Studie pojednává na třech úrovních (celostátní, regionální a jedné školní třídy) o tom, jak politické spory v poválečném Československu pronikaly do života studentů středních škol. Podle autora podstatná část veřejně aktivních středoškoláků odmítala být v letech 1946–1948 součástí jednotného Svazu české mládeže, úzce spolupracujícího s Komunistickou stranou Československa, a usilovala o vytvoření samostatného Svazu středoškolského studentstva. Přes zřetelnou podporu ze strany Československé strany národněsocialistické a Československé strany lidové byly však pokusy o legalizaci nového svazu středoškoláků až do února 1948 neúspěšné. V západočeském regionu byly navíc emancipační projevy středoškolských organizací posilovány převládajícími sympatiemi studentů k západní kultuře a široce rozšířenou úctou k americké armádě, která zdejší území osvobodila na konci druhé světové války. V Plzni proto vznikla již na přelomu let 1945 a 1946 nezávislá Krajská středoškolská rada, která posléze začala vydávat vlastní prozápadně orientovaný časopis Studentský hlasatel, distribuovaný i do dalších regionů. Po únoru 1948 plzeňští středoškoláci vyvolali několik protestních demonstrací a inklinovali k zakládání „odbojových“ organizací přímo na školách. Na příkladu jedné „ilegální“ skupiny vytvořené na obchodní akademii v Plzni studie konkrétně ukazuje, jakým způsobem se někdejší příznivci Svazu české mládeže přetvářeli v nástroje poúnorové „očisty“ škol a dřívější odpůrci svazu naopak v protagonisty studentských „odbojových“ organizací i jaká naivita, dilemata a rizika provázely občas toto tříbení. and At three levels (state-wide, regional, and the class of one school) this article examines how political disputes in post-Second World War Czechoslovakia entered the lives of secondary-school students. According to the author, a substantial number of publicly active secondary-school students in 1946–48 refused to be part of the united Czech Youth Organization (Svaz české mládeže), which worked closely with the Czechoslovak Communist Party (CPCz), and sought instead to establish a separate Organization of Secondary-school Students (Svaz středoškolského studentstva). Despite clear support from the Czechoslovak National Social Party and the Czechoslovak Populist Party, the attempts to legalize the new association of secondary-school students before the Communist takeover in late February 1948 were unsuccessful. In the region of west Bohemia, moreover, the attempts at emancipation of secondary-school organizations were intensified by students’ sympathies for west European and American culture and by their widespread respect for the US Army, which had liberated west Bohemia towards the end of the Second World War. In Pilsen therefore an independent Regional Secondary-school Council (Krajská středoškolská rada) had emerged already in late 1945 and early 1946. It eventually began to publish its own pro-Western periodical, Studentský hlasatel (The Students’ Herald), which was distributed to other regions as well. After the Communist takeover, Pilsen secondary-school students clamoured for several protest demonstrations and tended to favour the establishment of ‘resistance’ organizations right at their schools. Using the example of one ‘underground’ group formed at a Pilsen business academy, the article demonstrates the way in which erstwhile adherents of the Czech Youth Organization became an instrument for the post-takeover ‘purges’ of schools, and shows how former opponents of the organization, by contrast, became joined student ‘resistance’ organizations and also how naivety, dilemmas, and risks sometimes accompanied this crystallization.
Using results of extensive research in central and company archives, the author studies the cleansing of industrial plants from collaborationists and so-called anti-social elements in Czechoslovakia in 1945. He describes it as a standard-setting process during which the form of a new revolutionary value system and guilt criteria in relation to the occupation past arising therefrom were negotiated and established in practice in factories and plants. Both escalated nationalism and social egalitarianism, sometimes developing into class antagonism, found their use in it. In addition to acts prosecuted under offi cial legislation, the cleansing process incorporated various minor confl icts of employees during the occupation, in particular disputes between subordinates and superiors. For this reason, mainly top-ranking white collars, human resource offi cers, rate setters, and shop foremen were removed from their positions. The articulation of guilt of the above group also worked as an absolution of others, particularly rank-and-fi le workers and white collars, atthe symbolic and psychological level. The selected guilt criteria were subsequently becoming a part of the legitimization pattern of the ongoing revolution. The study illustrates how company councils, acting through investigation commissions which, nevertheless, had to create their own legal rules as they had no position or status defi ned in offi cial legislation, were trying, since mid-May 1945, to regulate, formalize, and unify initial spontaneous actions of employees. However, the legal uncertainty in factories led to a decline of respect to superiors, deterioration of working morale, and devaluation of expertise. In mid-July 1945, organs of the Revolutionary Trade Union Movement intervened into the cleansing process, as they were interested in improving the performance of the nationalized industry. Appeal chambers were established at regional trade union councils as second-instance bodies deciding disputes submitted by industrial plants. In doing so, they were demanding a higher quality of submitted legal documents and supporting assigning the individuals affected by the cleansing to adequate working positions in the production process. In October 1945, results of the company cleansing process were incorporated, under the pressure of trade unions, into offi cial legislation under the so-called Small Retribution Decree. The resulting legal framework was thus an apparent compromise between pre-war legal conventions and moral criteria established during the May 1945 revolution. and Přeložil Jiří Mareš