Popular resistance in Communist Czechoslovakia : The Plzeň Uprising, June 1953

This article examines an important, but little-known, event in the history of post-war Czechoslovakia: the Plzeň uprising of June 1953. After outlining the context, processes and outcomes of the revolt, I argue that the disorders were less an expression of ubiquitous political and ideological resistance to the communist regime than a reflection of the disastrous socio-economic conditions and the breakdown in relations between party and workers at the point of production. I also maintain that the conventional wisdom of the ‘Stalinised’ Communist Party of Czechoslovakia as a fully fledged ‘totalitarian’ party is in many ways wide of the mark. Finally, the uprising prompted the party's tentative turn towards a ‘New Course’ and eventually a strategy of ‘socialist consumerism’.