What exactly makes this a cliche? Is it because a lot of people who experienced communism keep saying it? I wonder why that may be.

This isn't a game. This is reporting personal experience. If you have a better experience with communism - lucky you. A lot of people here also had a positive one. Mostly these were communist party officials. Or people who secretly told the authorities about their neighbor's "subversive" and "anti-regime" activities.

I'd like discourage anybody from trying to use communism as a system in their country. It may seem like a good idea, but it isn't.

No, again, the original comment:

The majority of people that lived in the Soviet Union want it back.

Additionally, over 90% of Chinese citizens support their system.

The majority of people who lived in the USSR think it was a better system than today. The vast majority of the PRC is happy with their system. Personal anecdotes does not trump actual facts and statistics.

Taking China’s pulse 

Ash Center research team unveils findings from long-term public opinion survey.

^{Dan Harsha (Harvard Gazette)}

Yes sorry about that. I replied on my own comment instead of yours, so I wanted to delete that reply, but deleted the parent comment instead by accident. So I had to repost it and then move the comment reply under your reply again. That was a mess 😀

Other states may have different experiences no doubt. But I will not comment on those because I don't know the background there. I will leave that to residents of those states if you don't mind. I am interested in your own real life experience with communism especially as you go through a lot of trouble to promote the system.

Why I am commenting here is that your statistics just happen to contain a set of data which I do know a lot about and it is used to "prove" a point it can't prove.

The point it tries to prove is that "The majority of people that lived in the Soviet Union want it back." (this is literary the title of your article). However any Czech statistic can't be used to prove this as Czech Republic (or Czechoslovakia back then), was never a part of the USSR. The USSR just occupied our state with its army.

The article linked to that statistic and its poll is from 2011 and talks about the popularity of the past communist regime. I find the results not representative of reality and try to contest them by presenting election results.

Additionally to that I now actually went through the trouble to find a more recent statistic on the subject. It is from 2022. You'll need to auto-translate it: seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/domaci-…

52% of respondents say they are better off than in the past regime vs 24% who say the opposite.

There is an interesting breakdown of the statistics as well (differentiating respondents by sex, occupation, education etc) too if you are interested.

Based on the steady decline of the number of votes for the communist party in the past 35 years and the difference between your statistic from 2011 and the one above from 2022 I believe it is not incorrect to consider the following statement true:

"A majority of Czech citizens do not want the communist regime to return to their country."

Máme se lépe než před rokem 1989? Polovina lidí o tom není přesvědčená

Jen necelá polovina lidí věří, že by se dnes společnost dokázala postavit totalitě, ukazuje průzkum, který zkoumal postoje Čechů ke svobodě.

^{Vojtěch Gavriněv (Seznam Zprávy)}

Several things are important to acknowlegde here, thanks for providing a new study.

First, there is a stark gender divide:

Most men (62.2%) say yes. But among women, only 44.1% chose the positive answer. Nearly a third of women (30.2%) even think that society is worse off than before the revolution. The other 25.7% of women do not lean either side.

That's not a very good indication for the poll. It seems the Czech Republic is now far more socially regressive, and far harsher towards those without privledge.

Second, there is further proof that the privledged in society have benefited more, while the underprivledged have been held back:

The opinion on whether society was better or worse under socialism is clearly related to the education of respondents. The more schools they have, the better they perceive the post-November development. Two-thirds (65.3%) of undergraduates think that society is better off than before 1989, while 38.8% of people with an apprenticeship certificate (more precisely with a high school education without a high school diploma) think the opposite.

The poll is interesting, in that it reveals that the Czech Republic is now more striated. Not only has time passed, allowing the economy to grow a decent bit and improve from the utter disaster that was the 90s period, but those privledged in society have benefited more while those underprivledged have been thrown under the bus.

Ultimately, this new information reframes our analysis, and if anything leads to pro-communist conclusions. Further still, the arguments for socialism vs capitalism still hold, even if the Czech Republic is currently in a more reactionary phase of its existence.

I too find the gender rift in the study really surprising. I wouldn't immediately draw the conclusion from it that Czech Republic has become more socially regressive than in the past. My feeling is the opposite when it comes to how many women I see in managerial, political etc roles. Although there is still a lot of improvement to be made. Not to rely solely on my feelings i did pull up the newest Gender Gap index which is available here: reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_G…

The index is calculated for individual countries which enables to compare the Czech Republic to China for example. I did this out of curiosity and funnily enough - we have the same exact index down to the decimal. So both china and Czech Republic have a lot of progress to do. The entire study is pretty detailed and allow for comparison in various sectors such as income, education, health etc. One interesting aspect I did notice in the European region is that eastern European (read ex-communist) countries, tend to have a lower index. But enough about gender parity.

The educational aspect of popularity of the communist regime you are mentioning could be explained by a lot of factors. From a blunt "Only uneducated people think communism is a god idea." to a more economical approach such as "People with lower incomes tend to prefer regimes that re-distribute wealth in a significant way". That seems logical and doesn't surprise me at all.

But we really don't throw people under the bus. There are differences in income, privilege, education, etc. The society isn't homogenous and never will be. But these differences aren't extreme compared to countries with "true" capitalism.

What we have here probably isn't the "capitalism" you have in mind. It is a democracy with a mostly free-market, with some regulations and checks, some subsidies, somewhat progressive taxation, free healthcare and education for everyone. There is a decent social security "net" as we call it too. It's actually not bad at all.

As you mention capitalism I would like to declare that I in no means want to defend unchecked capitalism such as we see it in the US. I believe this extreme example is the reason why many people tend to find communism - the other extreme - so attractive. Turns out moderation is key, who would have thought?

Interestingly about the PRC, even though the WEF is a right-wing, pro-imperialist org, it still acknowledges that China is rapidly improving:

China, one of the world’s most populous countries,
improves gender parity by +0.2 points since the
last edition of the report, with a 2025 score of 68.6%
and climbs three ranks since last year to 103rd rank.
China has been on a positive trajectory for the past
three editions, and on course to approach its highest
score to date (69.1%, 2013). This shift results from
parity increases in Political Empowerment (+1.2 points)
and Health and Survival (+0.7 points) and is achieved
despite a slight reduction in economic parity (-1.2
points). In Economic Participation and Opportunity,
while income parity rises from 64.2% to 63.9%, it
is not sufficient to counter the drop in wage parity,
of –0.3 percentage points. However, compared to
2006 China has advanced economic parity by an
overall +10.5 percentage points. In Educational
Attainment, parity ratios are maintained with the
exception of literacy rates, which show the score
modestly improved from 96.6% to 96.9% despite
a minimal but overall reduction in values. China’s
improved sex ratio at birth has a significant effect on
its Health and Parity subindex performance, raising
the score from 94.0% to 94.7%. Unlike a large share
of economies this year, China’s healthy life expectancy
remains virtually unchanged. Political parity improves
as female ministerial representation nearly doubles
in 2025, from 4.7% to 8.3%, and boosts the overall
subindex score from 12.3% to 13.5%.

In general, the introduction of capitalism into Eastern-Europe after the dissolution of the USSR was disastrous for equality, so the data checks out there.

As far as education is concerned, being more educated puts one into a more privledged subsection of society, without actually making them "smarter." Those with privledge tend to support the system, even if it isn't as scientifically logical. The fact that less-privledged people prefer more equitable economic formations is indeed natural, I agree with you on that.

As for "true" capitalism, there's no such thing. Capitalism is capitalism, either the large firms and key industries are public, or they are private. There's no such thing as a "checked" capitalism, the system will always adapt to suit its class structure. The reason socialism is appealing is because it's equitable, scientific, and resolves the contradictions and inherent flaws in capitalism. It isn't simply another "extreme," it's shifting from a privately driven economy to a publicly driven economy. There is no "middle ground" in class dynamics, either the bourgeoisie are in charge, or the proletariat is, and in the Czech Republic that class is absolutely the bourgeoisie. It isn't democratic except for the privledged few, the state bans communism and tries to root out its influence.

Czech President Petr Pavel signs law criminalising communist propaganda

The changes come following calls from some Czech institutions, including the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, to correct what they said was an imbalance in the legal system.

^{Gavin Blackburn (Euronews.com)}

Of course there is a middle ground. I just posted it as a reply in one of the other comments. This polar view of either or is utter nonsense. It doesn't matter how you change the rules of the system. Being it "capitalism" or "communism" intelligent people will always find ways to navigate thourgh the current mode (whatever it is)l to their advantage - which in the long run will result in an un-equal society. The goal is to set the rules in a way that benefits as many people as possible. You think that in the past regime there weren't any "privileged" individuals? Now people usually say "yes but his family is rich, so he has an advantage". Back then it used to be "yes, but his cousin is the regional secretary of XYZ so of course he won that competition".

Contrary to what you say the current regime here is democratic not just for a privileged few. Everyone can vote.

Although I am not happy about the law you mention, it doesn't ban communism as you say. It just added communism on the list of regimes that threaten human rights and should not be promoted. Which I kind of get given the number of... executions and political prisoners we used to have here a few decades ago.

It isn't perfect what we have, but it is better than it was ten years ago. And that in turn was better than what we had 20 years ago. And that in turn was better... (you get it by now).

I disagree with your erasure of class dynamics as they relate to the state. The class that is in control of the state is the class that controls the large firms and key industries, the economic base of society. There isn't a middle ground, this is a class war, and the one that has supremacy weilds it in their favor and cements it.

Further, the disparity in capitalism is leagues beyond socialism. In the USSR, the difference between the top and the bottom was around 5-10 times, on average. In capitalist countries, that figures in the hundreds to thousands range, to far, far more than that even. These are not equivalent in any way. Privledged individuals exist in socialism, to be sure, but the sheer scale of privledge pales in comparison to capitalism.

Further, everyone being capable of voting makes no analysis of the media, the state, how candidates are selected before coming to the election table, what parties are allowed and which are financially backed by the capitalists, and like I showed, the state is taking an active role in suppressing socialism. This is not democracy for the people, this is bourgeois democracy, and it extends from bourgeois control of the economic base of society.

no i did not, but this is your usual washing away of the actual critique of your support for authoritarianism.

we've already done this dance, but thanks for proving the point for the new onlookers.

All states are authoritarian, I support the proletariat being in control of that authority, rather than the bourgeoisie. I don't "support authoritarianism" any more or less than the vast majority of the communist movement, because use of authority isn't really something that works on a linear scale. States wield their authority to represent whichever class controls them, and the extent that authority takes depends on the conditions the state finds itself in.

Nazi Germany, for example, has roughly the same mode of production as modern Germany. The difference in use of authority is because the German economy is not in the same conditions of crisis that existed in the 1930s and 1940s. The bourgeoisie was in control the whole time, that never changed, what did change was the decay of conditions leading to a need for the bourgeoisie to violently assert its control. Now, violent crackdowns on pro-Palestinian protestors is done by the state, because the bourgoeisie needs Israel to continue existing and protecting imperialist super-profits. They didn't just decide to crackdown for fun, but because they needed to.

Rather than the bourgeoisie being in control, I support the proletariat. This is bog-standard communism, and I cannot imagine you'll find any communists that want the bourgeoisie to remain in control.

Thanks for proving my points to the onlookers.

thankfully, i know plenty of Communists in reality that aren't terminally online tankies, or i'd completely give up on Socialism.

Tankie (noun): a person who ties themselves in knots so they can feel good about supporting authoritarian despots while wearing a red scarf.