Jessen & Richter (Eds.) (52 page)

59 Cf. table in the annex to the report for the KSČ works committee on elections of the Revolutionary Trade Union Movement [1957]. Škoda archives, ROH 8, PV 686.

198

P E T E R H E U M O S

nist influence on the election of shop stewards and the chairman of the

works council.60

Hence it can be established that non-offensive approaches to elections

by works committees and their tactics of avoiding clashes with the KSČ, as

mentioned above, did make sense and were by no means due to works

committees’ powerlessness vis-à-vis the Party. The committees, on the

other hand, dug in their heels when Party and trade union officials tried to

break up the factory regime and the works committees’ informal position

of power. In 1961, for example, the Party’s crusade to improve “state dis-

cipline” (= morale of the workers) by setting up “people’s courts in the

factories” totally miscarried because of massive opposition on the part of

works committees.61

Mobilization for Reform? Elections in 1968

Elections in the factories in 1968 had little in common with those in previ-

ous years, not only because the “Prague spring” forced the KSČ on to the

defensive to such an extent that its usual means of establishing political

conformity did not work anymore,62 but also because in 1968 elections

became part of fierce controversies about
different
concepts of future economical and political development.

While the general policy pursued by the “Prague spring” met with the

approval of broad masses of workers (Heumos 2008a), the economic re-

form initiated in 1965 and the measures accompanying it (massive material

and political support for industrial management, restrictions on works

committees’ competences, shutdowns of factories without involvement of

trade unions, strong differentiation of wages) called forth strong opposi-

tion. Regular elections of the works committees took place as late as fall

——————

60 Minutes of the plenary meeting of ROH works committee in the
Lenin plants
[=
Škoda
Works
] in Plzeň, October 1, 1958. Škoda archives, ROH 4/696.

61 Report on activities of ROH organizations in strengthening socialist legality and development of activities of local people’s courts (for the meeting of the presidency of the Central Council of trade unions on November 20, 1963). VOA, ÚRO-PŘ., box 66, no. 390 I/3.

62 Report on the present social and political situation in the factories and on the policy pursued by Communists in the trade unions (for the meeting of the presidency of the Central Council of trade unions on June 3, 1968). VOA, ÚRO-Před., box 95, no. 471.

W O R K S C O U N C I L E L E C T I O N S I N C Z E C H O S L O V A K I A 199

1968, but as early as March and April 1968 workers’ demands for the abol-

ishment of the trade union nomenclature and “new democratic elections”,

for rehabilitation of people persecuted on political grounds since 1948, as

well as for building up trade unions “without Communists”, led to serious

losses of the Party in the trade unions when Party members were voted

down in “extraordinary” elections, losing their seats in works committees

on a large scale. In addition, there was a wave of votes of censure and of

forced resignations of Communists from works committees, here and

there, without any KSČ member.63 In 1968, the syndicalist movement gave

its traditional claim for participation a more radical edge, as can be seen,

for example, from a works committee’s resolution in the
Avia Works
in

Prague requiring that works committees should be given the right of veto

when decisions of the management infringed upon “rights of the workers”

(Rezoluce ze závodů 1968, 19). In this way the Party’s policy of privileging

industrial management was openly rejected. The disintegration of the uni-

fied trade union and the re-establishment of individual trade unions’ auton-

omy were more or less completed in early summer 1968. The trade unions

began to reassume their “classical” role, and this, too, required a clear de-

marcation from the KSČ in order to avoid trade unions falling back on

their former “transmission belt” concept (Heumos 2007).

To overcome the workers’ objections to economic reform and to calm

down discussions about participation, the “Action Program” of April 5,

1968 (Vondrová et al., 1999, 320–359) suggested the establishment of

“democratic bodies” in the factories, officially called “councils of employ-

ees” (
rady pracujících
), which were supposed to revive the “great period” of the works councils during the years 1945–1948. De facto, however, these

bodies functionalized participation with regard to the success of economic

reform, as the “Action Program” explicitly stated. Workers, in their turn,

made good use of the councils in their own way. Sociologists entrusted

with controlling the establishment of the councils were driven to despair

since councils established by workers—in contradiction to the “theoretical

ideas” of the Party, the state and the economy—served the purpose of

strengthening the workers’ position for forcing through their social de-

mands (Dvořák 1969). Voting habits of workers followed this policy of

stubbornly ignoring “higher values”. Since they “did not know” many of

——————

63 Report for members and candidates of the Central Council of trade unions on the present situation in the factories and districts, May 18, 1968. VOA, ÚRO-Před., box 94, no. 465a.

200

P E T E R H E U M O S

the candidates nominated for the councils—according to the election

regulations, a certain percentage of the councils’ members had to be “ex-

perts” who were supposed to harmonize the interests of the factory and of

society, but did not necessarily have to be members of the factory—a great

number of workers refused to go to the polls.64

Summary

The fact that the KSČ was prepared to get involved in elections in the

factories after 1948, which, despite all repression, still rendered protest

possible, can probably be explained by an overrating of the approval that

the Party derived from the parliamentary elections in 1946, with nearly 40

per cent voting for Communists. Besides, the Party leadership apparently

believed that it could rely all the more on democratic-parliamentary tradi-

tions, as the Communist takeover formally took place by means of a gov-

ernment reshuffle largely in conformity with the constitution.

With regard to the strength of the works council movement it is obvi-

ous that, after 1948, the KSČ, in addition to police-state terrorist methods,

would also make use of
soft
means in order to subdue that movement;

these means included elections of works councils or ROH works commit-

tees. In the long run, however, the Party could not derive any legitimacy

from these elections, because, between 1948 and 1968, it was only inter-

ested in increasing control over production, but not in institutional changes

offering partnership. Well aware of this, workers resorted to informal and

deviant
strategies, displaying a carelessly
subversive
behavior (e.g. when establishing the councils of employees in 1968). Their criticism of “managerial

socialism” practiced by the KSČ (Vondrová et al., 1999, 521) refers to the

fact that, in 1968, Communist reformers were actually not very willing to

institutionalize partnership. They rather supported Western patterns of

“democratic elitism” and shrank back from grassroots democracy even

when popular participation would have strengthened their political power

(Pauer 2008, 1207).

——————

64 Minutes of the review of the third elections of the council of employees in electoral district no. 20 of České Budějovice
Škoda Works
, November 22, 1968. Škoda archives, RP, box 6, no. 35.

W O R K S C O U N C I L E L E C T I O N S I N C Z E C H O S L O V A K I A 201

The fact that the Party remained adamant with regard to authentic par-

ticipation and revised, at its discretion, concessions that had already been

made in this respect,65 contributed to a situation in which the trade union

organizations in the factories isolated themselves, ending up in “loose cou-

pling” with organizational macrostructures, as the KSČ leadership itself

conceded in May 1968 (Vondrová et al., 1999, 497).

Workers adhered to the idea that the economy and state machinery

could be rearranged by means of a comprehensive mode of political inte-

gration. Based on this idea, workers, before 1968, merely took the Party at

its word, i.e. stuck to the orthodox Marxist platform of the KSČ asserting

predominance of politics over economics. The separation of economics

from politics announced by the KSČ in 1968 (withdrawal of the Party from

production) did not shake workers in their belief that the Communist sys-

tem could be reorganized on an extensive democratic basis. They were

arguing that the Party, after its dazzling efforts to modernize industry, felt

so undisputed that they believed that the crucial question of industrial

power relations could be settled by simply pouring new wine into old bot-

tles (Vondrová et al., 1999, 521).

Appendix

Chomutov, May 27, 1953

To the Central Council of trade unions, Prague

Works council elections have taken place today in our factory, the repair work-

shops of the Czechoslovak State Railways. We left our respective workplace as

early as half past two, joined the procession and went to the Sokol gymnasium