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100%

Pehr M.

Střed. Časopis pro mezioborová studia Střední Evropy 19. a 20. století. / Centre. Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies of Central Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries.

2009

vol. 1

issue 1

95-109

The end of the World War II and the reinstallation of Czechoslovakia brought many changes, which influenced the development of suffrage. In general, these changes resulted in more or less restrictions of suffrage (apart from lowering the age limit for acquiring active and passive suffrage). One of such important changes were so called white ballots, this study deals with. White ballots were used only during the 1946 and 1948 elections. By casting such a white ballot, voters had the opportunity to vote for nobody and nothing. Their introduction was interpreted as a possibility to protest legally, freely and democratically against the new situation in the state. In reality, however, their introduction meant a restriction of suffrage, with the main political agents of the Third Czechoslovak Republic trying to estimate, how many inhabitants did not agree with the new political setting. White ballots played even a more important role during the 1948 elections, which were perceived as a confirmation of the communist February takeover. The voters had the opportunity to vote either for a singular ballot of the popular front or to cast a white ballot. A strong campaigning against the opportunity to cast a white ballot was launched by the communist and was accompanied with psychological and occasionally even physical intimidation. Despite of this, approximately 10 per cent of the population took advantage of the opportunity and did cast a white ballot. It was the single opportunity to present personal opinions at the beginning of the communist totalitarian regime.

Streikbewegung in Tschechoslowakei in den Jahren 1945–1948

88%

Janák D.

Central European Papers

2018

vol. 6

issue 1

59-86

The contribution summarizes the first findings of the research into labour strike movement in Czechoslovakia between 1945 and 1948 which has been undertaken as part of the Czech Grant Agency project “Industrial Workers in the Czech Lands between 1938 and 1948”. During the research in the All-Union Archive of the Czech-Moravian Confederation of Trade Unions in Prague, the Archive of Security Services and in other archives, data on 262 strikes were gathered – nearly twice the number of hitherto known strikes in the years 1946–1948 in Czechoslovakia. Based on the analysis of strikes in Czech industry, six stages of the labour strike movement may be found within the observed period. First of them, lasting from May 1945 to June 1946, only brought a minimum number of mostly political strikes which represented the prototypes of various forms of political coercion used by the “left-wing cartel” of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and of the Revolutionary Trade Union Movement. After a short break in the summer of 1946, the intensity of political strikes from October 1946 to March 1947 increased again in the context of the so-called battle over seized property and culminated in the well-known Varnsdorf strike. Yet, nearly three-fifths of conflicts at this stage consisted of strikes for social or wage demands which were in many cases comparable by their scope with the political strikes or strikes for a variety of personal or organizational changes. After a further decline in the intensity of strikes in the spring of 1947, then, the period from the beginning of the summer of 1947 to January 1948 was dominated by a wave of spontaneous protest strikes against the introduction of new performance standards and piecework pay. The post-February defensive worker strikes against the lowering of wages and poor supply stopped for a transitional period. However, in the summer of 1948, they broke out in dozens of factories again. The majority of them only lasted for a few hours, with the exception of the three-day strike in Silesian cotton plants in Frýdek which reached beyond the boundary of a single plant and threatened with calling solidarity strikes in heavy industry in the Ostrava region. The State Security (StB) did not yet intervene during their liquidation, but they continuously monitored them and, as soon as the threat of a strike had passed, they did not hesitate to take hard measures against the leading figures.

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1 Central European Papers

1 Střed. Časopis pro mezioborová studia Střední Evropy 19. a 20. století. / Centre. Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies of Central Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries.

1 2018

1 2009

1 Janák D.

1 Pehr M.

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Streikbewegung in Tschechoslowakei in den Jahren 1945–1948