The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (Czech: Komunistická strana Čech a Moravy) is a communist party in the Czech Republic. It has a membership of 107,813 and is a member party of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left bloc in the European Parliament.

It was formed in 1989 by the Extraordinary Congress of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia which decided to create a party for the territories of Bohemia and Moravia, the areas that were to become the Czech Republic. Previously it had followed the pattern of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, where there were distinct 'national' parties for regions inhabited by culturally and linguisitically distinct national minorities, but not for the dominant nationality.

In 1990 the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia became a federation of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia and the Communist Party of Slovakia. Later, the Communist Party of Slovakia changed its name to the Party of the Democratic Left and the federation broke up in 1992.

After the party's second congress in 1992, several groups split away. The Party of the Democratic Left and The Party of the Left Bloc were the most important ones, and they eventually merged into the Party of Democratic Socialism . This party does some joint work with the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia.

Another split was the formation of the Party of Czechoslovak Communists (later renamed the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia ). However, the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia refuses to work with this group, which it considers to be "hardline".

In June 2002, the CPBM received 18.5% of the vote for the Czech Republic's Chamber of Deputies. This made them the third largest party in Parliament, with 41 deputies.

In June 2004 the party came in second place in the European Parliament election in the Czech republic, winning 6 of 24 seats.

External link

• CPBM web site in English