However, would I say the same thing if they killed a state railroad employee to gain access to a building or a train? I'm not so sure.
Does the end justify the means? If so, when? Who decides?
Considering the communists were stealing, plundering, imprisoning and killing thousands, yeah I’d say they were justified.
The passage below is telling. People do like to think that their individual cowardice is the only sane approach when usually things like diplomacy are just a slow bleed to war.
Peace and freedom are purchased with the blood of brave men.
That is the rule of history and we in our more genteel times may have become ambivalent and questioning what our very instincts tell us is right and the only course of action acceptable to any man who does not wish to be a slave.
The primary difference and what justifies the cause of the the courageous men in this case who dared fight against a great evil is that they were fighting against a great evil that only offered them servitude, hunger, and ultimately death. They should scream back to those who scream “Murderer!” “Coward Shut Up!”.
“We fought to free this country from Communism, and people are crying for six dead men,” Mr. Paumer said. “But these people were casualties of war, and I have no mercy for them. We, the real democrats, are crying for those who were terrorized by the Communists for 40 years.”
Historians and sociologists said the decision to honor the men also tapped into deep-seated national misgivings about Czech passivity during decades of Communism.
“People here cannot forgive Paumer and the Masin brothers, because they showed that you could fight against Communism and survive and win,” said Petr Placak, a liberal commentator. “Most Czechs believe you had to suffer quietly and wait for better times, so it is far easier to call them killers than to accept responsibility for our own impotence.” “
At the time the Czech Party was very Stalinist and
the purge of the first generation Czech Communists
party apparat was taking place. Secret police were
knocking on doors in the night and confessions were
wrung from unfortunates by torture (real torture, not
“waterboarding” or panties around the head. They used
glass tubes up the urethra, then clubs).
When the force of the state is exhibited in such a
nakedly agressive way, that is all that is left to
those who would resist. The MLK/Ghandi civilly disobediant
way would have been a waste of blood. That is ultimately why
we have the second amendment; in case the state ceases to
be responsive to the people..