, the best of everything, that’s it. And we believed it because the one single saviour from that evil, those Germans, that fascism, was the Soviet Union. We believed it until our last breath. Only when I had the chance to compare what we have with the life in the West, I understood it. I understood what was going on and started to doubt. I started pondering whether it’s all true. But still, I was convinced that the Russians wouldn’t let us go."

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    I felt bad about having believed such a thing

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    "I felt bad about it, really bad, that I could have believed something like that. Abominations, that's not enough. There's no right word for it. I came to a conclusion that fascism and communism have a lot in common. That ideology, that pressure exerted on people, everything.... Unfortunately, I stopped believing it too late. Or fortunately. I don't know."

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    Since I had been a child, I believed that Communism was the right thing

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    “My father was a communist. During the WWII, he helped the resistance fighters. We did not talk about it at home, though. Parents taught us, me and my brother, that we were liberated by the Soviet union and that it is our example. An ideal towards which the whole humankind is aiming. I believed it since I had been a child. Our dad was an excellent draughtsman as well. He taught mathematics and arts and he often talked with me about art. He was a Scout as well, I became one later and then my brother too. Dad taught us to appreciate the nature. I joined the Cubs but I did not get any further because Commies engulfed the Scouts to their new youth organisation, the Pionýr. But since my childhood, I was confident that what is here is right and it is the way it should be. That the Soviet Union is indeed our model. Only later on, I opened my eyes.”

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    Brno, 25.06.2020

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I didn’t feel good about having believed such a thing.

Ivo Klouda in 2020.
Ivo Klouda in 2020.
photo: studio
photo: studio
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Ivo Klouda was born on the 20th January 1938 in Uherský Ostroh. He grew in the family of a teacher and Communist anti-Nazi resistance fighter. As a child, he witnessed fighting related to the liberation of Southern Moravia by the Red Army. Since his childhood, he was raised in belief that the Soviet Union had liberated us from fascism. He himself believed it for years and joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Gradually, he started to doubt whether the Communist propaganda is telling the truth. He noticed contradictions between those claims and his experience from his travels abroad where he was able to travel with the Radio Orchestra of Folk Instruments of Brno (BROLN). He was a fan of the liberation process going on in the 1960’s and the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968 that followed deeply disappointed him. He passed the normalisation background checks and he could remain a Party member. He says that he believed it was possible to fulfill the idea of communism but at the same time, he was aware of the advantages that the Party membership brought. For some time, she worked in the personal department where he was in charge of personal dossiers, he however claims to have refused the offer to cooperate with the State Security. Nowadays, he claims that communism is as perverted an ideology as nazism.

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