3,000 Protesters Trampled Stalin's Image in 1953 Plzeň Revolt
By Marcus Boone ·
Workers were watched by party informants and purged through security audits, with the most active strikers disappeared into Jáchynov mines.
A 31-year-old locksmith in Plzeň stood in the rain on June 1, 1953, watching a crowd of nearly 2,000 people gather in the main square. He was an eyewitness and active participant in what would become a three-day revolt against the currency reforms of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. This report, a translation from Czech published by the Wilson Center Digital Archive, provides a granular look at the moment a workforce stopped obeying.
Slovanská Street
The unrest began at 8:00 a.m. at the Skoda Works in Doudlevce, where workers abandoned their posts and marched toward the city center. At the main Skoda factory, named after V.I. Lenin, the Works' Militia attempted to lock the workshops to keep the staff inside. They failed. Approximately 1,000 workers from a total staff of 45,000 overpowered the guards and joined the procession.
The locksmith recalls visiting Slovanská Street, where a commission was exchanging old currency for new notes. He noted a nearby loudspeaker broadcasting a plea for order: "Keep calm, comrades; be quiet, everything will settle down again." The message was quickly drowned out by a signal, a telltale sign that the local authorities had lost control of the narrative.
"We Want a New Government"
By the time the crowd reached the City Hall, the local government had effectively evaporated. The locksmith reports that the officials had fled as soon as the crowd appeared, leaving seven or eight policemen at the entrance who "were not taking notice of the people who were coming and going."
With no resistance, the demonstrators entered the building and began throwing the portraits of Stalin, Gottwald, and Zápotocký out of the windows. In the square below, the people trampled the images. The locksmith himself participated in this purge of symbols, later fastening a picture of President Benes outside a second-floor window. The crowd's demands were explicit: "We want a free election. We want a new government."
As the demonstration grew to roughly 3,000 people, the symbols of Soviet occupation became the primary targets. Demonstrators tore red stars from parked buses and destroyed a flower bed depicting the Soviet star that had replaced a U.S. Army Memorial. A delivery van joined the fray, carrying the Czechoslovak flag, a picture of Dr. Benes, and the American flag.
The report notes a disturbing detail about the composition of the crowd. Some participants were "faithful Communists," but they were not there to protest. They were there to observe and identify their peers. These informants later denounced the strikers, providing the regime with the names necessary for the subsequent purge.
Jáchynov Mines
The regime's response was tactical and brutal. While local police showed a "laxness" that suggested they were not entirely convinced of the regime's rightness, the central authorities in Prague were not so hesitant. Two buses arrived from the capital carrying 40 fully equipped militia-men who began firing into the air and arresting people at random.
At the Skoda Works, the suppression was systematic. The report describes how the Security department of the factory—which operated its own police force—conducted a forensic audit of the workforce. Any employee who had not clocked in or out punctually at 2:00 p.m. was automatically designated a demonstrator.
The reprisals were tiered based on the level of participation. Older workers who remained passive were dismissed and barred from employment for three months or sent to work in a brick-yard in Cernice. Those who had taken an active role were arrested and sent to the Jáchynov mines. One such victim, identified as L. Samberg, was among those disappeared into the mining camps.
Even the judiciary was not spared. A crowd that failed to breach the prison entered the district court building, where they threw all the files out of the windows and burned them in the square. One judge was beaten and thrown into the river. The locksmith observed that the police and military eventually cleared the square using water hoses, though the demonstrators fought back by cutting the hoses and disconnecting a tram car from its electric net to beat the driver.
On Monday evening, the state used the unrest as a pretext to erase further reminders of the previous era. Members of the Youth Movement, guarded by soldiers and police, destroyed the Masaryk Memorial.