"The Dictatorship of the Proletariat"as seen by Josef Doležal, a Welder of the National Enteprise Uničovské strojírny
Abstract
The paper looks into the everyday of the manual labour in the Czechoslovakian state-owned industry in the 1950's. It draws from documents written by a welder of Uničovské strojírny Jan Doležal during his activities as a worker's correspondent to the editorial board of the trade union's journal Práce in Olomouc.
The documents have been archived as a part of the investigation file archival number V-2196 OV of the former Regional Administration of Ministry of the Interior in Olomouc, thus, a different approach to the use of archival materials produced by the communist state police in the historical research is exemplified as well. Through workers' claims to appropriate wages and working conditions, flats or to the acknowledgement of the manual labour the paper addresses expectations, which workers in the state-owned industry associate with the social transformation being in progress - establishing so called "the dictatorship of the proletariat".
Their critical comments on the management, work council or "white collar" employees reveal a patchwork of different interests and practices as well as tensions and conflicts. Those were arbitrated by the regional party or trade unions centres, so the paper surveys the distribution and execution of power at the regional level in part too.