No, I'm not going to post a lecture on honesty, nor any other virtue of a noble gentleman.

I came across a very interesting chart:

And with all due respect to the ideas of socialism and welfare state that we all enjoy as members of the Western civilization, I'd like to point out, that in 1938 Czechoslovakia was at the same economical level as Austria and Finland (and e.g. better than Italy). What followed was the 1938-1945 Nazi rule - and despite that we were the first country from the above mentioned states where the industry overcame the agriculture in 1940 (when there was no Czechoslovakia at all but a small protectorate under the Nazi rule).

Then came more than 40 years (1948-1989) of the communist experiments and "building of socialism" (which we solemnly declared reaching in 1960) and "marching to the communism". Because of these "happy years" of the socialist and communist rule Czechoslovakia managed to almost double its economical performance in 50 years! Isn't it great?

I know that between the A (1938) and B (1990), there are many variables that interfered and that from this one chart one should not jump to any fast conclusions (as "socialism sucks and should be erased from the surface of the Earth" ). But all of you who are supporters of socialism and socialist ideas (and I hope you're not offended by this chart or blog), be honest and tell me, how my country benefited from those 40 years of attempting at reaching socialism (communism).

It's hard to do "ifs" but every now and then when I see some benchmarking chart of the economical level of various countries or their development I always have to think "what if the Americans didn't stop where they agreed with the Soviets and reached Prague one day before them (as they would have if...)? What if we had become some central European version of Finland or Austria?

This is my Spring Anthology. "Vote the communists? I'd never do that."