Takový socialismus nechceme!: Kultura protestu průmyslového dělnictva v českých zemích v letech 1945-1968

Did strikes exist during the period of state socialism in Czechoslovakia? Did industrial workers agree with government policy at the time? Were workers successful in asserting their wage and social demands? And how did their pressure influence the overall social and political reality? For many readers, the answers will be surprising. Throughout the entire period under review, a considerable number of strikes took place. Although industrial workers belonged to the privileged and loyal segments of society within the dictatorship, paradoxically they were by far the most frequent protesting social group. Unlike others, they could afford to assert their interests forcefully. The strikes of that era were not acts of resistance but an extreme form of collective bargaining that compensated for the lack of independent representative bodies. They often arose from wage and social issues, frequently made use of lower levels of trade union and party organizations to achieve their aims, and were not infrequently legitimized vis-à-vis higher institutions through the use of socialist ideology. This is the most comprehensive treatment of the topic to date and is based on extensive archival research.