In Sunday’s general elections in Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) came second for the first time since World War II. Its electoral success is part of a Europe-wide trend of far-right resurgence that has worried many. As a university lecturer, I have observed that as a reaction to this phenomenon, many young people are becoming interested in far-left ideologies, such as communism. Students study Karl Marx as a key political thinker and often admire the old ideas of Marxism and the writings of other communist ideologues for their critique of class relations and capitalism.

As young people engage with these ideologies, it is important for them to be aware that they did not remain just theories. Communism was applied as a political ideology of the Marxist-Leninist parties in dozens of countries in Europe and Asia, which resulted in repressive totalitarian regimes.

The communist regime in my country, Czechia, which in the 1940s was part of an entity called Czechoslovakia, has left a horrific legacy. Today, on the 77th anniversary of the election that brought the communists to power in Prague, I cannot help but think about how the regime scarred the lives of many families, including my own.

I was born soon after the 1989 Velvet Revolution and grew up hearing about what it was like to live under communism for Czechoslovaks. It was a bleak and oppressive world in which the nationalisation of the means of production in reality meant stealing factories and homes from wealthier citizens so that the state could turn them into farmhouses or residences for top communist state officials. The concepts of fair elections and freedom of speech were mere dreams.

In that world, individuals’ opportunities to study, travel, or secure good jobs were often determined by their “unblemished political profile” rather than their abilities. As a result, it was common to find qualified people who disagreed with the regime working in poorly paid and stigmatised jobs, while active members of the Communist Party, despite poor academic performance or lack of experience, occupied top positions. “This all became normal for us. No one believed the totalitarian regime would fall,” my mother told me recently.

Those who disagreed with or confronted the regime paid a heavy price. There are many accounts in academia and the media........

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