In the evenings or weekends, when we could not go out of the army barracks area or we were not assigned to other army duties, Honza and another soldier, Risa, very often spent time in the communication warehouse I was responsible for. There was a good coal stove, which kept us warm, there were radios so we could listen to music or sometimes Radio Free Europe news. We had a good time, shutting ourselves off from the army surroundings, having privacy. Sometimes we were discussing politics and expressing opinions about the communist system.
Risa and I had very different experiences than Kotva. For example, I was not allowed to go to university, because of my father. Risa also had some undesirable family background, which limited his opportunities and made life for his family difficult. Kotva had no such background issues and was completely sold on the communist teaching, which was reinforced in the university DAMU he attended. He tried to debate with us to prove that we were wrong and that the communist system was good and fair. But we were giving him real life arguments about the unfairness of the system, which he could not explain based on his beliefs. He was really distressed about it and it reached a point that he told us that he went to the political officer and asked him to help Honza to explain to us where we are wrong.
The political officer scheduled an extra 2-hour political schooling for the whole communication group, specifically to cover the items Kotva presented to him. In the classroom, the political officer tried to prompt us to tell what we were telling Kotva in private. Risa or I was not volunteering, so Kotva took it upon himself to tell the class what bothered him about our views. The first hour, the political officer spent time to explain to everyone how and why we were wrong and Kotva was right. No one presented any opposing opinions. Than we had a 10 minute break and we went out to the corridor for a smoke. I was standing there with Risa, looking at each other, and Kotva came to us and told us that he was glad that the political officer explained everything so well and asked us if we now see the light. I was telling him the instances where the political officer was wrong and why Honza was not correct. After a few minutes of heated discussion, I turned my head and there was the political officer standing right behind me, listening to every word I said. I stopped, thinking that I screwed up and now I was in big trouble.
The political officer told me that he never heard anything like what I was telling Kotva and asked, why I did not discuss it in front of the class when he was prompting us for questions. I told him that it does not matter what I would say, since he could not admit that I was right, even if he would think that, because he is a political officer and his job is to explain everything according to the communist teaching. So the discussion would be useless. Fortunately, at that time the communist directive was to allow discussion critical to the communist regime and this particular political officer really believed in the communist theory and also the current communist party directive.
The next hour in the classroom was very lively, since there was no longer any advantage in being quiet. At the end, I was giving him a way out so he felt that he taught us something. For example, one of the question he gave us was what do we think about who ended up winning the Cuban crisis. When no one volunteered any answer, he said that we can express any opinion, that even in their communist party group meeting, the officers could not agree who actually won. So, I told him that I cannot understand how they could have many different opinions, when it is crystal clear. I told him, of course USA wanted to oust Castro and take over Cuba and Soviet Union wanted to preserve Castro and communist Cuba and the missiles in Cuba were there only to achieve the goal. The result was communist Cuba prevailed, so it is clear that Soviet Union won and USA lost. All soldiers in our group had a hard time keeping a serious face, since they knew me, but the political officer was very happy with my answer, thinking that I was sincere. There were some other instances of such discussions and I had to be very careful, how far I pushed my opinions and at which point it would be too dangerous to push it any further.
After this experience, Risa and I were more careful not to push Kotva too far in our future discussions. We remained good friends, since we thought that Kotva was just sincerely depressed because he could not explain to us the “truth” of the communist ideology as he saw it. And considering everything, there was no harm done.