Before the fall of communism, Vaclav Sloup trained the soldiers who caught thousands trying to flee across Czechoslovakia's fortified border to West Germany.
Today, he helps power a Czech communist party that has surged to second place in polls, tapping anger over poverty and graft. But rivals' rejection of any alliance with a party they see tainted by trappings of the Cold War era threatens to hamper future formation of governments able to manage a frail economy.
When communism collapsed in 1989, the once-dominant party was slow to yield up the reformist wing that emerged in other east European countries. While statues of Lenin have vanished, party lawmakers still greet one another with "comrade" and maintain hardline foreign policy views such as leaving NATO.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/01/us-czech-communists-idUSBRE9200F220130301 
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