AUC STUDIA TERRITORIALIA
AUC STUDIA TERRITORIALIA

AUC Studia Territorialia (Acta Universitatis Carolinae Studia Territorialia) is a peer-reviewed academic journal focusing on Area Studies. It covers political, economic, social, and cultural affairs of North America, Europe, and post-Soviet Eurasia in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The journal was founded in 2001; currently, it appears biannually, both electronically and in print. It publishes original scholarly articles, book reviews, conference reports and research notes. The journal is a publication of the Institute of International Studies at Charles University’s Faculty of Social Sciences.

AUC STUDIA TERRITORIALIA, Vol 18 No 1 (2018), 13–56

KSČ a řízení centrálně plánované ekonomiky: mezi mocenským imperativem a ekonomickou racionalitou

[The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and Central Planning: Between the Imperative of Power and Economic Rationality]

Vladimír Handl

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14712/23363231.2019.2
published online: 20. 02. 2019

abstract

The article deals with the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia’s role in the country’s centrally planned economy during the late 1980s. It looks into the mechanisms of implementation of the party’s constitutional “leading role” in steering the economy. Furthermore, it examines how the party’s role was perceived among members of the nomenclature in the party’s Central Committee as well as its regional organizations and by the management of economic enterprises. For these purposes, the text analyzes archival documents of the Politburo and other Central Committee institutions. In addition, semi-structured interviews with former party members on the regional level and with former economic players on the level of enterprises were conducted. One of the findings is that the party’s role in steering the economy was divisive towards both the society and the party itself. The paper also demonstrates that the Central Committee was divided into ideological hardliners and members dealing with the real economy. The article concludes by identifying four real roles the party played in steering the economy, and points to the considerable level of voluntarism in the individual players’ actions.

keywords: Communist Party of Czechoslovakia; central planning; enterprises; trade unions; perestroika; oral history

Published by the Karolinum Press. For permission to use please write to journals@karolinum.cz.

148 x 210 mm
periodicity: 2 x per year
print price: 180 czk
ISSN: 1213-4449
E-ISSN: 2336-3231

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